There is a middle man, a foreigner who is not from this area, who is paying the locals little money, through coercion, dishonesty, taking advantage of kindness etc.
He is also paying locals off to convince other locals, mostly elderly people to sell their places at a fairly low price, they're elderly and mostly just kind people who don't think about what's going on. They lie and tell them stories about why they need the property over others with less money.
This sounds bad too, but there is a mentality with the locals that foreign people are nice, special, and they try to help them...I don't quite understand it but it exists.
There is one other very important and interesting dynamic at play here which is this: Local people, are ashamed to leave the community, like they're letting the place down. Sometimes though, they know it would be best / easier if they left to be closer to hospitals etc. These people doing the property deals know this and they offer them confidentiality. Like, "if you come to me, and sell to me directly, I won't tell anyone anything". While this in itself sounds like almost a good service, it has one significant drawback for the seller, there is zero transparency on how much money they "could" be getting.
Didn't you benefit from the taxes their windfall transaction generated?
I'd say not really enough to matter, it's a once off payment, and honestly, what I think they're doing is, the "middle man" buys the house at say $50,000 USD, then sells it for the same, but they do the rest of the transaction off shore using "gift money" or other schemes to avoid the taxes.
Honestly it's a total racket, the "middle man" is your classic rich guy type, lives here with security, priceless paintings, smokes cigars and drinks expensive whiskey, it's quite hilarious how much of a stereotype he is. I actually don't hate the person, I actually speak with him, he has told me he has had his life threatened before because of his work. People around here often joke about accidentally running the dude over.
Nice job I guess?
I will say that in a lot of cases, the local government could be doing more, so maybe that's why people say there's no point in blaming foreigners, but if they do implement something, apparently it will be "side stepped" according to 99% of Hackernewsers.
Didn't you benefit from the taxes their windfall transaction generated?