[Xinhua News Agency] The US Treasury Department said on the 13th that it would begin to identify and track mysterious buyers of high-end real estate to prevent illegal wealth from flowing into the US luxury housing market. This will be the first time that the federal government requires real estate agencies to disclose the identity of buyers behind cash transactions.
Designed to illuminate dark corners
This measure will be the first to be implemented in two of the hottest places for luxury real estate in the United States, one is Manhattan, New York, and the other is Miami Dade County. The new measure aims to illuminate the darkest corner of the US real estate market, that is, shell companies buy high-end real estate in full cash transactions after covering the real identity of buyers.
The New York Times reported that the above measures are part of the efforts of the federal government to focus more on the phenomenon of money laundering by borrowing real estate.
The report quoted the Ministry of Finance and federal law enforcement officials as saying that the U.S. government is mobilizing more resources to investigate the luxury house transactions involving shell companies. They said that in the future, more professionals assisting in money laundering will be gathered in the investigation, including real estate agents, lawyers, bank staff and founders of shell companies.
It is not illegal for shell companies to intervene in the US real estate market. However, Jennifer Shasky Calfrey, an official of the Ministry of Finance, said that her subordinates found that some luxury houses were bought by anonymous shell companies for the purpose of transferring illegally obtained money.
Calfrey said: "We are worried about the possibility of stolen money entering the luxury housing market."
Or permanent promotion in the United States
The new measures will be launched in Manhattan and Miami Dade County from March to August. Calfrey said that if many transactions are found to involve suspicious sources of funds, the measures will be permanently implemented throughout the United States.
The new measures of the Ministry of Finance will affect billions of dollars of property transactions. In Manhattan, the Ministry of Finance requires the reporting of buyers with a transaction volume of more than $3 million. In Miami Dade County, buyers with transactions exceeding $1 million will be reported.
According to the data of "Real Estate Expert", a real estate data agency, 1045 real estate transactions in Manhattan cost more than $3 million in the second half of 2015, with a total amount of about $6.5 billion.
Patrick Fallon, head of the Financial Crimes Department of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), said: "We fully intend to encourage this measure to spread, not only to different geographical regions, but also to extend the time dimension."
Powerfully supervise high-end buyers
The New York Times reporter found in the survey that nearly half of the properties with a market price of more than $5 million in the United States were purchased by shell companies. In Manhattan and Los Angeles, the proportion is higher.
The reporter of the New York Times investigated the ownership of a well-known luxury apartment near Central Park in New York for about 10 years, and found that many anonymous homeowners had been the subject of government investigation. Among them are former Russian legislators, a former Colombian governor and a British financier.
In Boca Raton, Florida, a reporter from the New York Times found that a house property was related to a former senior official in charge of housing in Mexico.
Calfrey said that these findings show that high-end real estate buyers really need stronger supervision.