Curse our noxious interfering U.S. government! When will we be done with their intrusive rules and instead, usher in a libertarian paradise where infernal regulations to prevent money laundering are a relic of our commie socialist freedom-hating past?
The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is expanding their noxious program requiring all-cash purchases of real estate above certain values be investigated to determine who the real buyer is. This misguided program has already hurt real estate prices in major metro areas and now will create further carnage. Where is the outrage? We must stand with Chinese sneaking money into the US and drug lords making dirty money clean. And please, shed a tear for the poor real estate agents whose commissions will drop because of this. Even if they knew full well what was going on.
The expanded program will “temporarily require US title insurance companies to identify the natural persons behind shell companies used to pay ‘all cash’ for high-end residential real estate in six major metropolitan areas,” up from the two areas designated in January, Manhattan and Miami, among the biggest destinations of global wealth:
Real estate purchases in the US have been a perfectly good way to launder large amounts of money, no questions asked. Brokers and banks and other industry professionals have played along. Everyone in the world knew it. And they came to launder their cash.
These folks don’t mind paying a little extra. So as an industry-pleasing side effect of this influx of opaque money, luxury home prices soared, from where they trickled down to the rest of the market.