GI100: Investing Across Borders with Attorney Lauren Cohen

GI100: Investing Across Borders with Attorney Lauren Cohen

Lauren is an International Lawyer, Realtor and Cross-Border Expert. Real estate investors and entrepreneurs hire her to help overcome obstacles and navigate business and investment across borders so that they are able to invest, live, work and play – anywhere.

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Transcript:

Announcer:

Welcome to the Global Investors Podcast, a show that focuses on helping foreign investors enter the lucrative US real estate market. Host, Charles Carillo, combined decades of real estate investing experience with a professional background in international banking to interview experts in all areas of US real estate investing. Now here’s your host, Charles Carillo.

Charles:

Welcome to another episode of the Global Investors Podcast; I’m your host Charles Carillo. Today we have Lauren Cohen. Lauren is an International Lawyer, Realtor and Cross-Border Expert. Real estate investors and entrepreneurs hire her to help overcome obstacles and navigate business and investment across borders so that they are able to invest, live, work and play – anywhere. So thank you so much for being on the show, Lauren,

Lauren:

Thank you, Charles. It’s a pleasure to be here now, now that we’re trading off now it’s my turn to be interviewed

Charles:

Yes, yes. And I was on Lauren’s podcast, which is great. And you’ll have to check that out and she’ll give you all that information here during the, this podcast. But so Lauren, please give us a little background on yourself prior to starting your current business.

Lauren:

Well, I’m originally from Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, very proud Canadian, as you can see, the Canadian flag is dominant in my background there and I moved to Florida about 20 years ago and I’ve been working in immigration ever since my then husband was deported on the way back from my honeymoon. And I was like, Oh, okay. Signs are telling you to look into new avenues. So he was expeditiously removed, put into immigration jail, and then deported on the way back from the honeymoon. That’s a story that really I share with nobody else. And I said, okay, I’m going to prevent this from happening to others. So I moved into the crazy field of immigration law and because of my business background and had been writing business plans for many years already, I kind of combined all of them together. I was writing extremely sophisticated visa business plans for many years and I still do, but now I’m more of the concierge helping people really and truly invest across borders. That’s why I started the podcast investing across borders. And in doing that, I just hosted a webinar as you know, Charles called immigrate through real estate, how to immigrate to real estate. And that’s my special sweet spot, which is why we connected because I really love the real estate model. And it’s a very unique way of accessing immigration status.

Charles:

Yeah, definitely. That’s something that I want to touch on here with visa and immigration policy a little later on and getting that status for people, planning on investing in the U S give us a little bit background here. If a foreigner was looking to invest in the U S what are the first few things they should take into consideration when starting that process?

Lauren:

So the number one most important thing that most people tend to overlook. There’s, there’s really two, one is hiring a professional and instead of hiring a professional that just go and have positively invest, and they think that if there’s a realtor involved and you and I are both licensed realtors, that that’s, it it’s all done. It’s not, you need to hire a professional team, especially when you’re investing cross borders, because everything that’s done that’s handled domestically is magnified when you’re investing cross borders. So the first, most important thing that I recommend is hire a trusted advisor, a single source service provider that can manage and direct all of the other service providers that you need. This is true, whether or not you plan to get a visa, you plan to deal with immigration status. So when you’re investing across borders, I have a 10 steps immigrate to real estate. Infographic I created, and the first seven of those steps are applicable, whether you’re immigrating or not. And the second most important thing that most people overlook is not just getting tax advice on the subject country, coming into the U S for example, but tax advice about how that impacts your home country, if you’re moving, or if you’re not, it doesn’t matter because most people just think that they need guidance. And there’s a lot of companies that offer, especially Canadians guidance on how to invest in real estate, how to invest in us real estate. You know, like tonight I’m hosting a webinar, how to, how to qualify. I’m sorry, how to invest in real estate without qualifying for a mortgage. Well, it’s different if you’re in Canada or the us, that’s part of why I’m partners with the Canadian business partners and, and it’s different also for people from the UK, for people from France, where people from Brazil, for people from Italy, and it it’s, it’s all about making sure that you have the right components and the right guidance in place, because without that you’re going to fail.

Charles:

Okay. So taxes number one and a another question I hear a lot when people reach out to me about investing in the United States and they’re based internationally is in what instances would you suggest a foreign investor to set up a us entity when investing

Lauren:

Every instance, every instance, there is real estate. Maybe if you’re buying a little vacation property in Florida from, you know, wherever or where your zone or whatever, maybe owning it personally, depending on the tax implications for you. But I generally think if you’re investing and it’s an investment and you look at it as an investment, you need an entity because that’s going to help you a lot in terms of your tax implications in your home country. So almost every single time I’m going to recommend that it doesn’t mean that it’s one size fits all, and there are circumstances when it may not be needed. So it’s a matter of again, making sure that you go through the steps step by step.

Charles:

Yeah, definitely. And then having that someone that a professional, not just somebody that’s licensed, not every attorney and every CPA is knowledgeable with foreign investors. And that’s, it’s a very niche industry. And obviously that’s what you focus in Lauren.

Lauren:

Yes. Thank you.

Charles:

So are there any common issues we talked about taxes, we talked about having someone that’s knowledgeable in as a professional with them, is there any other common issues during the process that are outside of that, that people usually not that they overlooked, but a problem that is, is typically someone will run into a roadblock when they’re yeah.

Lauren:

Taking a salary or trying to get, to try to take an income from your business. That’s not passive without getting the proper visa not handling certain circumstances correctly from the get-go and getting stopped at the border, coming to visit your properties and saying the wrong thing to the border or customs officer. Yeah, I’m going to build my investment business. Okay. Where’s your visa? What fees, what are you talking about? Honestly, at the end of the day, Charles, the most, the most important thing that I can impart to anybody that is interested in looking at investing from anywhere in the world, into the U S or Canada for that matter is to get professional advice because you add, it’s not one size fits all. I’m not going to go to my dentist to ask him to fix my car. Right. Okay. So I’m going to be a little judgemental about realtors way too many realtors are trying to give legal advice. There’s a reason that we go to law school and there’s, you know, we are staying out, stay in your lane and focus on what you do best and provide guidance,

Charles:

Right. Yeah. And if you’re finding a realtor that you’re talking to, and a lot of people start backwards and they’ll find a realtor, and then, you know, you’ve used, they should be able to point you in the direction of someone that should be able to assist you. And that’s, if you’re a us investor or you’re a foreign investor, but most realtors, aren’t going to have a contact to someone that specializes in international law or international taxes or the tax consequences in your home country versus us. And so it’s very important to have that. That’s, it’s interesting when you say that about going back and forth and saying what your purpose is at the border. I, one time made the mistake one time of saying I was traveling and it was for business and the two other people in my parties that probably through waiting on the other side for me, 15 minutes later to come out all bruised up from the passport agent of all the questions that they threw at me. So it’s, it’s very important to know what you’re doing. It’s when you’re, when you’re crossing borders

Lauren:

And events, not as you’re doing it. Right. And that’s really important. Hold on one moment. I’m sorry. So the other thing that’s important is like here’s a perfect example. I mean, everybody knows Tony Robbins, right. And Tony actually had an issue when he was going into Canada. If you look on YouTube, I think it is, you can find this, this dialogue from Tony about going into Canada now, who doesn’t know Tony Robbins. Okay. But they didn’t care. And they stopped him and he was going to run an event in, I think Calgary actually. And he had a whole challenge at the border. Now these things are avoidable. Right. And it’s really important to understand that if you have the right, if you take the right steps ahead of time, you don’t want to just go, you’re not going to buy real estate just because you like the look of it, right. You shouldn’t invest in real estate across borders, just because it seems like a sexy or fun thing to do. You want to do it with the right guidance? Because at the end of the day, you need to treat it as an investment, not just as, Oh, let’s just find a stock, you know, to invest in and no, no due diligence. No, let’s backtrack. Do some due diligence due diligence and make sure that we invest properly appropriately and with the right cautions and safeguards in place at the time of investment and before

Charles:

Some fantastic advice for anybody investing in us real estate how are real estate investments able to be used to qualify for visa immigration status since this is one of your specialties at your firm?

Lauren:

Yes. So there’s a big difference between a passive real estate investor. Like most of the people that are investing in your real estate businesses are it’s a turnkey model that you’re offering, right? And that turnkey model will not work for a real estate for, for an immigrate, for a real estate investor. That wants to also immigrate. They have to be actively involved in running the business. They have to need to have boots on the ground. So it turnkey isn’t going to work. It doesn’t, it just flies in the face of that, right? Because they’re coming to you, you’re handling everything perfect. But for the person that wants to take your turnkey business and turn it into an active business that could add a property management franchise or a multitude of other things. So the difference between a, a single unit investor, or a couple of single family homes and a investor that could qualify for a visa with five or more doors, generally, it’s not about necessarily the amount of the investment. It’s about the difference between an active boots on the ground person handling the business business owner versus a passive real estate investor. That’s the main distinction.

Charles:

Okay. Yeah. Very interesting. Because if you’re investing passively in a syndication as a limited partner, which is a, what a bunch of our listeners do you want to show here? It is something that that’s why Lauren had spoken earlier about earning income in a country and knowing that you need to have that work visa, because it’s not passive. You’re actually going to be there earning it as a wage. So what are the, some of the best visa options for real estate investors?

Lauren:

There’s really several available, but the most common one that I like, and this is based on treaty is the E two visa. The E two visa is called, it’s known it’s a treaty investor visa. It’s based on a substantial investment in a non marginal business. That has to be more than just replacing your job. Okay. The E two visa is based on treaty. The us does not have treaties with every single country, for example, Brazil, Russia. So that’s a cut. China, India don’t have visas, very large population. So no visa, not, not the two. So what a lot of people do like I have a client now, South African, he has a Lithuanian passport cause his family’s from Lithuania. So a lot of Brazilians have access to an Italian passport. A lot of Venezuelans have access to a Spanish passport, go back in time and get that passport. That’s a good option or invest in pot, invest passively in the country like Turkey or Grenada or Moldavia. And we can get you a visa through those countries, into the U S the other option is [inaudible], which is less popular these days. That’s about investing now 900,000 or 1.8 million, and you have to create at least 10 new jobs. So if you have fewer substantial means and you want a green card, that’s the way to go. Okay,

Charles:

Interesting. So a question that I get a lot, and I don’t really know how to answer it because we’re kind of in this transition period, a new administration, the white is in the white house. What changes do you foresee that may affect international and us investors alike in real estate?

Lauren:

I should have told you not to ask me this question. I wish I had a crystal ball because I really don’t know. I’m hoping that the change is going to be positive. It’s been very challenging for immigration lawyers and for the immigration world and during the Trump administration, there’s no disputing that. It’s just, it’s a fact, it’s not about politics or political leaning or anything. It’s a fact. And, you know, for the past year, many visa since COVID happened have been completely like removed or if there’s no processing of them, like the Lyn and H1B and so on. So I am hoping, and this is going to depend on the business orientation, cause I’m very focused on business immigration. There’s no doubt that Biden will be more favorable for immigration, but the question remains how much more favorable for business immigration, which is about investment immigration, which affects obviously real estate investment and how to invest through real estate. I’m sorry, how to immigrate through real estate.

Charles:

Okay. Well, I guess we’ll just have to see, and I don’t think it’s going to be for 2021, which we’re in right now. It’s going to be probably we’re out to see you later this year. And we’ll probably start at 2022 as I’m told from my advisors. So I kind of want to drill down to, we’ve spoken about different different situations that your, your, your your clients have had to overcome when your clients have lost money investing in real estate, whether they’re us or foreign clients, what mistakes did they make or commonly make DC?

Lauren:

I haven’t had clients lose money. And really, I will say that when you see people that have lost money in real estate investing, it’s because they didn’t get the proper advice when they were doing the investment investing. So, you know, coming from Canada where real estate prices, especially where I’m from in Toronto are completely through the roof. You’re never, you’re not going to be able to really build a real estate investment pro portfolio there unless you’re of significant wealth. So people come South of the border so that they can build that. But it’s, it’s, again, I, I, the biggest mistakes I see is people that don’t get the right tax advice or a structured advice, and then it impacts them in a hugely negative way financially, because of that, I have a client, for example, that spent over a hundred thousand in taxes that could have been avoided had they had the proper setup, and this is not an uncommon thing. So, you know, it’s all about putting that strategy, that comprehensive strategy in place before you invest and make sure that you work with that professional team, as you’re adding to your investments changing, selling by spying, you know, flipping wholesaling, holding, renting, everything you don’t want to just say, okay, let’s buy the property and we’re done. It’s not like that.

Charles:

No, it’s definitely, especially if you’re coming for an into the United States, make sure that you’re giving lead time because to get stir in, you know, like your ITIN or whatever it might be, that’s required for you. It takes several months to do that and to do it correctly. And as you should be in contact with your local attorneys and CPA on a regular basis as being an investor, you should do it with your us counsel as well. So just make sure that your income, it’s not one of my cousins always gets mad because he would tell me about clients, say, Oh, this guy doubled his income this year. And he never called me. And you know, and that’s just one of those things where

Lauren:

Just stupid, you’re throwing money away. And another thing also for real estate investors, and this is for you too, Charles is there’s probably a lot of foreign nationals that want to invest in what you’re doing, but you need to go and get them. You need to access them. You need to just to be, you know, educate them. You need to be available to them. They need to know about you. They need to learn about you. How do you make that happen? So that’s another value add that I bring to the table. One of the things I wanted to mention is in my process, whenever I have a client from another country, I’m going to make sure that almost the first thing they do is speak to a cross border tax advisor that not only understands the subject country, but the home country as well. So it’s, you know, most accountants here in the U S they understand a little bit, especially in Florida about cross border stuff, because there’s so many foreign nationals investing in Florida, but that doesn’t mean that they’re an expert. So I work with experts that actually focus on international investing. And that’s really important, right?

Charles:

The thing though, is that when you’re investing anywhere, whether it’s in your home country or investing here in the U S you want to build a team of people in there, and that’s going to have your real estate brokers, that’s going to have your attorney. That’s going to have your CPA. So when you’re doing in the United States, the best way of starting that is to find someone find a professional, that you can start off and start getting referrals from them. And usually if you’re a us investor and you don’t have any other cross border, you can just work off your realtor and say, who’s a good property manager. Who’s a good lender for this and everything like that. When you’re getting into more of the intricacies of foreign investing, you really have to start with someone that kind of license and then kind of working from there and let them give you referrals, who would be a good lender for this? Who do I use for a CPA? Yeah, exactly. Right.

Lauren:

And also another thing is like, you can’t just call up a lender and say, Hey, I’m Joe Schmoe, and I need money. I’m from Italy. No, but if you work with somebody like Charles or Lauren, that has contacts that handle for an investor lending, then we can pave the path. I just haven’t gentlemen. Now, literally now asking me about banking because, you know, setting up bank accounts virtually not most banks don’t offer that, but I have a banker that offers just that that’s kind of his unique selling proposition because I can bring him clients every day that don’t have to ever physically be here in the U S in order to get a bank account. That’s a big deal

Charles:

That that stat will save someone 40 hours of work. Right. They’re trying to find a bank and trying to go through all the headaches and scanning and sending back cause we have clients like that as well that we’re setting up entities here in the U S is holding companies to invest. And it’s, it’s not anywhere near as easy as you think. And even opening a bank account for a us person is not as easy as it was 20 years ago. It’s easy. Right. True. Everything. They’re trying to do that retention. Right. And that’s something too it’s with. I think it’s across the world with it, just getting tighter and tighter with more regulations, it’s more expensive to service customers, especially in the banking. So it’s something where it just becomes more difficult. So I want to get like one question before we kind of wrap up here and other than you carving out a niche for your business, what do you think are the main factors that contribute to your success?

Lauren:

Being very focused on my client’s needs and not being a one size fits all volume service provider. A lot of people, you know, I created a system and you don’t even think, you know, this, I created a system a couple of years ago called scale-up checkup. And scale up checkup was designed. It’s an assessment tool that assesses a business in seven essential areas, analyzes the gaps and provides a risk analysis and solution. It’s called the success blueprint to fill the gaps so that they can scale up successfully. And you know, I’m guilty myself because my business, my, I have certain parts of my business that will, that can scale and certain other parts of the can. My, my real estate business can scale every day of the week. Cause I’m with this cloud-based brokerage, but my, my personal lives, customized business can’t scale. It’s not scalable, certain parts of it. And I pride myself on that. It may hold me back from certain opportunities, but that’s okay because that’s not the piece I want to scale. I would love to, to duplicate myself. But at the end of the day, I can’t. And that’s okay. Also because duplicating myself means that I’m not the it’s the personal relationships that I pride myself on. My biggest success is based on relationship capital. And when somebody isn’t happy with me, which thank God doesn’t happen very often. I’m going to turn over every stone to figure out a way to make sure they are happy at the end of the day.

Charles:

Awesome. Okay. That’s great. That’s great. Personal relationships are very important in any business and especially when investing in real estate and especially in the international foreign investing niche that we both are involved with. So how can our listeners learn more about you and your business Lauren?

Lauren:

Well, I have a lot of ways I’d love to share a free download with you about How to invest across borders, which I’ll give you access to that. And a coupon code. You can reach me on all over Facebook. I have cross border cross border I’m like I have Creative Cross-border Academy is one of my groups. And of course my company is e-Council Global, C O U N C I L global G O B a L. And please subscribe to my podcast. It’s called Investing across borders. It’s on all of the, you know, Apple and Spotify and Google and you name it. And I’m there. I just interviewed the head of global operations. He would just posted this, I think today Michael Valdez and it’s, I have a lot of fun with it, and I would love to help any of your listeners that are interested in more than a passive investment opportunity and helping to transition that into more active.

Charles:

Awesome. So Lauren, I will put all those links into our show notes for YouTube and also for the podcast. And thank you so much for being on today and looking forward to connecting with you here in the near future.

Lauren:

Awesome. Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be here and take good care.

Charles:

Hi guys! It’s Charles from the Global Investors Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you’re interested in get involved with real estate, but you don’t know where to begin, set up a free 30 minute strategy call with me at schedulecharles.com. That’s schedulecharles.com. Thank you.

Announcer:

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Announcer:

Nothing in this episode should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Any investment opportunities mentioned on this podcast are limited to accredited investors. Any investments will only be made with proper disclosure, subscription documentation, and are subject to all applicable laws. Please consult an appropriate tax legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of Syndication Superstar incorporated exclusively.

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About Lauren Cohen

Serial entrepreneur Lauren Cohen is an International Lawyer, Realtor and Cross-Border Expert. She is also a best-selling author and sought-after speaker. Real estate investors and entrepreneurs hire Lauren to help overcome obstacles and navigate business and investment across borders so that they are able to invest, live, work and play – anywhere.

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