Pacific Mexican Renaissance

The cov­eted coast­line of Mex­ico, now avail­able for for­eign invest­ment, is expe­ri­enc­ing a lux­ury devel­op­ment boom.

(PRWEB) April 8, 2005 — The well kept secrets of Pacific Mexico’s dra­matic cliffs, coves and sand have long attracted the Hol­ly­wood set look­ing for a quiet escape. Since open­ing up to for­eign invest­ment, Mex­ico has seen an explo­sion in lux­ury res­i­den­tial resort devel­op­ment. The boom has brought world-class resort hotels, Mexico’s famed archi­tects, a com­mu­nity of celebrity CEOs, and a mas­sive out­lay of infra­struc­ture by the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment.
The Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment is mak­ing the coast­lines north and south of the Bay of Ban­deras a pri­or­ity. Mex­i­can Pres­i­dent Vicente Fox recently inau­gu­rated the Nayarit Tourist Cor­ri­dor, a coastal infra­struc­ture mega-project north of Puerto Val­larta. This plan is financed by state, fed­eral and pri­vate inter­ests. It is part of a plan pro­posed in the early ‘90s for appro­pri­ate sus­tain­able devel­op­ment of the region.

“The devel­op­ment of Puerto Val­larta, Punta de Mita and the Nayarit coast is a spe­cial phe­nom­e­non for Mex­ico”, says Alexis Bur­well, part­ner of La Punta Realty in Punta de Mita. “The other tourist areas of Mex­ico are the result of direct fed­eral man­date, risk and investi­ture. The growth of our area has hap­pened pri­vately with­out much gov­ern­ment nur­tur­ing. The low den­sity devel­op­ments pre­serve the envi­ron­ment and cre­ate bal­ance that is essen­tial for the high end coastal lifestyle that peo­ple dream about. It is truly amaz­ing what is hap­pen­ing here. There are many active devel­op­ments to choose from along the North coast and the prop­er­ties are sell­ing well.” (http://www.lapuntarealty.com/)

The gov­ern­ment hopes to keep the infra­struc­ture grow­ing to accom­mo­date the increas­ing num­ber of new home­own­ers. Ser­vices like elec­tric­ity, water treat­ment, telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions, air­ports and high­ways are com­pleted by a major hos­pi­tal, schools, com­mer­cial cen­ters, an aero­drome, a 150 slip marina and a marine park sim­i­lar to that of Xcaret (http://www.xcaret.com/). The idea is to dot the coast­line with smaller, taste­ful estab­lish­ments, in the lux­ury bou­tique market.

The Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment has also changed some of the real estate laws. Now it is eas­ier for for­eign­ers to buy and develop prop­erty in Mex­ico. Many Amer­i­cans have watched the val­ues of their Mex­i­can prop­er­ties appre­ci­ate 10% a year the past five years.

The most exclu­sive lux­ury invest­ments are tak­ing place in the areas around Punta de Mita. (http://puntamita-realestate.com/) The real estate has a restricted occu­pancy rate. It can be as lit­tle as nine bed­rooms per 2.5 acres. This will keep the num­ber of landown­ers down and encour­age devel­op­ment of high-end liv­ing. La Punta Realty, for exam­ple, offers pri­vate home site lots and lux­ury vil­las on land val­ued as much as $2 mil­lion USD per acre. Con­struc­tion is in full swing, as Punta de Mita ended 2005 with record closed sale fig­ures of just under $160 mil­lion USD, 60% more 2004 sales (by com­par­i­son, total Puerto Val­larta Mul­ti­ple List­ing Ser­vice sales for the same 2005 period came to $70 million.)

Pre­miere hotel branded devel­op­ments include the world renowned Four Sea­sons Resort, the St. Regis Resort, the Rose­wood Resort and a Deepak Chopra spir­i­tual retreat. All have their own res­i­den­tial vil­las and condo projects.

The Bay of Ban­deras is earn­ing its rep­u­ta­tion as a pre­mier golfers’ des­ti­na­tion. The area has seven spec­tac­u­lar golf courses, designed by some of the world’s top archi­tects, includ­ing Jack Nick­laus, Greg Nor­man and Tom Weiskopf. Planned are 5 more golf courses around Punta de Mita alone.

The Bay of Ban­deras cur­rently attracts over 3-million tourists per year and has a pop­u­la­tion of about 325,000. Accord­ing to FONATUR, (http://www.fonatur.gob.mx/) the Mex­i­can tourist devel­op­ment bank, and the Ban­deras tourism board, the num­ber of tourists in the next 20 years will exceed 6 mil­lion per year and the pop­u­la­tion will more than double.

“The mar­ket has just become pro­lific in Mex­ico, with about 1.5 mil­lion Amer­i­cans now own­ing prop­erty there,” says Mitch Creek­more, vice pres­i­dent of the Stew­art Title Guar­anty de Mex­ico office in Hous­ton (http://www.stewart.com/) and one of America’s fore­most experts on Mex­i­can real-estate acqui­si­tion. “Val­ues in some mar­kets have tripled in five years — far exceed­ing the rates of return you find in the United States.”

To accom­mo­date this new and fast grow­ing mar­ket, U.S. banks Mar­shall & Ils­ley, Son­ada Finan­cial Group and Col­lat­eral Mort­gage, (http://www.collateralinternational.com/) now pro­vide mort­gages to Amer­i­can enti­ties buy­ing Mex­i­can real estate.

The Bay of Ban­deras serves as the fore­ground for lush, trop­i­cal jun­gle, while the rugged Sierra Madre moun­tain range pro­vides the back­drop. This is the vista that plan­ners want to pre­serve. Lux­ury home buy­ers are grav­i­tat­ing toward eco­log­i­cally sound and conservation-friendly com­mu­ni­ties, only a short dis­tance away from the sophis­ti­cated din­ing, gal­leries, shop­ping, and night life of Puerto Vallarta.

Visit their web­site for photo tours of all their prop­er­ties: http://www.lapuntarealty.com/