Good morning pedes! When I was house shopping in 2020, I noticed a weird phenomena that may have been going on for an unknown amount of time. I was seeing houses that were selling for the "going rate", but when I looked into the prior sales history, there would be buyer A who bought at the "going rate" from seller A (up to a few years in the past, then buyer A would sell it to buyer B for an incredibly reduced amount, and then buyer B would sell it at the present "going rate". It didn't seem like cases of "foreclosure-house trashed by occupant-then sold and re-modeled, and then sold at going rate", and it seemed like it could be a money laundering scheme, so much so, that I contacted the local FBI office (before I knew about how corrupt they have become) to report what I had observed, but never heard back from them :) If the first two parties involved are in on it, then it seems that it could be a way to launder money. There could be the "tax loss tax savings" on the first sale, and since there is not capital gains tax now, the second sale would have no income tax implications. I was just looking at mostly one county in NY, so the potential totals across a wider area could be massive. What say you?
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I think you're onto something. There are companies placing houses they don't own on sell lists. They troll foreclosure notices and other media and then list the house as if they own it and it's for sale at an inflated price they promise to bargain down from. This happened to me and I called to stop it. Never got an American to speak to, and nobody would allow me to speak to an actual rep who knew what was going on. I threatened to sue unless they took the ad down and they finally did.