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Comment by discardorama | Hacker News Reader

And, to add to what everyone else said: there are out-of-towners who are buying up this newly-built property; either as a place to stash some cash (people from China, Russia), or as a crashpad for when they come in to town (from other parts of Bay Area) for an event or something.

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Not sure why parent is being downvoted. I personally know several rich (corrupt?) people from China who have bought or are actively shopping for homes here in the SF bay area. They still work & live in China, but from what they've told me, their goal is to

1) Buy a house for their kids studying in the US; 2) Launder their money; 3) Own a property outside of China as an investment; 4) Have a safe house in case they need to flee the country.

The bay area is a popular choice for such people due to the high concentration of Chinese immigrants / Chinese Americans already living here.

I'm not passing judgement, just presenting facts from personal experience.

Yeah, I don't know why I was downvoted too... I was speaking from personal experience also. I happened to be friends with a realtor, and he would tell me about the crazy bids he was getting from China. A property in Pacific Heights got 2 Chinese bidders in a bidding war, both buying it sight-unseen, all cash, from China. Crazy times.

And I have friends in the Peninsula who have such crashpads in the City (unfortunately, I didn't win the IPO lottery like they did).

So I'm not blaming "furriners" or "1%", just stating what my limited experience has been.

people admit that their goal is to launder their money?

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