EB5 Investors Magazine Volume 7, Issue 1 | Page 50

EB5 INVESTORS M AGAZINE 48 H ow to P itch EB-5 to M iddle E astern I nvestors Reliability of the U.S. real estate market and knowing they don’t have to cut ties to their homeland might help convince investors from the Middle East. By Abbas Hashmi  A h, remember the good old days of immigrant investor marketing just a couple years ago? Back before the great Chinese retrogression, when clients lined up to hear your pitch and not t he ot her w ay around. A reg iona l center didn’t need to sel l a nyone on t he mer it s of i nvest i ng in the United States, but rather simply why they should invest with you. Nowadays, with the focus of entrepreneurial immig rat ion pivot ing to t he Middle East and south Asia, things are a little more complicated. Fewer and fewer of these clients every year are motivated to invest in the United States solely by the desire to build a better life for their families. Many of these prospects from the Middle East are already sending their adult children to American universities. They frequently v isit the States to v acat ion, shop or meet w it h t hei r ow n cl ient s; many even own a home, condo or other real estate in the country. So why do they need a green card? Yes, marketing to this niche of HNWIs is a totally different beast. You now need to convince them that obtaining a green card and investing in America is a better option than living exclusively in their homeland before you can even get to your service’s value proposition. L e t’s f a ce it, i f t he s e p e ople h ave not a l read y invested significant wealth in the United States, then that means they have a good reason to keep their capital overseas. You need to find that reason to convince them that permanent residency in the United States is actually a useful tool to achieve their goals. But it’s easier than it sounds. For Middle Eastern HNWIs, those reasons always seem to come back to hard dollars and cents. These individuals are laser-focused on the bottom line when evaluating an investment.