H1B Visa Holder Doing Real Estate Investment

[Andrew Yu]

I'm currently a H1B visa (Temporary Worker) holder working full time in the states, trying to start my real estate investment. My current employer is sponsoring my green card application, but the whole process will take another 4 years to complete. According to immigration law, I'm not authorized to work for unsponsored employer currently, which includes myself in this case if I start my business on the side. Also to my knowledge, all my income outside of sponsored job has to be passive income. I can also form a LLC but can't operate or engage in any business activity. I'm wondering anyone had same experience before, and know how to get around this limitation and do real estate investment. My goal is to do rentals since that's passive income nature. But I'm pretty sure as I do more deals, there will be wholesale and flipping come up every now and then. Eventually when I am at final stage of green card application (I-485 Adjustment of Status), the USCIS will look at my past 3 years tax return. So I don't want to raise suspicion, which could lead them to deny my application. Help me out here fellow BG investors. Thank you!

[Andrew Yu]

@Santosh Nalu @Shalin Shah @Naeema R. @Vaishnavi Thaker

Fast forward... I quit my software engineer job last June. Became a full time real estate investor, primarily focusing on wholesaling, doing 5 to 10 deals per month. Own a few long term rentals. Also dabbling in Short Term Rental a little, about to acquire my 2nd STR property.

For people that are on H1B status, I would advise you to start off by doing HOUSE HACKING. Either buy a 2-4 plexes, live in one side and rent out the other side(s) to your friends. Or buy a big SFR, maybe 1600 - 2400 sqft, with at least 3 bedrooms, rent out each room.

After that, you can work on BUY & HOLD. The great thing about this is you get to enjoy the cash flow from your asset, but also enjoy its appreciation over years. And this is not considered Active Income by IRS. You can pretty much buy as many long term rentals as you want. Make sure you have hire Property Manager to manage them for you. That way you're 100% hand-off, only collect checks. 

Stay away from WHOLESALING, FIX & FLIP, and SHORT TERM RENTALS. These are all considered Active Income, unless you're just a passive investor in the deal that fronts the money without any other work involved. Hope this helps! 

*DISCLAIMER: I'm not a CPA or attorney.