3 ms·

Anecdotal fairy tales are the best fairy tales.

buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
This is now the 4th comment of yours I've come across in this thread, all offering no evidence of what you claim. Rather than just repeating "you're wrong" over and over again, you'll get a lot farther by clearly explaining why the article is wrong, once.
- valuearb 6y ago
  Straw buyers exist, not denying it. Straw buyers who are entirely price insensitive may exist, but are so rare as to be unicorns. If you are actually “laundering” money, ie from a crime other than fleeing oppression, the cost of laundering matters. Buying a $1M condo for $2M costs you a 50% of your ill gotten gains, and there is still risk of seizure. At those costs there are far cheaper routes for laundering your money. So what’s occasionally happening is that Chinese trying to escape the control of the PRC dictatorship send money to a trusted expatriate, sometimes a student, and tell them to pay up to $X for a property at market prices. Naturally this can lead to paying slightly over market because the proxy isn’t motivated to negotiate, or often equipped to. If I price my home at $1M when it’s worth $950k, they’ll pay the $1M. But they aren’t offering me $1.4M. And it’s questionable what the specific market price really is at any moment. My friend recently bought a home for $605k that was listed at $599k. He got an early preview the day before it’s initial open house. That night He made a full cash offer at $6k over ask that expired the moment the open house started. The buyer accepted 15 minutes before expiration. Did he overpay? The buyers received over a half dozen backup offers during the open house, some as high as $30k over ask.
gen220 6y ago
FWIW, the pre-sale buy side of the real estate is not transparent. These kinds of people usually do not normally get past the KYC stage required by NYC for large real estate sales, and therefore do not end up recorded in the public record. By definition, the only data that you can reasonably expect to exist about this phenomenon is "anecdata". I make no statements about the frequency of this phenomenon. I have no reason to believe that such tales are common. However, given the preponderance of stories on the topic, it's hard for me to believe that it never happens. This all being said, there are worse money laundering and real estate crimes out there. This is just a particularly amusing one.

This is now the 4th comment of yours I've come across in this thread, all offering no evidence of what you claim. Rather than just repeating "you're wrong" over and over again, you'll get a lot farther by clearly explaining why the article is wrong, once.

valuearb 6y ago
Straw buyers exist, not denying it. Straw buyers who are entirely price insensitive may exist, but are so rare as to be unicorns. If you are actually “laundering” money, ie from a crime other than fleeing oppression, the cost of laundering matters. Buying a $1M condo for $2M costs you a 50% of your ill gotten gains, and there is still risk of seizure. At those costs there are far cheaper routes for laundering your money. So what’s occasionally happening is that Chinese trying to escape the control of the PRC dictatorship send money to a trusted expatriate, sometimes a student, and tell them to pay up to $X for a property at market prices. Naturally this can lead to paying slightly over market because the proxy isn’t motivated to negotiate, or often equipped to. If I price my home at $1M when it’s worth $950k, they’ll pay the $1M. But they aren’t offering me $1.4M. And it’s questionable what the specific market price really is at any moment. My friend recently bought a home for $605k that was listed at $599k. He got an early preview the day before it’s initial open house. That night He made a full cash offer at $6k over ask that expired the moment the open house started. The buyer accepted 15 minutes before expiration. Did he overpay? The buyers received over a half dozen backup offers during the open house, some as high as $30k over ask.

gen220 6y ago

FWIW, the pre-sale buy side of the real estate is not transparent. These kinds of people usually do not normally get past the KYC stage required by NYC for large real estate sales, and therefore do not end up recorded in the public record. By definition, the only data that you can reasonably expect to exist about this phenomenon is "anecdata". I make no statements about the frequency of this phenomenon. I have no reason to believe that such tales are common. However, given the preponderance of stories on the topic, it's hard for me to believe that it never happens. This all being said, there are worse money laundering and real estate crimes out there. This is just a particularly amusing one.