Shadow Inventory

Categories: Accounting

They built a nuclear power plant near your town, initially with a lot of excitement and fanfare. Unfortunately, they skimped on some of the costs and, over the years, nuclear waste dribbled into the water supply. Now everything is contaminated. Everyone in town has moved away, but they can’t sell their homes. Who’d buy them? Most of the homes glow at night and smell like someone microwaved a nest of rats.

So the houses remain unlisted. Empty, unused...but not officially on the real estate market. At least, not until about 5,000 years from now, when the contamination fades. Or the state pays for a clean-up. (Don't hold your breath.)

Those houses count as shadow inventory. It’s a real estate term referring to homes that could go on the market, but haven’t yet. Typically, these houses have some legal or financial encumbrance that keeps them from getting listed. Maybe they're foreclosures...or maybe they represent homes where the price has dropped and owners are waiting for a rebound.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is an offshore account, an...2 Views

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Finance Allah Shmoop What is an offshore account And how

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do you open one Or rather why would you even

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want Teo Here's onshore That's us the US of A

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We have laws and rules which well most people follow

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anyway and we have taxes to pay for our military

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defense and our football stadiums and our congressional mistress Tag

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along travel We're not perfect but show us a better

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place and we'll salute them while we're standing So when

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you hear someone musing about opening an offshore account odds

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are good that they're trying to find a way to

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hide taxes that they probably legally owe to the U

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S Government No this is not always the case Someone

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might be running a small business importing coffee from Guatemala

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and they need a bank account offshore like in Guatemala

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Pay for the beans because you know the Guatemalan being

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selling company does not accept us dollars like really are

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Currency isn't good enough for them Yeah alright skepticism alert

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But it does happen And people do open offshore accounts

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often under very snazzy sounding marketing slogan names by large

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global banks that take extremely high privileges like commissions for

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doing so Offshore accounts aren't illegal and the clever marketing

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that runs behind them include things like uh diversify your

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political risk because the U S Government might go under

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and you should really have an account in the Caymans

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in the Bahamas and Bailey's because well those countries are

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solid Their banking systems are better protected than those in

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the US Oh and there's the lawsuit protections Logan That's

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a good one Like you might do something very bad

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in the US and gets sued for it and lose

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And then the way to make it harder for your

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sewers to collect the money you owe them is to

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squirrel away your money in a foreign bank That makes

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sense And yes it's OK to mumble a muse what

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kind of customer these offshore accounts are attracting And then

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there's the Diversify your currency slogan That's a good one

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Like you need an offshore account to do so Or

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like normal people should even begin toe worry about diversity

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defying their currency exposure A meaning like the presumption is

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that the average Joe will somehow do better than the

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thirty million dollars a year Wall Street talent who has

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actually trained on howto invest in currencies around the world

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by diversifying well buying New Zealand and Aussie dollars to

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do better than American dollars in some meaningful way You're

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really kind of bet the ranch on that Uh yeah

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Not bloody likely So don't forget the access to medical

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care argument That's always a good one The hi fi

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banks will plant all kinds of worry warts on your

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brain that somehow you can't get the medical care you

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need in the US And yes it's a slog here

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but that somehow having an off shore account you know

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I don't know that Philippines will give you better medical

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care access Really Yeah They market that in people who

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can read actually buy in Well the implication here is

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that you broadly get peace of mind or the ability

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to transact globally by having one of these very expensive

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accounts housed in the Isle of Man or Jersey or

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some other foreign shadow country Yeah you know the saying

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if it quacks like a duck and walks like a

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duck Yeah probably a goose Offshore accounts If you do

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get one you'll want your club card so you can 00:03:12.78 --> [endTime] always get into here

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