New Zealand to ban foreigners from buying homes - Foreigners face a ban on buying homes in New Zealand after a spending splurge by millionaires seeking doomsday bolt-holes crowded out local buyers and pushed up property prices.

Rent-seeking would actually be preferable to what they're doing. Wealthy Chinese people want to get their money out of China and away from their totalitarian government who might take it for one reason or another. They're not allowed to just transfer a million bucks into a US bank account, so they just buy property instead since that's allowed (or easier to pull off I guess).

They don't really give a shit about the property as long as it maintains or grows its value. It's just storage for their money in case shit hits the fan in China. Renting it is another legal grey area, plus there's inherent risk in having tenants in the first place, so for someone wealthy enough to be storing money overseas the risk isn't worth the reward.

My girlfriend owns a condo in downtown San Diego that has 8 units per floor. On her floor, one is obviously hers, two are owned and occupied, one is used as a party pad/pregaming space by a young UCSD student who lives in UTC, and four are owned but vacant. Party pad girl collects the mail for the vacant units so pretty sure her family just owns all of them.

/r/worldnews Thread Parent Link - smh.com.au