4 ms·

>Many came to the answer "no", because foreign home ownership was in the 5-10% range depending on the neighbourhood. How many foreigners are able to obfuscate

>Many came to the answer "no", because foreign home ownership was in the 5-10% range depending on the neighbourhood. How many foreigners are able to obfuscate "true" ownership is also a huge question.

Cancan82 6y ago
https://torontosun.com/2016/05/12/311-million-vancouver-mansion-owned-by-student https://torontosun.com/2016/05/12/311-million-vancouver-mans... This was linked further down... a student owns 99% of a $31mm property. A Chinese business person owns the other 1%. That sounds like trying to get around KYC / AML requirements and obfuscating things to me...
kareemm 6y ago
That was certainly happening. Ultimately the problem was non-local income was driving up the housing market. But laundered money (from Canadians or non-Canadians) was almost certainly the primary driver of inflated housing prices.
throw0101a 6y ago
> How many foreigners are able to obfuscate "true" ownership is also a huge question. For CA$200 you can set up your own Canada-resident corporation with obfuscated directorships: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_washing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_washing
- novok 6y ago
  You also have to pay a yearly maintenance fee of ~$400/yr plus whatever your paying to a firm to maintain the corp FYI.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
    For a $15,000,000,000 market annually that's pretty cheap for the participants...
inquirerofsorts 6y ago
Has been said by many in Australia that's it's easier to buy a house than get a library card. The biggest residential purchase was splashed across the front page of the biggest newspaper as some great event yet it took them years to determine it was illegal and that was from a falling out between the owner and government. If a $30 million luxury house in Sydney with national news coverage can't be exposed as being illegally bought, what fucking hope does any average property have? They basically catch no one for this stuff and if they do it's always due to some other crime instead. UK/Canada/Australia/NZ are some of the biggest real estate money laundering destinations on Earth and all of their governments know it.

Cancan82 6y ago

https://torontosun.com/2016/05/12/311-million-vancouver-mansion-owned-by-student https://torontosun.com/2016/05/12/311-million-vancouver-mans... This was linked further down... a student owns 99% of a $31mm property. A Chinese business person owns the other 1%. That sounds like trying to get around KYC / AML requirements and obfuscating things to me...

kareemm 6y ago

That was certainly happening. Ultimately the problem was non-local income was driving up the housing market. But laundered money (from Canadians or non-Canadians) was almost certainly the primary driver of inflated housing prices.

throw0101a 6y ago

> How many foreigners are able to obfuscate "true" ownership is also a huge question. For CA$200 you can set up your own Canada-resident corporation with obfuscated directorships: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_washing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_washing

novok 6y ago
You also have to pay a yearly maintenance fee of ~$400/yr plus whatever your paying to a firm to maintain the corp FYI.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  For a $15,000,000,000 market annually that's pretty cheap for the participants...

inquirerofsorts 6y ago

Has been said by many in Australia that's it's easier to buy a house than get a library card. The biggest residential purchase was splashed across the front page of the biggest newspaper as some great event yet it took them years to determine it was illegal and that was from a falling out between the owner and government. If a $30 million luxury house in Sydney with national news coverage can't be exposed as being illegally bought, what fucking hope does any average property have? They basically catch no one for this stuff and if they do it's always due to some other crime instead. UK/Canada/Australia/NZ are some of the biggest real estate money laundering destinations on Earth and all of their governments know it.