U.S. Real Estate Pain Leaves Foreign Investors Holding the Bag

Foreign investors who backed real estate projects in return for U.S. visas are emerging as losers in the pandemic-driven commercial property crisis.

In Manhattan, Chinese investors who helped fund Related Cos.’ Hudson Yards have called for arbitration to pressure the developer into returning their money. On Long Island, a separate group assumed the lease to the Nassau Coliseum, after billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov’s Onexim Sports and Entertainment decided to walk away from the project.

The investors, who backed development deals through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ EB-5 program, aren’t the only ones getting hammered by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has ...