Bill_S

Yep. My wife and I have stayed a few times at a nice B&B in Niagara on the Lake. The owners, a couple, have a second B&B up there as well. The two of them manage both houses themselves with a couple of p/t helpers.

stepmac

We love the country, the landscape, the open spaces and the people. Buying an established B&B would give us some equity in the property at least and a property to sell, even if the business side did not work out. It may be that after several years we might return to The UK but we want to give it a go if we can. Currently, the hours my husband and I work leave us little time together, at least working together, even if long hours we could spend more time in each others company.
I have a good career in the UK, as does my husband this is not something we would do on a whim, we have been looking into this for a considerable amount of time and it is only now that we would have a substantial amount of money to invest and feel ready to take the plunge in 12-24months . We would not spend our retirement fund as we have a house worth a lot more than we would want to invest initially. We are not in this to make a lot of money, just to change the pace of life.

christmasoompa

Out of interest, how much roughly would you have to invest, would it definitely be enough for a visa?

stepmac

Probably £300000 - £350000

christmasoompa

EB5 then maybe? The security of a green card so would be a lot better if you can do it.

stepmac

Thank you, that might be an option worth looking into. We would still want to run the same kind of B&B/motel business but of course times change and would still want to think of it as a temporary visa until we had several years under our belt - nobody can make that sort of life-changing decision even if they know the country they are moving to inside out - holidays are one thing and emigrating is quite another!
With regard to the other post re pensions/retirement we both have good pensions which would be untouched until retirement age and we are still young enough to return to the Uk and resume our careers if it all went wrong or we didn't like it. So McDonalds and a bedsit would not be an option, I have a good degree and am an experienced educator

Bob

You also aren't certified to teach in the US and have no experience teaching in the US and competing with folks with masters and experience on that front, so kind of irrelevant to the US.

£300K really isn't all that much money to invest, especially if you are looking for a B&B that you'll live in, if you're looking for a better business investment, you'd not be also living there, so you'd have even more start up costs.

Flogging a house/land after a few years will cost a lot more than buying and if you don't get your visa renewed, you'd have to leave pretty much straight away, which puts you in not such a great position to sell up favourably.

Thing with EB5, you need to invest more capital than that, unless it's in a distressed area, if it were, it wouldn't hardly be a tourist area with much chance of a B&B succeeding.

Go for it if you think you know what you're doing. Though there are probably better businesses to invest into, take out franchise for instance will be a better chance of a renewal.

Other issue, on the self employed front, sorting out your own medical insurance. Often there would be one spouse with a job providing it than both in the same business just to save on expenses.

stepmac

Thanks for your reply, I do have a Masters in Education but I really want to have a break from teaching anyway and would only return if able (further to getting qualified obviously, I know each state has it's own requirements) / certified and needed. We have looked into Motel type franchises and note that they require $20000+ investment so that may be a possibility. We ideally would like to live in a rural area, we love Montana and Wyoming as well as New England.
Can you suggest some ideas for franchise options or websites to browse?
I don't quite understand what you mean about the medical insurance?
We don't really know what we are doing yet, but have done and are doing a lot of back ground work before we even decide it is an option - we are very cautious as you would expect - but life is short!

Ray

Get this book ..quite a good read
http://www.amazon.com/U-S-Immigratio...1297772030&s#_

Bob

Have a read of the wiki, do a quick search of BE.

Basically, there isn't an NHS here, without insurance, you get sick or in a semi nasty accident, you either go bankrupt or die to be blunt because you wouldn't be poor enough to qualify for any help.

Not being employed, means the insurance will just be a lot more expensive as you'd not get the group pool that a larger employer can get.

It really is one of the things you need to research properly if running your own business here.

scrubbedexpat099

Somebody I know built a Hotel with the idea of joining Best Western, so it was built from their playbook.

In the end he went independent, not sure why, never asked, my guess is that it was down to the on costs and fees.

I know his outlay was in the multi millions category.

If you do want to go B and B, tough life, then first you need to realise that US looks at them as relatively high end. If you are looking to hang a visa on the back of an acquisition it would also need to be very large to require the staff. Yet again a multi million project.

Regarding that earlier one, they did sell out at a reasonable price, probably lost a lot moving.

The other idea would be to do something in tandem with a B and B, something that requires employees.

tonrob

Mrs tonrob and I had a think about going down the B&B route a year or so back. She had spent the last 20 years in hotel management so was looking to put that experience to good use while becoming self-employed. In the end we shelved the idea - the sheer amount of work and long hours and level of investment required put us off.

We are both LPRs, so no visa issues, either. I think your target of buying a going concern that's actually large enough to warrant employing the number of staff members required to support the visa renewal, and for the budget you're talking about is quite the stretch indeed.

Do either of you have any experience in hospitality? If not, then you really do need to look at the level of risk you are entering into - which is far, far greater than if you were opening up a B&B in the UK, for example.

stepmac

Thanks for all of the great and helpful replies. We don't have any experience on running a B&B but would obviously make sure that we had a sound knowledge base and went into it with open eyes we both have good business heads so that side of it would be covered. As for the other business running alongside we have also thought of this; we have toyed with the idea of a craft type centre / outdoor pursuits / possible bunk barn or campground etc. These things are obviously just ideas at the moment and would take a good deal of looking into but they might allow us to employ more people than a B&B alone and also might bring in more revenue. As I say we are looking to do this is 1-2years so we have ample time to research etc we are also not in it to make a load of money, just a different lifestyle for a few years at the least.

stepmac

Hi there I know that but I meant about the one person being employed and providing it that you metioned - do you mean that the insurance can be taken out by one person but covers two?

tonrob

Start here. Seriously.