Posted Dec 4, 2013, 3:53 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: County of Dade
Posts: 9,379
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Is Laundered Money Fueling Miami's Condo Boom?
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/hou...ndo-boom/7747/
Quote:
Five years after the South Florida real estate market collapsed, Miami is once again going nuts for condos. Developers are putting up 35 buildings as you read this, and another 83 are waiting in the wings, according to a report in today's Wall Street Journal. The city also ranks third in the nation for permits issued for multi-family developments (New York and San Francisco rank first and second, respectively).
With its million-dollar starting prices and emphasis on pre-construction sales, this boom may feel like déjà vu, but today's Miami developers are demanding that buyers put down at least 50 percent before closing. That's a lot of up-front money, and the Journal says it's coming from "foreign investors who typically pay cash." The story doesn't tell us much more about exactly who all these foreign investors are, which is probably because one of the most persistent yet difficult-to-prove stories about Miami right now is that its condo-building renaissance is fueled by international criminals laundering money.
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That's what did it in the end. Not the money, not the music, not even the guns. That is my heroic flaw: my excess of civic pride.
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