If only there was a better store-of-value asset in the world than real-estate. The pressure over rents and houses would be much improved.
"Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
141–150 of 417 posts
Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
#142To maybe offer a different perspective: I think the Canadian mortgages linked to Chinese accounts will likely all be paid. What may be happening is that there is a lot of underground chinese financial activity that is not recorded in Canada and part of this 'network' is utilized to get money out of china.
It's not a matter of if they get paid, it's the unfair advantage this gives in an already competitive market. 2/3 of these properties are probably rented out at inflated prices and the two probably pay the mortgage of the third owners live in. This is a free money glitch, aka fraud.
Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
#143I have said this over and over again: Canada is the most overrated of all the developed countries. The whole country is a gigantic house of cards propped up by real estate, with horrible service quality, terrible healthcare, no jobs, ZERO innovation, risk taking and entrepreneurship. Having lived and travelled extensively, most Canadians want a house somewhere in the woods instead of doing something meaningful with t…
> most Canadians want a house somewhere in the woods
As opposed to most Americans, at least those that have been in the industry for a decade or more, who would rather be as far from tech as possible, in whatever direction.
See also: https://imgur.com/vbFNbON
Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The whole country is a gigantic house of cards propped up by real estate That’s quite the statement, I assume you have quite the source for it. The price-to-rent ratio isn’t that far off from the US, for example.
but incomes are generally much lower
That's tech bias. The pay for random office jobs or trade jobs are similar.
Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
#145I have said this over and over again: Canada is the most overrated of all the developed countries. The whole country is a gigantic house of cards propped up by real estate, with horrible service quality, terrible healthcare, no jobs, ZERO innovation, risk taking and entrepreneurship. Having lived and travelled extensively, most Canadians want a house somewhere in the woods instead of doing something meaningful with t…
As a Canadian who has ideas of building an off grid cabin in the woods, what would be a more meaningful life? The stereotypical poor American working menial jobs into their senior years without affordable healthcare doesn’t sound much better…
Also as a Canadian currently living in an urban area, I want to move to the woods so I have the room to build things and innovate regularly. I don't have enough land for a workshop here. Outside of maybe software that you can pack onto a personal computer, you're not going to be able to do much innovating without much space.
Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
#146[deleted]
Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's still fraud
You can label it however you want, if both the lender and borrower are willing participants, it will be difficult to prevent this from happening. Like mentioned in the article, often times the material is very obviously suspicious and banks probably know this and still turn a blind eye to it because these borrowers are low risk and much less sensitive to the high/rising interest rates of today...
It's not that difficult. You just appoint an auditor and make the bank pay progressively higher fines until they figure it out.
American banks learned to be much better at it after 2008. And given 2008 and the MBS balance sheets at central banks and the municipal budgets propped up by property values and national mortgage programs intended to encourage homeownership, this is by no means just a matter between the bank and its clients, even if you put aside the money laundering angle. Mortgage fraud destabilizes economies.
Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
#148I have said this over and over again: Canada is the most overrated of all the developed countries. The whole country is a gigantic house of cards propped up by real estate, with horrible service quality, terrible healthcare, no jobs, ZERO innovation, risk taking and entrepreneurship. Having lived and travelled extensively, most Canadians want a house somewhere in the woods instead of doing something meaningful with t…
As a Canadian who has ideas of building an off grid cabin in the woods, what would be a more meaningful life? The stereotypical poor American working menial jobs into their senior years without affordable healthcare doesn’t sound much better…
its a discussion about the economy, not the quality of life and the accuracy of the aspirations
Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
#149I have said this over and over again: Canada is the most overrated of all the developed countries. The whole country is a gigantic house of cards propped up by real estate, with horrible service quality, terrible healthcare, no jobs, ZERO innovation, risk taking and entrepreneurship. Having lived and travelled extensively, most Canadians want a house somewhere in the woods instead of doing something meaningful with t…
> Now all of this is coming home to roost
This could be true of any country that's accepting immigrants. Inviting countries must be selecive of whom the let in, what they bring with them, and whether and how well the inbound population assimilate, thus retaining the essence of its extant values. When a country has no control of its immigration (whether by choice or otherwise), or is lax about it, all kinds of birds come home to roost. Some birds lay eggs; others just poop.
Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
> bizarre any jurisdiction would allow someone to buy housing there when they can't legally live in it Foreign-owned homes are a problem for asset acquirers. Vacant homes are a problem for anyone who needs housing. The former seems to get a lot of visibilty when concerns around the latter get raised.
> Vacant homes are a problem for anyone who needs housing. But they pay taxes without demanding any services and the seller assessed they had better use of the capital, they could buy or build a more suitable home. If I lived in a location with 50% vacant homes all paying property taxes then wouldn’t my schools and streets and all local government services be extremely well funded?
Kind of by definition you can't pay more in taxes than you contribute to the economy, therefore unoccupied housing is a drain on the local economy.