WaPo reports:
Here’s definitive proof that San Francisco’s real estate market is insane. HSH.com, a mortgage research site, has estimated how much salary you need to earn to afford the principal, interest, taxes and insurance payments on a median-priced home in 27 metro areas.
On a national scale, a buyer who puts 20 percent down would need to earn a salary of $48,604 to afford the median-priced home in America. But that total varies a lot from city to city. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, St. Louis and Cincinnati rank as the most affordable metros in which to buy a new home – HSH.com estimates that you can buy the median home while making less than $34,000 – while New York, Los Angeles and San Diego are at the high end, requiring salaries of nearly $90,000 or more. But the most expensive city by far is San Francisco, where the site estimates you would need to make $142,448 to buy the median home in the area.
Treasury Urged to Scrutinize Foreign Real Estate Buyers for Money-Laundering Risk
ReplyDeleteIn a broad show of support for increased scrutiny of foreign real estate buyers in the United States, 17 nonprofit organizations on Tuesday urged the Treasury Department to require that the real estate industry verify the identities of buyers and screen them for potential money-laundering risk.
The request, contained in a letter sent to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, asked for the repeal of a 2002 temporary exemption from provisions of the Patriot Act that had been granted to the real estate industry.
As signed into law in 2001, the Patriot Act would have required real estate brokers and others involved in real estate closings and settlements to conduct due diligence checks on their customers.
After heavy lobbying by the industry, the industry was exempted from the final regulations.<-------
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/business/treasury-urged-to-scrutinize-foreign-real-estate-buyers-for-money-laundering-risk.html?