New York Real Estate Is the New Swiss Bank Account

Foreign buyers “have become an overpowering force” in the city’s real-estate market, reports Andrew Rice for New York Magazine. Despite high costs, the city is a global bargain, and buyers of new construction receive huge tax breaks. Buyers scoop up properties at a wide range of prices; units are often rented or even left vacant before quick resale. The Congressional Research Service reports that 2012 foreign direct investment in US real estate totaled $50 billion; real estate in Manhattan rose by 30 percent in 2013. Rice describes methods behind transfers: properties sold over the phone with no visit, offshore accounts often involved. Buyers hiding assets during a divorce, laundering money or escaping high taxes of another nation demand privacy. “With a little creative corporate structuring, the ownership of a New York property can be made as untraceable as a numbered bank account,” Rice reports. “And that makes the city an island haven for those who want to stash cash in an increasingly monitored global financial system.” – YaleGlobal