THE SPYING GROWS

 

There is an old joke in football, today sometimes called the spy, where the coach assigns a player on defense to follow the other team's best offensive player with the admonition to follow him wherever he goes, including the bathroom.


Well, that's hardly a joke anymore given this article from the NYT. Once again under the fake facade of combating something or other to protect us all, government intrusion on its citizens grows. Now the U.S. Treasury has deemed it necessary to track ( We'll use a kinder, gentler term like governments often do than spy.) luxury real estate purchases.

A word of caution is in order for the simple reason they might end up being accused and sued for discrimination since many of these all cash purchases of upscale properties are made by wealthy Chinese. The Chinese stock market until the recent troubles has been on fire, creating a lot of wealthy people.

The article says their focusing on New York and South Florida. If you know anything about history and governments, you know that's just the beginning. Money laundering is a broad term, casting a wide net. Wide nets alway capture some of the intended species, but a whole lot of innocent unintended ones too.

Even if you can afford it, you might want to think three times before buying any upscale properties in those locations. You might end up on a government no fly real estate list. It's something the real estate profession will love to hear. 

Concerned about illicit money flowing into luxury real estate, the Treasury Department said Wednesday that it would begin identifying and tracking secret buyers of high-end properties.The initiative will start in two of the nation’s major destinations for global wealth: Manhattan and Miami-Dade County. It will shine a light on the darkest corner of the real estate market: all-cash purchases made by shell companies that often shield purchasers’ identities. 

It is the first time the federal government has required real estate companies to disclose names behind all-cash transactions, and it is likely to send shudders through the real estate industry, which has benefited enormously in recent years from a building boom increasingly dependent on wealthy, secretive buyers.
nytimes.com/2016/01/14/us/us-will-track-secret-buyers-of-luxury-real-estate.