Mexico Property Market Soars

Thanks to American-style Resorts

By Julie Bennett
The Wall Street Journal

A hundred and sixty years ago, the U.S. took over almost a third of Mexico, paying $15 million for territories that became California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Texas. Today, U.S. citizens are moving into Mexico again, but this time they're paying $1 million for oceanfront homes or $300,000 for condos in amenity-rich resorts.

The 19th-century land grab was, for obvious reasons, resented by Mexican nationals. As for the current invasion, "We're loving it," says Manuel Espinosa, one of a number of Mexican high-end developers who are putting up American-style residential communities along the Baja California peninsula or across the Sea of Cortes in Sonora, on the Mexican mainland.

Mr. Espinosa, who is developing Mision La Serena, a 75-unit residence club at the southern end of the Baja peninsula, says "U.S. citizens developed an appetite for Baja California at the same time that it became [viable] for us to build there. They're flocking in from everywhere, looking for vacation or retirement homes at prices that are lower than back home."

Robb Gordon, a professional photographer from Malibu, Calif., bought a villa last spring in the CostaBaja Resort & Marina near La Paz. "My wife and I can get there once a month because La Paz is only a two-hour flight from Los Angeles," he says. "The water is 80 degrees, and it's more beautiful and clearer than the Caribbean. We love Mexican culture and we feel safer there than anywhere in L.A."

Phase one of CostaBaja is completely sold out. The developer, Mexico's Parque Reforma, will build more homes next year and is pre-selling 123 units in the 500-acre resort, with condos in six-story buildings starting at $400,000 to over $1 million for villas that will be built on a bluff overlooking the Sea of Cortes.

It's too late to own one of the 195 condominium-hotel units in the first 26-story tower of Donald Trump's Ocean Resort Baja (pictured right), to be built just over the border, 30 minutes south of San Diego.

The fully furnished units, which start in the mid-$200,000s for a studio apartment, are seeing tremendous demand. Joel Greene, a real estate broker who is president of the Condo Hotel Center in Miami, says that as soon as he announced the project on his Web site, 60 people sent in $5,000 deposits.

One reason for Mexico's popularity is, of course, price. Mr. Greene says of the Ocean Resort Baja project: "You're getting the Trump name and a five-star resort at one-third of the U.S. cost." And, while house prices are falling in parts of the U.S., Mexican resort-area real estate is appreciating, by an estimated 10% a year.

Northwest Mexico is also getting closer. A new coastal highway under construction will reduce the drive time from California to Baja California and the mainland resort towns like Puerto Penasco. Once patchy air services to Mexican airports are improving and airstrips are being upgraded into real airports.

The political climate is stabilizing, too. Bruce Greenberg, an appraiser with offices in Tucson, Ariz., and San Jose del Cabo, Mexico, says the recent election of U.S.-educated Felipe Calderon as president bodes well for cross-border relations, as well as a strong Mexican economy, low interest rates and low inflation.

Buying property in Mexico is getting easier and safer. Although the purchase of property along the Mexican coast is still a complicated process, American title insurance companies, including First American Title Corp., Stewart Title Insurance Co. and the Chicago Title Co., are now providing documentation of ownership and acting as escrow agents while residences are being built.

Just a few years ago, the only way to buy housing in Mexico was to pay cash; today, major U.S. lenders are writing mortgages on Mexican property. GE Money Mexico and WMC Mortgage Corp. of Burbank, Calif., for instance, created a Mexican Dream Mortgage program to provide simplified mortgage financing for U.S. residents.

Finally, staying in one of the new Baja California or Sonora gated communities is just like being in Scottsdale or Palm Springs -- but a little bit hotter and with an ocean view. Mr. Greenberg says: "Americans want to walk into condos with burglar alarms, brand-name appliances, computer lines and all the conveniences they'd find in Florida, Arizona or southern California. Workmanship in Mexico is actually superior, but the floor plans are designed by American architects and include features like large master baths and laundry rooms."

South-of-the-border resort communities feature marinas, fitness centers, spas and golf courses designed by familiar names like Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Greg Norman, just like those closer to home.

Robert Chernick, CFO of Rockingham Asset Management in Scottsdale, Ariz., and his partners will build "an American-style planned community" along 15 miles of Sea of Cortez coastline, on the Mexican mainland within a five-hour drive of Phoenix.

The project -- Liberty Cove -- has an American name, Mr. Chernick says, and when construction starts in 2007, it will follow American standards, offering wide roads, fiber-optic cable service, and, eventually, an American hospital. "Mexican flavor," he says, will come from the authentic-looking village they plan to build, and from the local owners of its restaurants and stores.

You can find more, or even less, "Mexican flavor," depending on where you shop for a vacation or retirement home. Puerto Penasco, 225 miles south of Phoenix on the Sea of Cortes, has so many U.S.-style high rises, chain restaurants and retailers that it's usually called by an American name, Rocky Point.

Cabo San Lucas, on the southern tip of Baja California, is also a lively tourist city with fine restaurants and vibrating nightclubs. La Paz, on the Sea of Cortes side of the peninsula, is the capital of Baja Sur and a city of about 250,000 people, with universities, museums, theater companies and other institutions that offer immersion into real Mexican culture. And scattered along the Baja peninsula and the Mexican mainland are developments remote from both culture and glitz, but offering outdoor activities ranging from bird watching to sea kayaking, fishing, snorkeling and scuba diving.

Loreto Bay, for example, is an 8,000-acre development 280 miles north of La Paz on the Sea of Cortes that will ultimately contain 6,000 homes and 5,000 acres of green space devoted to golf, hiking, cycling and horse-riding.

Although it will take 12 to 15 years to complete, 600 homes (prices start at $300,000) are pre-sold to "American and Canadian doctors, lawyers and business people who want to sneak away from the get up and go of their lives," says Robert Cairns, the development's director of ecotourism.

If you can't decide whether you want solitude or salsa dancing, retired executive Gordon Bowes, of Bellingham, Wash., has found the perfect compromise -- fractional ownership in both active and laid-back Mexican developments.

He and his wife own five weeks in the Grand Regina, a condo complex next to the Westin resort hotel "in the heart of the action of Cabo San Lucas," and recently purchased 12 weeks of ownership in a three-bedroom vacation villa under construction in Mr. Espinosa's Mision La Serena, in the quiet fishing village of San Jose del Cabo.

"We love the sun and beaches of the Cabo area, and by buying fractionals we have none of the hassles," he says. "The Mexican developers keep tremendously high standards and we believe both properties will appreciate in value. And when we're not using the units ourselves, we can rent them out, for $10,000 or more a week during the Christmas and Easter holidays."

The Trump Ocean Resort Baja Mexico still has availability. For more information, including pictures and pricing, click here:

http://www.condohotelcenter.com/condo-hotels/non-us/trump-baja.htm