Both should be complete and the funds invested or committed before the petition is filed, since the petition must show capital already invested or actively in the process of being invested with a traced source.
Liquidate, trace, invest, then file
The investor petition is judged on the facts at filing. An applicant who has not yet sold the house cannot show the capital, and a pension election that is merely intended does not exist as a source. The practical order is to complete the sale and the pension transfer, allow the funds to land in accounts whose statements will be exhibits, wire the investment to the new commercial enterprise or its escrow under terms that commit it, and assemble the source documents while the transfers are fresh. The petition follows. Adjudication times vary by project and by whether the regional center has an approved exemplar. After approval, immigrant-visa processing depends on visa availability, and conditional residence begins on admission. The I-829 window opens ninety days before the second anniversary of that admission, so the retiree should calendar it from the entry date, not from the investment date.
The calendar starts with an approvable petition, then continues through consular processing or an adjustment case before conditional residence begins. At filing, the record must show qualifying capital already committed under the applicable investment process, and the job plan must be credible. The later condition-removal filing is an evidence-heavy stage that depends on what happened after admission. Hypothetical example: a recycled-plastics entrepreneur signs a subscription agreement but has not completed the wire when the offering closes. She must determine whether the documented commitment satisfies the filing rules before relying on a projected visa date.