No. Identify the real enterprise, the applicant’s development and direction and the actual committed at-risk investment. Property ownership alone does not establish all E-2 conditions.
Explain what will actually operate
Separate the premises asset from the business activity and identify the entities involved. Treaty nationality, generally at least 50% qualifying treaty-country enterprise ownership, lawful funding and nonmarginality still need support. Do not assume that every real-estate payment is excluded or automatically qualifying; assess the rights, commitment and operating arrangement actually proposed.
A well-advised buyer negotiates protections: a deposit recoverable on several conditions, a price partly deferred and paid from the business's own earnings, security taken over the acquired assets. The investor must develop and direct the enterprise, which is ordinarily shown by at least fifty percent ownership or by operational control through a management position or another mechanism recorded in the governing documents. What causes difficulty is a structure where somebody else in fact runs the business, whether a hired general manager with full authority and an absentee owner, or an arrangement so heavily managed by the franchisor that the buyer supplies capital and little else. The investor must also develop and direct the enterprise, which at half ownership is normally accepted, though a deadlocked structure with no decision-making mechanism invites questions worth avoiding.