Saw this post, any rent hike like this at the very least will have someone to move in this case shut down. I do not go to Ximen too much , but notice some gentrification in a not good way to me. They is already more vacant space than before and the rent surprises me as its sky high increase.
a friend of mine was interested in getting a place for a small food stall in ximen. he was asked 150,000 a month for 2 ping space.
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Crazy price for 2 pings!
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Gongguang and probably Ximending too have rents of 60K for a building street column closet.
Before COVID messed everything up ximending is like some big shopping district with a ton of foot traffic, so landlord still charge what it can.
Gentrification = high rise âluxuryâ condos that cost at least a few million USD with nothing but 7âs, Families, an occasional Starbucks, and mostly just claw game arcades taking up 100% of the retail space at street level. Prove me wrong in ten yearsâŚ
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Claw machines must be very lucrative because they are spreading like COVID. How are people just putting money in it?
my bet is that its mostly money laundering for organized crime. cash based business, open 24 hours a day, little expenses, you can use it as a front to launder money.
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Well they are basically freaking everywhere. Seems every other store opening up is either a claw machine shop, or a betel nut stand.
I donât know that all of it is money laundering, but I wonât disagree with you. I do know a lot of man childs that have free retail space from mommy and daddy that talked about opening cafes but now want to do claw machines instead. If you think people pay NT50 for every try and might catch an at best valued at NT100 toy every 15 times, the income would add upâŚ
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The man childs are for sure there too, and since it seems lucrative and easy, many go there without giving it too much thought. The ones near me are almost always empty, so although on paper it looks profitable, i dont know how much real money is made.
in my home country, many of the cash-based business without a paper trail (e.g. laundromats, video arcades, bottle recylcing) are fronts for money laundering.
Can also be money laundering for man-childâs family business :), not necessarily the mafia
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Youâre late coming up with that, I posted it already maybe two years ago, and also tea shops, vape stores and others, like phone repair/accessory stores that get no customers to speak of but stay open forever.
not at all, i claimed it from the begining, just not on this esteemed platform
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Also, womenâs designer clothes stores where you never see customers?
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Anything cash, as long as in and out is in balance. Stuff can come in through the âfrontâ, âsoldâ, âblack money insertedâ and âtaken out to through the backâ, than resold at night markets for a profit.
Surely people dont think a few 10nt coin games pay the rent of 100s of thousandsâŚ
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I think some of these are just Daddy owning the space, one among many in his massive portfolio, and deciding to let his son/daughter use it for their up and coming fashion business/design studio/any other number of brain fart non starter businesses you see around.
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For some people, those shops are for real laundering!
Guy
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Is there really such a pressing need to launder money here? Cash is everywhere, people keep it in their houses, families gift huge packets to each other at new year. It would have to be a very lucrative operation to require a front, in my opinion.
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Yes, there is a real need. Absolutely. Part of the problem with crime and business being blurred together in taiwan.
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