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A comment on Money-laundering oligarchs bought all the real-estate to clean their oil money. Parent comment

Re:Money-laundering oligarchs bought all the real-estate to ... by YorkshireSeason on Monday January 28, 2019 @08:26AM (#19017232)
Yes, there are a borderline scammers, I've been working with such people myself, as a tenant and a property owner.

   foreign landlord
Why on earth would you buy in London in these circumstances, why not put you money in an ETF?

Let's quantify: what fraction of the London property market does that apply to? My hypothesis: < 0.2%

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Re:Money-laundering oligarchs bought all the real-estate to ... by michaelt on Monday January 28, 2019 @08:51AM (#19017377) 

  Why on earth would you buy in London in these
  circumstances, why not put you money in an ETF?
Because you're a money-laundering oligarch (or a upper class person in an oppressive regime, worried the state will appropriate your assets) and if you're spending £10 million or so on a property, you can afford to conceal your identity with an intermediary in Jersey, Guernsey, BVI, Panama...
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Re:Money-laundering oligarchs bought all the real-estate to ... by YorkshireSeason on Monday January 28, 2019 @03:17PM (#19020680) 

    conceal your identity
You can also conceal your identity when buying an ETF. An EFT almost certainly has a higher ROI than empty property.

And if you are investing via intermediaries, then they can handles the letting process so as to maximise the ROI.

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Re:Money-laundering oligarchs bought all the real-estate to ... by notahacker on Monday January 28, 2019 @08:52AM (#19017389)
> Why on earth would you buy in London in these circumstances, why not put you money in an ETF?

Historically London property prices have risen much faster and fallen more rarely than ETFs, before even beginning to think about the possibility of rental incomes

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