Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

$2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

antimoneylaunderinglaw.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 174 posts

Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#91

Post by sanswork »

cmurf wrote: post #88
sanswork wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not uncommon for it to be better financially to always rent and just invest the difference between rent and mortgage+maintenance+taxes. With interest first mortgages as they are it is generally a long time before you earn any equity at all.

Well that would be true if things were normal, like 10 years ago. But the rate of return on real estate is much higher than the rate of return of say the S&P 500.

10 years ago things were very much not normal in housing prices and 8 years ago a lot of people lost everything because they counted on prices increasing at way above historic norms. Much like you're doing here.

Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#92

Post by prklmn »

sanswork wrote: post #69
prklmn wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let's say you save 10¢ on every dollar by renting in your scenario. You'd have to have a hell of a return on that 10¢ you saved to beat the 90¢ you would have invested in the property but instead flushed down the drain in the form of rent....

You seem to think that 90c is going straight to equity when for many years it will be going straight to interest payments. So for the first 5-10 years your $1 is going down the drain vs the renters 10c going into investments.

At any point over those 5-10 you can turn around and sell the property and collect the full gain - it's entirely irrelevant to the mortgage payments being dedicated to interest. My $1 gets my name on the title, your 90¢ gets your name on the lease. Think about what your net investment is. So maybe my maintainance/tax/interest costs equate to 50¢. I'm still investing 50¢ compared to your 10¢. Also, I get incredible leverage. Let'say my property costs $1 million. I'm controlling a $1 million investment vehicle with a $4k/month mortgage payment + tax/maintenance. That's incredible. My return on the property is driven from the $1 million basis, and I get to keep all of it despite not having much of an equity stake in the property.

Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#93

Post by fratlas »

sanswork wrote: post #86
fratlas wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What price range? Mine's around 250, but I haven't checked the innerwest. I mostly like the east because it's close(ish) to the beach and a lot of my uni friends stayed in the east. I could never justify Bondi or even clov, too much money, and the culture is too far up it's own a@@. Coogee is liveable though.

I was paying ~$100/week for a 3 share in something called Dalgety Square in Ultimo which was a really nice building. That was close to a decade ago now though but I'd be surprised if it had more than doubled but even if it had it was one of the nicer options in the area so I'm sure there is a lot for less. Understandable on wanting to stay east. Once I moved east I didn't want to go back but there are definitely opti…

I have friends in Glebe paying $300, but I think they're close to good bars/transport.

I love Yamba! It has always been my dream to get a remote job and move somewhere on the north coast. How much do you pay in Yamba/which part?

Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#95

Post by sanswork »

fratlas wrote: post #93
sanswork wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was paying ~$100/week for a 3 share in something called Dalgety Square in Ultimo which was a really nice building. That was close to a decade ago now though but I'd be surprised if it had more than doubled but even if it had it was one of the nicer options in the area so I'm sure there is a lot for less. Understandable on wanting to stay east. Once I moved east I didn't want to go back but there are definitely opti…

I have friends in Glebe paying $300, but I think they're close to good bars/transport. I love Yamba! It has always been my dream to get a remote job and move somewhere on the north coast. How much do you pay in Yamba/which part?

Glebe is the more upmarket of the two. Ultimo always seems to be overlooked though. Must just be drown out by Pyrmont/Glebe.

I pay $550/week for a 4 bedroom house with a separate full apartment(bed/living room/kitchen/bath) downstairs that I use as an office(for comparison I paid the same for a 1 bedroom apartment on Melrose Pde in Clovelly that was smaller than my office now). We're pretty much dead middle between Pippis/Main so a few minutes walk to 3 beaches and 15 or so to the river.

We had a floor of $400 when looking so not sure what the lower end is like here to be honest but given the work situation I'd assume there is a fair bit available around your price range.

Remote work is definitely required up here. When we were looking at houses the most common phrase we heard was "There are no jobs in Yamba".

Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#96

Post by prklmn »

sanswork wrote: post #72
prklmn wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very rarely true. The only case where I can think of where you may be right is when real estate is purchased at the top of the market and sold at the bottom. When you go to sell real estate, it doesn't matter how much equity you have in the property, you will fully collect the gain or absorb the loss resulting from the sale. Equity is usually only relevant when looking at creditworthiness.

It isn't that rare actually in major western cities. So you are betting on large increases in property value to offset the loss from front loaded interest payments to make your investment better? That's a gamble.

The interest is part of the investment. It gives you control of the property and ability to collect all appreciation. It takes a very minor increase in value to turn a profit if your time horizon is short term. A renter doesn't have anything to show for his or her rent payment and cannot collect any appreciation.

Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#97

Post by [deleted] »

jmspring wrote: post #37
jseliger wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese grey money buying whole apartment buildings for investment, which drives up prices The nice thing about housing is that one can easily build a lot more of it, and it makes a great de facto investment: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/05/19/exporting_hou... . The only thing stopping most municipalities from pursuing this reasonable outcome is politics and resistance from NIMBY incumbent landowners.

No. Those policies are in place because planning makes sense. Not everywhere should be tear down and build up in all conditions. How about the French quarter of New Orleans or historic districts of other cities? This argument always shows up here and is idealistic bs.

[deleted]

Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#98

Post by jussij »

cmurf wrote: post #87
jussij wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the long term, the bubble is going to pop and then you have dead cities with empty high rises falling apart (but then again, people have been saying for at least 10 years that the bubble is going to pop any day now and it's still inflating) The reason that bubble has not yet popped is because over the last 10 years Oz has generally seen below average GDP growth and year on year deflation, not unlike the rest of th…

OK and what's the failure mode if broad GDP growth remains stagnant, but the narrow real estate market continue to grow and increasingly unobtainable? Does it fail or does it in effect behave as two economies?

If the GDP remains low and inflation remains low then property prices will continue to rise. In fact if this happens the rate of rise may well increase over the short term.

To fight low inflation and low GDP central banks around the world have all been singing from the same song sheet by adopting the policy of Quantitative Easing (QE).

QE is basically a policy of printing money and it was designed to grow inflation, but all it has done is created a massive oversupply of cash around the world.

It is this massive sea of cash that is driving up asset prices around the world.

If these central banks continue to use QE then these cash levels will keep going up.

Now naturally you just can't keep printing money, but the question is when will the party be over and inflation start to bite?

The bigger problem is these low GDP numbers have a direct impact on society as it drives up unemployment and drives down wages, creating unrest.

You can see this unrest growing with events like Brexit, the rise ot Trump and the rise of extreme right in Europe, Australia and other countries around the world.

Without that GDP growth, political parties around the world will continue to feel the wrath of their voting public and politics and political parties will move further and further to the extremes.

Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#99

Post by querulous »

jseliger wrote: post #22
a_bonobo wrote: post #13

This is a relatively big problem in Australia - there has been talk of a housing bubble in Australia for the last few years which in part has been propped up by Chinese grey money buying whole apartment buildings for investment, which drives up prices (they can just dictate prices) and keeps young locals out [1]. I cannot afford a house and I have a well-paying job. The government looks the other way since building i…

Chinese grey money buying whole apartment buildings for investment, which drives up prices The nice thing about housing is that one can easily build a lot more of it, and it makes a great de facto investment: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/05/19/exporting_hou... . The only thing stopping most municipalities from pursuing this reasonable outcome is politics and resistance from NIMBY incumbent landowners.

the supply of money + mortgages matters a lot more in the property market than the supply of houses

you can look at seattle or vancouver for examples of property markets with massive expansion of available units with price appreciation comparable to san francisco

Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#100

Post by sanswork »

prklmn wrote: post #92
sanswork wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to think that 90c is going straight to equity when for many years it will be going straight to interest payments. So for the first 5-10 years your $1 is going down the drain vs the renters 10c going into investments.

At any point over those 5-10 you can turn around and sell the property and collect the full gain - it's entirely irrelevant to the mortgage payments being dedicated to interest. My $1 gets my name on the title, your 90¢ gets your name on the lease. Think about what your net investment is. So maybe my maintainance/tax/interest costs equate to 50¢. I'm still investing 50¢ compared to your 10¢. Also, I get incredible le…

It sounds like nothing I will say will sway your beliefs so good luck with your investment.
Post reply on HN