Leaving Canada? How to Move to the U.S. With Real Estate

More Canadians are moving to the U.S., and the ones who do it well start with strategy, not a visa. On my podcast, cross-border lawyer Lauren Cohen explained how Canadians build a real, job-creating business (often around U.S. real estate) to qualify for a visa like the E2, why Florida’s numbers beat Toronto’s, and the family mistakes that leave people stranded. None of this is legal advice.

Last updated: July 2026

Every few weeks now, I list a home for someone who is not just moving. They are leaving Canada entirely. Not across town, not to a cottage. Gone. Florida, Texas, Arizona, the Carolinas. It has come up enough times on the listing side of my business that I wanted to understand the mechanics of it properly, so I had Lauren Cohen on Supply and Demand.

Lauren is an international lawyer, a licensed realtor, and a business strategist. She grew up in Thornhill and has lived in South Florida for 25 years, and she spends her days helping Canadians relocate to the U.S. She has a program she built called “How to Immigrate with Real Estate,” and her whole pitch is refreshingly blunt about what actually works.

“I sell sunshine. I sell dreams. I help them make the move strategically and successfully so that their families are protected, their futures are protected.”

Here is what I took away from the conversation. One important note before we start: Lauren repeated, over and over, that nothing she says is legal advice, and I am going to hold the same line. Immigration and tax rules are moving fast right now. Treat this as a map of the landscape, not a set of instructions.

Up to 18%

Net cap rates Lauren cited on Florida co-living deals (Toronto is closer to 5%)

~$100K+

Typical “substantial investment” to build a qualifying U.S. business on an E2

30 days

Typical Florida eviction timeline, versus months in Ontario

Strategy first, visa second

The single biggest idea in the whole conversation is that most people do this backwards. They ask “what visa can I get?” before they ask “where do I actually want to end up in five and ten years?” Lauren flips that.

“We take you through a journey of figuring out your end game before we figure out what visa to get. So we put strategy first as opposed to visa, because visas are often a short-term solution.”

Her word for the backwards version is a band-aid. You get into the country, and then four years later you are scrambling because the visa you chose has no path to staying. That is a brutal position to put a family in, and it is avoidable.

Define the endgame

Where do you want to be long term, and who is coming with you? Kids, ages, timelines, and whether you want a path to a green card all change the answer.

Choose the vehicle

Build a real business. For about half of Lauren’s clients that business is built around U.S. real estate. For the rest it is a franchise or an expansion of what they already run.

Match the visa

Only now do you pick the visa that fits the plan (E2, L1, and so on), instead of forcing the plan to fit a visa someone sold you.

The visa alphabet soup, in plain English

Lauren calls it “alphabet soup,” and she is not wrong. Here is the quick version of what came up on the show. Again, this is a plain-language summary of what Lauren described, not legal advice, and the details move around.

Visa	Based on	Direct green card path?	Who it tends to fit
E2	Substantial investment in an active business	No	Most common for Canadians; five-year renewable
L1	Intra-company transfer of a manager or executive	Yes	Owners growing an existing Canadian business into the U.S.
E1	Ongoing trade of goods or services across the border	No	Businesses already trading heavily with the U.S.
H-1B	Employer sponsorship in a specialty role	Sometimes	Harder now; Lauren noted a very high filing fee attached
NAFTA / job sponsorship	An employer sponsoring you	Varies	Uncertain; Lauren flagged the agreement is subject to change

The one most Canadians land on is the E2. It is a five-year renewable visa built on a “substantial investment” in a business that actually operates and hires people. And here is the part people miss:

“You can’t just invest in real estate unless you build a business around it. You have to hire people. You have to build a business. You can’t just have a stagnant, passive business.”

There is no official dollar figure for “substantial.” Lauren said it is generally interpreted as roughly $100,000 to $150,000 for a standard business, a little more when there is a real estate asset attached, and she expects that could get formalized at some point. The test is not really the number. It is whether you are building something with genuine economic impact.

Why the real estate model, and why Florida

This is where it clicked for me as a realtor. Lauren’s favourite model is co-living. You take a single-family home and run it as managed, mid-term rooms, each with its own bathroom, often through a membership platform like PadSplit. It houses travel nurses, blue-collar workers, and grad students, and it produces the kind of numbers that made my eyebrows hit my hairline on the recording.

“Your cap rates, for example, in this investment are 14 percent. And they can go up and even higher.”

For anyone who invests in Toronto, that number is almost hard to process. Here, you are lucky to get a 5 cap. A big part of the gap is not the property. It is the rules around the property.

Being a landlord in Ontario

Evictions can drag on for months through a backlogged process
Rules skew heavily toward the tenant
Land transfer tax and layers of extra cost
Landlords screen so hard that good tenants get stuck too

Being a landlord in Florida

Evictions on the order of 30 days, not months
Landlord-friendly rules in most red states
No state income tax, no land transfer tax
Lower prices plus higher rents equals higher cap rates

Lauren was careful about her own lane here. She refers the actual property deals to a developer rather than selling them herself, and she does not give investment advice on the numbers. But the structural difference she described, less regulatory risk on the tenant side, is real, and it is a big reason the math works differently down there.

The costs nobody mentions, and why she says they wash out

It is not all sunshine. Insurance is a real line item: hurricanes, higher home and car premiums. There is a currency hit when you convert. Lauren does not sugarcoat it. She took a 60 percent haircut converting her money 25 years ago.

“Once it’s done, you rip off the bandaid, and now you’re making money in U.S. dollars. So when I come home to Toronto, everything costs that much less because all of my income is in USD.”

Her argument is that once you are earning in U.S. dollars, with no state income tax and lower housing costs, the pieces net out. On health care, her framing was the one that stuck with me: yes, you pay for private coverage, but you are not rationed.

On health insurance

Lauren said solid private coverage can run around $500 a month, and the trade-off is access. When you need an MRI or a specialist, you go, rather than waiting in a queue. “Free” care in Canada, she pointed out, is really paid for through taxes, and it is rationed. Costs and coverage vary widely, so price it for your own family.

If you have kids, read this part twice

This was the detail most people do not know, and it is the one that can wreck a plan. When a child on a parent’s visa turns 21, the clock runs out.

“The day they turn 21, unless you have a green card that they are covered by, they’re out. And people don’t talk about that. Your kids cannot work. They can only go to school before they’re 21.”

So a family that grabs a quick five-year visa without a longer plan can find their kid ages out of status, unable to work, unable to stay. That is exactly why Lauren leads with strategy. If children are young or not yet born, the calculus is very different, and a child born in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen. As of when we recorded, that opened an easier path, though she stressed this area is changing quickly.

The part that hit closest to home

We got into why this is happening at all. Some of it is opportunity, a bigger and freer market. Some of it is frustration with policy. Lauren was candid that a large driver of her own client base is rising anti-Semitism, which she does not feel good about profiting from, but does feel good about helping people through. And then there is Canada’s proposed exit tax, a reported flat departure charge of around half a million dollars.

A tax on leaving

My honest reaction on the show: when a government makes it expensive to leave, that tells you something. Walls do not always exist to keep people out. Sometimes they exist to keep people in. This is commentary from the conversation, not tax advice. Talk to a cross-border tax professional about your own numbers.

And a warning she wanted people to hear: the space is full of what she calls “E2 experts” who got their own visa and now sell the process without any strategy behind it.

“I will never be a volume service provider, because I can’t give that level to everyone. We don’t figure out your visa until we have a strategy.”

Where I come in

I am not an immigration lawyer, and I am not going to pretend to be. But a huge part of this puzzle is Canadian: selling the home you own here, cleanly and for the right number, so you have the equity and the freedom to make the move on your terms. That is the part I do every week, and it is often the first domino. If you are even thinking about a move like this, getting your GTA sale planned properly is where it starts.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most common U.S. visa for Canadians moving through real estate or business?

On the podcast, Lauren Cohen said the most common route for Canadians is the E2, a five-year renewable visa based on a substantial investment in an active U.S. business. She noted it does not have a direct path to a green card, and stressed that nothing she said is legal advice. Immigration rules change often, so confirm current specifics with a qualified immigration attorney.

Can I get a U.S. visa just by buying real estate?

No. Lauren was clear that passive real estate alone will not qualify you. The U.S. wants a real, job-creating business with economic impact. Her model builds an active business around the real estate, for example a managed co-living rental operation, so the investment does double duty: an income-producing asset plus a qualifying business.

Why are cap rates higher in Florida than in Toronto?

Lauren pointed to landlord-friendly rules in states like Florida, lower purchase prices, and no land transfer tax. She cited net cap rates of roughly 14 to 18 percent on the co-living deals she refers clients to, versus closer to 5 percent in Toronto. Those are figures she shared on the show, not a guarantee, and every deal is different.

What is Canada’s proposed exit tax?

On the episode we discussed a proposed flat departure tax reported to be around half a million dollars for people leaving Canada. Adam’s take was that a tax designed to make it expensive to leave says a lot about the direction of policy. This is commentary from the conversation, not tax advice. Speak with a cross-border tax professional about your own situation.

Does having a baby in the U.S. help my immigration status?

Lauren explained that, as of when we recorded in mid-2026, a child born in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen, and that families generally have an easier path when children are born there. She also flagged that a lot is changing in this area right now and repeated that none of it is legal advice. Verify the current rules with an immigration lawyer before making plans.

Watch the Full Episode

This is from my conversation with Lauren Cohen on Supply and Demand. If you are weighing a move, or you just want to understand what is pushing so many people out, the full episode is worth your time. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or watch below:

Apple Podcasts
Spotify
YouTube

Leaving Canada? How to Move to the U.S. With Real Estate