The study looks at 1,805 units with an average price of $3 million, and finds a large number of them are held under LLCs, trusts and shell corporations that obscure the real owners.
As many as two-thirds of the condos dissected in the report are not associated with residential tax exemption status. That's evidence, Collins says, that they're being used either as secondary residences, or for what he calls “wealth storage,” i.e. pure investment vehicles that provide no actual housing for city residents.
Combine the undisclosed buyers with cash purchases, and Collins says that ought to raise eyebrows.
"We spot-checked some of those buildings and found there were large numbers of cash purchases by shell corporations, which is sort of a red flag for possible use of illicit funds," Collins said. "They have very high percentage of non-resident ownership, they have a very high percentage of shell corporations.
City Councilor Lydia Edwards:
“Boston is being consumed by people who are not here," Edwards said. "That’s I think where there’s a disconnect, where we are building really more pieces of stock then we are actually housing.”
Edwards says instead of putting people’s housing at the center of the agenda for the New Boston, that kind of housing is being treated as second class to the luxury boom.
