As we wait for the policy announcements on how the new EB-5 and regional center rules will play out, it is becoming increasingly clear to that there is going to be a feeding frenzy among Chinese investors for something like 1,500 to 2,000 units in rural EB-5 projects. This is because the new law seems to create a set-aside of 20% of the annual visa allotment for rural projects. Because this both hasn’t been done in the past, there will need to be a new line in the visa bulletin for EB-5 rural (or, I suppose, two lines EB-5 rural RC and EB-5 rural non-RC). With the China queue proceeding at a slow pace due to massive oversubscription, I think we can all expect a huge short-term demand for EB-5 rural investment units among Chinese families, either with or without existing cases already on file. Ultimately demand will fizzle when the queue is established, but I expect we will see 3 years’ of the rural quota gobbled up within a few months of the program’s restart date, whether that’s in May or there’s a comment period before the new rules are fully implemented and petitions can be filed again.

Ruby Law Group represents a number of rural projects in the market today or about to come to market. If you have a rural project that you’re interested in funding via EB-5, now is the time to get moving - there’s a boom coming, but it will be over as quickly as it arrived.