[refurb]

I’ve been to Vancouver a number of times and yes, it has the vibe you describe.

However, money laundering isn’t the only driver of that vibe. I just got the sense it was a lot of money from Hong Kong that flooded Vancouver. So no industry was needed to support the high housing prices, it was being supported from foreign money.

But again, that’s different than laundering money.

[dathinab]

Yes but fairly easy to use houses to launder Mony (if you have enough clean Mony). It's also not to hard to abuse houses for speculative investments and houses if well invested are lastly not prone to turn worthless if there is a big crash. So in the right areas they are a "I lose at most a bit but never all" safety investment you can also use for Mony laundering.

Very attractive for certain kind of wealthy people.

So even if a price rises for normal reasons that people tend to always mingle and drive prices even more.

[valuearb]

It could does not mean it does.

[bsanr2]

My understanding is that much of the reason for parking money in these properties is to get around local (that is, their local, our foreign) tax laws and wealth regulations. If that's the case, it's not different from money laundering. "Tax avoidance" is tantamount to money laundering.

[jdmichal]

Tax avoidance is not money laundering. Not even close. TFA does a good job of describing the process, of which zero pieces fit "purchasing foreign property to avoid local taxes". Reintroduction of these funds back into the local economy after performing whatever tax avoidance tricks might qualify as money laundering.

[mtnGoat]

Tax avoidance and tax circumvention are not the same.

First lesson my tax attorney taught me. ;)

[bsanr2]

I'm sure he'd very much like people to believe so.