ST. REGIS HOTELS & RESORTS CONTINUES TO EXPAND GLOBALLY WITH SECOND NEW PROPERTY IN LATIN AMERICA

WHITE PLAINS, NY – Decem­ber 19, 2005 – Star­wood Hotels & Resorts World­wide, Inc. (NYSE:HOT) announced today a joint ven­ture agree­ment to build a new St. Regis Resort in Punta Mita, Mex­ico. Sched­uled to open in late 2007, the new ultra-luxe resort is being devel­oped by Ideur­ban Con­sul­tores, one of Mexico’s largest pri­vate devel­op­ment and con­struc­tion com­pa­nies and DINE, mas­ter devel­oper of Punta Mita. St. Regis Resort, Punta Mita will be the brand’s sec­ond prop­erty in Mex­ico, open­ing shortly after the St. Regis Hotel, Mex­ico City also set to debut in 2007.

Located 35 miles north­west of Puerto Val­larta on the Pacific Ocean sur­rounded by white sand beaches, spec­tac­u­lar ocean views and lush trop­i­cal land­scape, St. Regis Resort, Punta Mita will fea­ture 120 mag­nif­i­cently appointed guest rooms and suites each with its own out­side shower, and approx­i­mately 65 lux­ury vil­las for both frac­tional and whole own­er­ship. The resort will offer sig­na­ture ser­vices for which the St. Regis brand is renowned world­wide includ­ing its trade­mark but­ler ser­vice, world-class concierge, exquis­ite design, and a mag­nif­i­cent spa.

The highly-anticipated resort will include Punta Mita’s sec­ond Jack Nick­laus Sig­na­ture golf course with greens mean­der­ing through the resort grounds, a 10,000 square foot spa and fit­ness cen­ter, two full-service restau­rants, and a Beach Club with a pool grill and bar. The resort will also offer 7,000 square feet of meet­ing and func­tion space, ideal for a cor­po­rate retreat or a wed­ding celebration.

“There are few resort des­ti­na­tions in the world that com­bine the pres­tige, vision and raw nat­ural beauty of Punta Mita,” said Kerry Hatch, pres­i­dent of St. Regis Hotels & Resorts. “This is truly one of the world’s most exquis­ite enclaves and an ideal loca­tion for a St. Regis resort.”
“We are very proud to bring the addi­tion of this exclu­sive hotel to Starwood’s port­fo­lio, this is a great year for Star­wood Latin Amer­ica Divi­sion and we are very pleased to have such strong plans for the devel­op­ment of the brand in the region,” said Osvaldo Lib­rizzi, Pres­i­dent of Star­wood Hotels & Resorts, Latin America.

Punta Mita is an inno­v­a­tive, mas­ter planned resort and res­i­den­tial com­mu­nity cov­er­ing more than 1,500 acres on a spear-shaped penin­sula, sur­rounded on three sides by white sand beaches, Pacific Ocean waters and lush trop­i­cal flora. The resort is a gated, low-density devel­op­ment and has been planned and designed in accor­dance with the high­est qual­ity of inter­na­tional real estate devel­op­ment and envi­ron­men­tal stan­dards. The mas­ter plan of Punta Mita calls for a vari­ety of exclu­sive res­i­den­tial offer­ings and estate lots, a total of three cham­pi­onship golf courses plus a ten­nis cen­ter, beach clubs, spa and well­ness cen­ter, yacht pier, and a small com­mer­cial village.

St. Regis Hotels & Resorts includes the most cel­e­brated prop­er­ties in the world. Founded by John Jacob Astor with land­mark St. Regis Hotel, New York over a cen­tury ago, the com­pany will unveil highly antic­i­pated St. Regis prop­er­ties in Bora Bora, French Poly­ne­sia (2006) Fort Laud­erdale (2006), Anguilla (2007), Mex­ico City (2007), Sin­ga­pore (2007), Atlanta (2008) Bal Har­bour, FL (2008) and Deer Val­ley, UT (2008) that will fur­ther enhance the brand’s legacy. Per­son­al­ized ser­vice and ameni­ties, envi­able loca­tions and lux­u­ri­ously local­ized design are rec­og­nized world­wide as hall­marks of the St. Regis expe­ri­ence. For more infor­ma­tion on St. Regis Hotels & Resorts, please visit www.stregis.com.

Star­wood Hotels & Resorts World­wide, Inc. is one of the lead­ing hotel and leisure com­pa­nies in the world with approx­i­mately 850 prop­er­ties in more than 95 coun­tries and 145,000 employ­ees at its owned and man­aged prop­er­ties. Star­wood® Hotels is a fully inte­grated owner, oper­a­tor and fran­chisor of hotels and resorts with the fol­low­ing inter­na­tion­ally renowned brands: St. Regis®, The Lux­ury Col­lec­tion®, Sher­a­ton®, Westin®, Four Points® by Sher­a­ton, W®, Le Méri­dien and the recently announced AloftSM. Star­wood Hotels also owns Star­wood Vaca­tion Own­er­ship, Inc., one of the pre­mier devel­op­ers and oper­a­tors of high qual­ity vaca­tion inter­val own­er­ship resorts. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit www.starwoodhotels.com .

About DINE: DINE is Mexico’s pre­mier real estate devel­oper with com­mer­cial, res­i­den­tial and mas­ter planned com­mu­ni­ties through­out Mex­ico. They are a wholly owned sub­sidiary of DESC, one of Mexico’s largest cor­po­ra­tions with inter­ests in four sec­tors: real estate, petro-chemicals, auto parts and food products.

About IDEURBAN: Estab­lished in 1974, IDEURBAN is one of Mex­ico City’s lead­ing urban devel­op­ment com­pa­nies deliv­er­ing a com­plete range of inte­grated real estate solu­tions and con­struc­tion ser­vices. Sup­port­ing the needs of com­mu­ni­ties, gov­ern­ments, com­merce and indus­try on a local, national, and inter­na­tional basis, the com­pany has led projects in mar­kets rang­ing from hos­pi­tal­ity, res­i­den­tial, retail and com­mer­cial to high­way infra­struc­ture, mixed-use devel­op­ments and urban plan­ning. IDEURBAN is rec­og­nized for its skilled pro­fes­sional staff and its com­mit­ment to the high­est qual­ity and eth­i­cal stan­dards. The com­pany is cur­rently involved in the devel­op­ment of the three largest private-sector con­struc­tion projects in Mex­ico City, includ­ing the St. Regis Hotel.

Arti­cle Pub­lish Date : 12/19/2005

Chicago, IL (OPENPRESS) July 29, 2006 — Exceed­ing US$11.6 bil­lion, pri­vate invest­ment in Mexico’s tourism sec­tor has already sur­passed fed­eral goals for the 2001 to 2006 period by 29 per­cent, reports Sec­tur in its lat­est com­pre­hen­sive study on the sub­ject. Domes­tic and for­eign pri­vate invest­ment reached the orig­i­nal US$9 bil­lion goal in June 2005, after increas­ing at least 12 per­cent annu­ally since 2002.

The report also shows that inter­est in Mexico’s famous beaches remains high, with the sun and beach seg­ment out­pac­ing all other tourism prod­ucts by gar­ner­ing 48 per­cent of pri­vate invest­ment. Three coastal states also ranked in the top three in amount of pri­vate invest­ment received: Guer­rero State (US$2.63 bil­lion), Quin­tana Roo State (US$2.47 bil­lion) and Nayarit State (US$92.5 mil­lion) cap­tured almost 52 per­cent of the total amount invested between 2001 and 2006.

Approx­i­mately 89 per­cent of pri­vate invest­ment in Guer­rero went to tried-and-true beach resort Aca­pulco on the Pacific Ocean, whereas 82 per­cent of the pri­vate invest­ment Quin­tana Roo received was chan­neled to the Mex­i­can Caribbean hot spots Can­cun and Riv­iera Maya. More than 60 per­cent of Nayarit’s pri­vate invest­ment went to the Pacific resort town of Nuevo Vallarta.

Round­ing out the top Mex­i­can five states receiv­ing the high­est amount of pub­lic invest­ment are bor­der states of Baja Cal­i­for­nia (US$86.3 mil­lion) and Sonora (US$78.4 mil­lion). Together, the states on the U.S./Mexico bor­der, which also include Chi­huahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamauli­pas, received 19 per­cent of pri­vate invest­ment in Mex­ico, rank­ing the region sec­ond overall.

Among the north­ern region’s major tourism attrac­tions are Cop­per Canyon in Chi­huahua; the La Que­mada archae­o­log­i­cal sites in Zacate­cas; the bustling city of Mon­ter­rey in Nuevo Leon and 200,000-acre Cua­tro Ciene­gas Val­ley in Coahuila. Inter­na­tional sources account for 25 per­cent of all pri­vate invest­ment, with the United States as the top for­eign investor in Mexico’s tourism infrastructure.

Mex­ico has long been tak­ing strate­gic steps to stim­u­late tourism and attract pri­vate investors through its National Trust Fund for Tourism Devel­op­ment, Fonatur. This gov­ern­ment agency is respon­si­ble for con­ceiv­ing, plan­ning and build­ing five sea-side tourism des­ti­na­tions – Can­cun, Los Cabos, Ixtapa, Loreto and the Bays of Huat­ulco – since its 1974 inception.

These resorts areas gen­er­ate 54 per­cent of for­eign rev­enue enter­ing the coun­try from tourism and ben­e­fit from a mas­ter plan, urban-resort plan­ning mech­a­nisms, and annual con­struc­tion pro­grams and enforcement.

Because foment­ing inter­na­tional tourism is a national pri­or­ity for Mex­ico, the country’s reg­u­la­tory frame­work legally pro­tects for­eign investors. Mex­ico allows for­eign investors to have own­er­ship in the major­ity of eco­nomic fields and activ­i­ties, includ­ing real estate, allow­ing 100 per­cent par­tic­i­pa­tion in shared cap­i­tal. Investors are also offered a prof­itabil­ity guar­an­tee and invest­ment secu­rity through Fonatur.

In addi­tion to the ease of invest­ing in Mex­ico, investors are also attracted by the secu­rity of invest­ing in a proven des­ti­na­tion: Mex­ico is the world’s sev­enth most-visited coun­try and ranks 12th in terms of for­eign rev­enue earn­ings from tourism; in both cat­e­gories, it is the leader in Latin America.

Fonatur’s efforts have been rec­og­nized by indus­try orga­ni­za­tions such as the Live in Spain asso­ci­a­tion, which hon­ored the agency with its devel­op­ment and pro­mo­tion of res­i­den­tial tourism award dur­ing the 2006 edi­tion of the Madrid Real Estate Exhibition.

About Fonatur­Cre­ated in 1974, Mexico’s National Trust Fund for Tourism Devel­op­ment (Fonatur) is the pre­mier devel­oper of integrally-planned tourism des­ti­na­tions in Mex­ico and has cre­ated such world-class resort areas as Can­cun, Ixtapa, Loreto, Los Cabos and more recently, Huat­ulco. To diver­sify the nation’s tourism indus­try and give it a more com­pet­i­tive edge, Fonatur builds and pro­motes new tourist resorts that meet mar­ket demand and at the same time spur social change in dif­fer­ent parts of the coun­try. Fonatur often serves a joint ven­ture part­ner for pri­vate investors who want to ben­e­fit from par­tic­i­pa­tion in Mexico’s high-quality tourism devel­op­ment programs.

For more infor­ma­tion on Fonatur, visit www.fonatur.gob.mx.
About the Mex­ico Tourism Board The Mex­ico Tourism Board (MTB) brings together the resources of fed­eral and state gov­ern­ments, munic­i­pal­i­ties and pri­vate com­pa­nies to pro­mote Mexico’s tourism attrac­tions and des­ti­na­tions inter­na­tion­ally. Cre­ated in 1999, the MTB is Mexico’s tourism pro­mo­tion agency, and its par­tic­i­pants include mem­bers of both the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors. The MTB has offices through­out North Amer­ica, Europe, Asia and Latin America.

www.thenewsmarket.com/visitmexicopress.

Fri­day, July 28, 2006

Today’s own­ers of million-dollar homes are typ­i­cally younger baby boomers who work for a cor­po­ra­tion, main­tain diver­si­fied invest­ment port­fo­lios, and have house­hold income of less than $500,000. Their homes can include such ameni­ties as enter­tain­ment rooms, designer kitchens and wine cel­lars, accord­ing to the 2006 Cold­well Banker Pre­views Inter­na­tional Lux­ury Sur­vey.
The annual sur­vey, which included inter­views with 300 U.S. home­own­ers whose pri­mary res­i­dence is val­ued at over $1 mil­lion (and over $2 mil­lion for Cal­i­for­nia res­i­dents), also found about 35 per­cent of respon­dents own sec­ond homes. An addi­tional 35 per­cent said they are con­sid­er­ing buy­ing an invest­ment prop­erty and/or a sec­ondary res­i­dence for fam­ily use.

Lux­ury real estate ser­vice Cold­well Banker Pre­views Inter­na­tional com­mis­sioned the study, which was con­ducted in March and April by mar­ket research firm Inter­na­tional Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Research.

“The typ­i­cal million-dollar home­owner likes to live well, but they are not liv­ing an ultra-lavish lifestyle,” says Jim Gille­spie, pres­i­dent and CEO for Cold­well Banker Real Estate Group. “We did not find huge num­bers of these con­sumers hav­ing ameni­ties like heated floors (14 per­cent), ten­nis courts (4 per­cent), or back­yard putting greens (5 percent).”

About 65 per­cent of respon­dents have a designer kitchen and 37 per­cent already have a wine cel­lar or are con­sid­er­ing adding a wine cel­lar to their homes, accord­ing to the sur­vey. Mean­while, 59 per­cent said they have a room in their homes devoted exclu­sively to enter­tain­ment. And in those rooms, 89 per­cent said that they can accom­mo­date more than six peo­ple, with 84 per­cent indi­cat­ing that they have either a 50-inch or big­ger HDTV screen, or media sys­tems such as DVD play­ers and a sur­round sound system.

Fifty-seven per­cent have a wet bar and 24 per­cent have movie-theater style seat­ing in their enter­tain­ment rooms. Also, 54 per­cent of respon­dents already own or plan to buy orig­i­nal art­work, accord­ing to the Cold­well Banker announcement.

Some other pop­u­lar ameni­ties in million-dollar homes: Secu­rity sys­tem, 86 per­cent; pro­fes­sional land­scap­ing, 67 per­cent; in-ground swim­ming pool, 37 per­cent; hot tub 35 percent.

Of those respon­dents who own a sec­ond home, 55 per­cent of the sec­ond homes are in recre­ation areas, includ­ing the beach or ocean­front, 32 per­cent; lake­front, 11 per­cent; or in ski resorts or moun­tain areas, 11 per­cent. Among those who would con­sider buy­ing a sec­ond home, 42 per­cent would select beach and ocean­front loca­tions, 14 per­cent would choose ski areas and moun­tains, and 12 per­cent would choose lake areas.

The sur­vey also found that 32 per­cent of those polled do not plan to retire until they are 65 or older, with 14 per­cent stat­ing that they plan to retire at 60–64. Respon­dents said that when it is time to retire, they look for­ward to trav­el­ing inter­na­tion­ally (46 per­cent) or within the U.S. (42 percent).

About 70 per­cent of respon­dents said that inter­est rate increases will have no impact on their planned lux­ury purchases.

About 62 per­cent said they have recently vis­ited a high-end resort/spa; 43 per­cent went on an active vaca­tion such as a ski trip, bike or hik­ing trip; 28 per­cent trav­eled for more than three weeks inter­na­tion­ally; and 25 per­cent spend­ing same amount of time trav­el­ing domes­ti­cally. About 18 per­cent of those sur­veyed have flown on a pri­vate plane over the last year and 9 per­cent went on an extreme vaca­tion or adven­ture vaca­tion, such as an African safari, Cold­well Banker said

About 5 per­cent of those sur­veyed employ a per­sonal assis­tant, 4 per­cent have a live-in house­keeper and 1 per­cent have a driver.

About 84 per­cent described them­selves as mod­er­ate– to low-risk investors. The sur­vey found that major­ity retire­ment hold­ings vary widely among respon­dents: Indi­vid­ual stocks, 29 per­cent; mutual funds, 23 per­cent; real estate, 19 per­cent; mixed port­fo­lio includ­ing real estate, 14 per­cent; bonds, 11 per­cent; mixed port­fo­lio exclud­ing real estate, 11 per­cent; 401k, 7 per­cent; CDs, 2 per­cent; annu­ities, 2 per­cent; IRA, 2 per­cent; pen­sion funds, 1 percent.

About 33 per­cent of respon­dents expect a tax refund this year, and 39 per­cent plan to invest this money in their homes, the sur­vey revealed. About 29 per­cent plan to save that money, and 12 per­cent plan to invest it in stocks, bonds or mutual funds.

About 43 per­cent of lux­ury home­own­ers made more than $500,000, and 41 per­cent cited their house­hold income as between $200,000-$500,000. Own­ers of million-dollar homes shop at Nord­strom, 34 per­cent; Neiman Mar­cus, 17 per­cent; and Saks Fifth Avenue, 10 per­cent; with Macy’s, Lord & Tay­lor, Tal­bots and Pot­tery Barn also mak­ing the list of top shop­ping spots.

http://www.dailynewstranscript.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=76911

SPECIAL REPORT

June 12, 2006

Real Estate: Latin Boom

Latin America’s real estate sec­tor is boom­ing, thanks in large part to a grow­ing num­ber of US retirees buy­ing homes. Panama, Mex­ico and Costa Rica are lead­ing the way, but also Argentina is see­ing a boom.

BY JOACHIM BAMRUD

Don­ald Trump is busy these days. Apart from run­ning his real estate empire and plan­ning another real­ity TV show, he is prepar­ing to develop a 62-story hotel and apart­ment tower in Panama City, Panama.

The planned Trump Ocean Club Inter­na­tional Hotel and Tower will fea­ture morethan 300 hotel rooms and 500 lux­ury apart­ments as well as a casino, yacht club and its own pri­vate beach.

But Trump isn’t the only one devel­op­ing high­rise tow­ers in Panama. “In Panama City there are new sky scrap­ers going up all over,” says Robert Baker, pres­i­dent of theAm­er­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce in Panama. Panama is see­ing unprece­dent inter­est from U.S. retirees, partly as a result of pos­i­tive media cov­er­age in Conde Nast Trav­eler and mag­a­zines pub­lished by the Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion Retired Per­sons (AARP). And CBS filmed three Suri­v­ivor series in Panama, more than any other coun­try, Baker points out.

Panama is one of three real estate mar­kets in Latin Amer­ica see­ing height­ened inter­est, accord­ing to Roge­rio Basso, Latin Amer­ica real estate spe­cial­ist at US-based con­sul­tancy Ernst & Young. “In gen­eral, mar­kets that pro­vide a good com­bi­na­tion of air lift from major des­ti­na­tions, prox­im­ity to key source mar­kets and coastal loca­tions are expe­ri­enc­ing explo­sive growth,” he says. “In dis­cus­sions with our clientsand the invest­ment com­mu­nity, we are observ­ing that there is height­ened­in­ter­est in Mex­ico, Costa Rica and Panama.”

NEW STANDARD

The Trump project, with a total cost of $220 mil­lion, will start in thesec­ond half of the year and be ready by 2009. Con­struc­tion firm Arias Ser­nay Sar­avia SA and real estate mar­ket­ing com­pany Espa­cios Urbanos S.A., both­from neigh­bor­ing Colom­bia, are also involved in the new project.

“With this devel­op­ment we will set a new stan­dard of lux­ury in Panama,“Trump said in late April. “The Trump Ocean Club, Inter­na­tional Hotel &Tower, will be a mag­nif­i­cent and dis­tinc­tive con­tri­bu­tion to Panama City,one of Latin America’s most dynamic cities.”

LATIN AMERICA’S TALLEST?

The 104-story Ice Tower in Panama City set for com­ple­tion in 2010. Mean­while, Panama City has also seen a race between two rival projects aime­dat becom­ing the tallest build­ing in Latin Amer­ica. The 104-story res­i­den­tia­land hotel build­ing, Ice Tower, is slated to be com­pleted in 2010.

The build­ing is being devel­oped by F&F Prop­er­ties LTDA., Inc, from Panama, while the design is being done by local archi­tec­ture firm Pin­zon, Lozano &Aso­ci­a­dos. Spain-based Ollo­qui Group is con­struct­ing a 93-floor build­ing, Pala­cio de la Bahía, located on the Bay of Panama. It is expected to be fin­ished in 2009 and is being designed by local archi­tect Jesús Díaz & Asociados.

The two projects were orig­i­nally smaller, but sub­se­quently started adding floors to obtain sta­tus at the tallest build­ing in the region. And Grupo Mall, another Span­ish devel­oper, is build­ing a mul­ti­tower cen­terof apart­ments, hotel and com­mer­cial mall. The project, sched­uled for par­tial com­ple­tion in 2009, is designed by UK archi­tect Chap­man Tay­lor LLP.

And the real estate boom isn’t only lim­ited to the cap­i­tal. The K Group,Trump’s local part­ner on the new tower, is also devel­op­ing Emer­ald Bay on Isla Con­ta­dora and Coro­n­ado Coun­try Club Resort, a major devel­op­ment con­sist­ing of 300 apart­ments and houses, near the main tourist areas of Panama. A new project sim­i­lar to the Miami Seaquar­ium is going up in San­Car­los and even the Wal-Mart heiress is look­ing for land in Panama, Bakersays.

Euro­pean real estate investors are also devel­op­ing lux­ury beach front vil­lasin the Azuero Penin­sula, Isla Viveros in the Pearl Islands and Mon­tañas de Caldera near Boquete, accord­ing to the Inter­na­tional Her­ald Tri­bune. “You have a real boom going on here,” Baker says. “Land prices are going up fast and some of the big con­dos in the city are increas­ing in price by$25,000 per month.” He expects the boom to last at least five more years, if not another decade.

Apart from the exist­ing demand, future devel­op­ments will also be helped by such fac­tors as the planned expan­sion of the Panama Canal, a planned refin­ery by U.S. oil giant Oxy and a new mega port near the Pacific entrance of the canal. Com­bined these will inject $11.8 bil­lion into the Pana­man­ian econ­omy, Baker says.

BABY BOOMERS

But Panama isn’t the only real estate mar­ket see­ing a boom. All across Latin Amer­ica, there is increased invest­ment from U.S. and Euro­pean buy­ers. “Real estate in Latin Amer­ica is attract­ing sig­nif­i­cant inter­est amongst U.S. buy­ers search­ing for sec­ond– and third-vacation homes,” Basso says.

“The baby-boomer gen­er­a­tion is fuel­ing a major­ity of real estate pur­chas­esin Latin America.”

And the trend is expected to con­tinue as indi­vid­u­als con­tinue to retire andthe U.S. real estate mar­ket is seen as less favor­able, he says. The U.S.market has been appre­ci­at­ing sig­nif­i­cantly in recent years, lead­ing manyAmer­i­cans to look for afford­able alternatives.

More recently, ris­ing spec­u­la­tion about the bub­ble has had a sim­i­lar effect. “Con­cerns about a pos­si­ble real estate bub­ble in the [United States] is lead­ing investors to assess other mar­kets where fun­da­men­tals, and the pos­si­bil­ity of appre­ci­a­tion, are still present,” Basso says. The excep­tions to the U.S. real estate invest­ment boom are coun­tries like Colom­bia, Ecuador and Venezuela, which are hurt by image prob­lems relat­ing to secu­rity or polit­i­cal sta­bil­ity or both, experts say.

MEXICO AND ARGENTINA

Thanks to a pickup in eco­nomic growth and new U.S. mort­gage lend­ing, Mexico’s real estate sec­tor is grow­ing dra­mat­i­cally. Total real estate activ­ity by local and for­eign investors jumped from $1 bil­lion in 2004 to $3 bil­lion last year and is expected to dou­ble to a whop­ping $6 bil­lion this year, accord­ing to Basso.

“U.S. lenders are now pro­vid­ing mort­gage lend­ing in Mex­ico,” he says. “This is crit­i­cal in dri­ving real estate growth.”

Such lend­ing pro­vides financ­ing sources to fuel real estate pur­chases and com­fort for U.S. buy­ers con­sid­er­ing pur­chases in a for­eign coun­try as these indi­vid­u­als deal can deal with the same insti­tu­tions, and sim­i­lar terms, as they are used to in the main­land, Basso points out.

Mean­while, the country’s GDP has been grow­ing at 4.2 per­cent and 3.0 per­cent the last two years after only expand­ing by 1.4 per­cent in 2003. Also Argentina is see­ing a boom. The country’s eco­nomic cri­sis in 2001-02led to a strong decline in real estate prices. At the same time, the euro­has appre­ci­ated against the Argentina peso, lead­ing to bar­gain con­di­tions­for Euro­pean investors. The result: a boom in res­i­den­tial real estate,especially from Span­ish buy­ers. “Most of the invest­ments in res­i­den­tial, and in some cases in com­mer­cial, real estate were by Spaniards due to strong cul­tural fac­tors,” says Pablo Manes, cor­po­rate busi­ness man­ager for U.S.-based real estate bro­ker Col­liers Inter­na­tional in Buenos Aires. Res­i­den­tial real estate prices in 2003 and 2004 even passed the prices pre-crisis, he says.

There has also been an increase in com­mer­cial real estate demand, accord­ingto Manes. “With the eco­nomic improve­ment, infla­tion under con­trol, grow­ingre­serves and the agree­ment with cred­i­tors, com­pa­nies are com­ing back to the coun­try,” he says. “At the same time, com­pa­nies here are grow­ing and need­more space.” With lit­tle or no recent invest­ment in com­mer­cial real estate, prices forex­ist­ing space has sky rock­eted and vacancy is at an all-time low in class A space in Buenos Aires, accord­ing to Manes. “The demand for office space is very strong,” he says. “When we have a new client that wants large space, we have have a lim­ited num­ber of places to show them.”

While com­mer­cial real estate is still not at pre-crisis lev­els, he expects that may change soon. “If growth con­tin­ues like this…we will be at the same level as before the cri­sis,” he says.

OUTLOOK

In the short– to mid-term, real estate in Latin Amer­ica is antic­i­pated to con­tinue to expe­ri­ence high lev­els of inter­est from both U.S. and Euro­pean­buy­ers, Basso pre­dicts. “Afford­able des­ti­na­tions, phe­nom­e­nal nat­ural beauty, ease of access, but most impor­tantly, sig­nif­i­cantly wealth stem­ming from a retir­ing baby-boom gen­er­a­tion should con­tinue to pro­vide sound demand-side fun­da­men­tals to fuel this growth,” he says. “How­ever, it remains to be seen whether these Latin Amer­i­can nations will be able to prop­erly respond with supply-side offer­ing to con­tinue to attract for­eign buyers.”

Second-Home Buy­ers Head South

As the price of beach­front prop­erty in the United States esca­lates, more peo­ple are look­ing south of the bor­der for vaca­tion homes

RISMEDIA, July 13, 2006-(KRT)-

As the price of beach­front prop­erty in the­United States esca­lates, more peo­ple are look­ing south of the bor­der for vaca­tion homes. That has cre­ated big oppor­tu­ni­ties for Den­ver devel­oper Pat But­ler, who has spent more than a decade devel­op­ing resort prop­erty in Mexico.

In 1993, But­ler founded Den­ver– based Club Acqui­si­tion Co. to acquire resort and vaca­tion prop­er­ties. The com­pany has worked in Ari­zona, Cal­i­for­nia, Col­orado and Mex­ico. In 2004, his com­pany part­nered with Pal­adin Realty Part­ners to develop the Estrella del Mar Golf and Beach Resort in Mazat­lan. When com­pleted, the 816-acre devel­op­ment 10 min­utes from the Mazat­lan air­port will have 1,145 home lots and 631 condos.

The devel­op­ment is expected to gen­er­ate $500 mil­lion in sales from con­dos and lots. Prices for home sites start at $195,000. Prices for con­dos start at $275,000. The resort fea­tures 3K miles of beaches on the Pacific Ocean and a Robert Trent Jones Jr. cham­pi­onship golf course. The mas­ter plan includes a branded hotel, an eques­trian cen­ter and sta­bles, a ten­nis cen­ter and a spa.

Estrella del Mar is Butler’s sec­ond ven­ture into Mex­i­can resort devel­op­ment. In 1994, he bought El Dorado Ranch, a 200,000-acre retire­ment and vaca­tion prop­erty just north of San Felipe, a fish­ing vil­lage on the Sea of Cortez. About 35,000 acres of that prop­erty can be devel­oped to allow for­eign­ers to own land in Mexico.

So far, more than 7,000 home­sites have been sold and1,500 res­i­dences have been built. Prices for the home­sites start at $40,000.Prices for con­dos start at $350,000.

“The Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment is inter­ested in respon­si­ble for­eign investment,“Butler said. It wants investors to cre­ate jobs, edu­cate the work­force and work with char­i­ties. But­ler has responded.
His El Dorado Ranch devel­op­ment and other busi­nesses in San Felipe — includ­ing a hotel, plus Thrifty Car Rental and Cen­tury 21 fran­chises — have pro­vided more than 500 jobs and sup­ported local edu­ca­tion, sports and ecol­ogy. But­ler also has pro­vided numer­ous edu­ca­tional schol­ar­ships and grants and spon­sors a char­ity celebrity golf tour­na­ment that ben­e­fits the San Felipe de Jesus School.

U.S. cit­i­zens want­ing to buy vaca­tion homes in Mex­ico should fol­low the same rules they do when buy­ing real estate in the United States, said Richard Krum­bein, head of inter­na­tional prac­tice for the law firm Snell & Wilmer LLP, which has offices in Den­ver. It’s impor­tant to check for a clear chain of title and put down pay­ments into escrow, just as you would in the U.S.
“The rea­son peo­ple get in trou­ble is because they tend to leave their com­mon sense at the bor­der,” Krum­bein said.

On the Mex­i­can main­land, a for­eigner can buy prop­erty fee sim­ple except when it is in the restricted zone: 32 miles from the shore­line or 62K miles from the bor­der. Buy­ers can pur­chase real estate in the restricted zone through a Mex­i­can bank trust called a fide­icomiso. For an annual fee of about $300, the bank serves as a trustee, hold­ing title to the prop­erty for up to 50 years. Mex­i­can real estate is a good invest­ment, Krum­bein said. Just like in theU.S., it’s boom­ing. “The two economies are closely tied,” he said. “When the U.S. sneezes,Mexicans get pneumonia.”

Copy­right C 2006, The Den­ver Post Dis­trib­uted by McClatchy-Tribune Busi­ness News.

http://rismedia.com/index.php/article/articleview/15192/1/1/

Sotheby’s Int’l Realty Lux­ury Net­work Expand­ing in More Than 30 Coun­tries around the World

RISMEDIA, July 20, 2006-Sotheby’s Inter­na­tional Realty Affil­i­ates, Inc. announced the Sotheby’s Inter­na­tional Realty R net­work is now oper­at­ing in 18 nations and has exe­cuted mas­ter fran­chise agree­ments to expand into 16 addi­tional coun­tries and territories.

Since Sep­tem­ber 2004, more than 100 firms around the world have signed multi-year fran­chise agree­ments to oper­ate Sotheby’s Inter­na­tional Realty R offices.

Sotheby’s Inter­na­tional Realty affil­i­ates are part of a truly global full-service lux­ury real estate net­work. Fran­chisees are pro­vided with world­wide mar­ket­ing sup­port and busi­ness devel­op­ment tools to enhance their posi­tion as a lux­ury leader in their respec­tive mar­kets. In turn, the fran­chise affil­i­ates pro­vide real estate clien­tele with global mar­ket­ing expo­sure and high qual­ity real estate services.

“We began to cre­ate the Sotheby’s Inter­na­tional Realty fran­chise net­work less than 30 months ago, and are extremely pleased with the response from the lux­ury mar­ket,” said Michael R. Good, pres­i­dent & CEO of Sotheby’sInternational Realty Affil­i­ates, Inc.

“For far too long, lux­ury real estate firms and their clien­tele only could choose to be part of refer­ral net­works offer­ing lit­tle more than mar­ket­ing sup­port for select list­ings. Not only do we pro­vide supe­rior global mar­ket­ing expo­sure for our affil­i­ates’ prop­ertylist­ings, we also sup­port these firms with a full range of prod­ucts and sys­tems that help strengthen their businesses.”

“With deep roots in the world-renowned Sotheby’s auc­tion house, our brand attracts savvy inter­na­tional real estate buy­ers and sell­ers. Our network’s inno­v­a­tive real estate ser­vices are designed to con­nect these highly desired con­sumers with our fran­chisees and their sales pro­fes­sion­als,” added Good.

The Sotheby’s Inter­na­tional Realty lux­ury net­work cur­rently has more than 325 offices located in 18 coun­tries includ­ing Anguilla, Aus­tralia, Bahamas,Bermuda, Canada, Cay­man Islands, Costa Rica, Domini­can Repub­lic, France, NewZealand, Saint Barthelemy, Saint Maarten / St. Mar­tin, South Africa, Spain, Switzer­land, United King­dom and the United States.

Mas­ter fran­chise agree­ments have also been signed with com­pa­nies located in16 addi­tional coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries, includ­ing firms in Argentina, Bar­ba­dos, Brazil, British Vir­gin Islands, Mex­ico, Monaco, Nicaragua, Panama, Por­tu­gal, Puerto Rico, Rus­sia, Saba, Thai­land, United Arab Emi­rates, Uruguay and the U.S. Vir­gin Islands.

These com­pa­nies are expected to open Sotheby’sInternational Real­tyR offices in the near future.

http://rismedia.com/index.php/article/articleview/15275/1/1/

Smart buy­ers know that resort real estate is very big in the United States right now, but many are won­der­ing if sales have peaked in the United States. Because many are won­der­ing how much more the United States can up the ante on the resort real estate, some buy­ers are look­ing out­side of the United States for their pri­vate com­mu­nity desires.

Punta Mita is a gated com­mu­nity located in Mex­ico that has sort of set the stan­dard for what a lux­ury com­mu­nity is all about.

Many con­sider Punta Mita to be the gated com­mu­nity resort for those that are look­ing to buy a home that gives them that resort feel. Punta Mita has not become a rav­ing suc­ces­son its own, there are things that have helped to make this pri­vate com­mu­nity as suc­cess­ful as it is today.

Pri­vate Com­mu­nity Suc­cess Fac­tors Punta Mita has been very pop­u­lar because it is easy to access. An inter­na­tional air­port is just 28 miles away and there are lit­er­ally hun­dreds of flights to and from the United States each week.

In addi­tion to easy access, Punta Mita offers some of the most beau­ti­ful real estate that you can find! Pic­turesque real estate, ocean front prop­erty and beau­ti­ful beaches are really attrac­tive fea­tures for this pri­vate community.

Mex­ico also offers polit­i­cal and eco­nomic sta­bil­ity, which is impor­tant to most home buy­ers. In addi­tion to being sta­ble, the Punta Mita resort offers excel­lent val­ues on homes that are bet­ter than those in Cal­i­for­nia, Hawaii, and the Caribbean.

Who Lives In Punta Mita? Punta Mita is 95% Amer­i­can owned. Punta Mita works very hard to make home own­er­ship quite sim­ple, even if the buy­ers are not from Mexico.

Offer­ing not only beau­ti­ful homes and ameni­ties, but advise on how to buy a home the right way. Punta Mita is an all encom­pass­ing, truly great place to live.

Every­thing that one could pos­si­bly want is located in this gor­geous gated com­mu­nity, so it’s obvi­ous to see why so many Amer­i­cans travel out of the U.S. to own a home there.

http://sitemail.puntarealty.com/sitemail5/parse.pl?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.golfhomeconnect.com%2Fgolf-community-news%2F137%2Fnews.html

Pittman: Mex­ico set for hous­ing boom, real estate appraiser predicts

DAVID PITTMAN

Tuc­son Citizen

Mex­ico in 2006 is sim­i­lar to the United States in 1940, a coun­try set toem­bark on a post-depression hous­ing boom.

That is the view of Bruce D. Green­berg, a real estate appraiser active in the United States and Mex­ico. Green­berg believes the nar­row elec­tion win for con­ser­v­a­tive Felipe Calderonas Mexico’s pres­i­dent will mean the con­tin­u­a­tion of eco­nomic poli­cies ini­ti­ated by for­mer Pres­i­dent Vicente Fox. He said the per­pet­u­a­tion of those poli­cies will pro­vide the coun­try with the fis­cal and mon­e­tary dis­ci­pline needed to move for­ward successfully.

Green­berg — who oper­ates offices in Tuc­son and Mex­ico City and satel­lite branches in the Mex­i­can com­mu­ni­ties of Rocky Point, Los Cabos and Puer­to­Val­larta — said his appraisal prac­tice began slow­ing about two months ago and is gear­ing back up since Calderon’s appar­ent victory.

“Con­sumers were watch­ing the elec­tion results closely, as were Wall Street and the Mex­i­can busi­ness com­mu­nity,” he said. “All are react­ing favor­ably now that it’s over.”

While Calderon appears to have won the pres­i­den­tial race by a razor-thin mar­gin over left­ist Andrew Manuel Lopez Obrador, Mexico’s spe­cial elec­tion court has until Sept. 6 to decide whether to cer­tify the results.

A decade ago, Green­berg said, it was easy for peo­ple to go to a Mex­i­can bank for a loan to buy a don­key or a trac­tor, but dif­fi­cult to get a mort­gage for a home. That is not the case today, and the elec­tion of Calderon will speed the pace of Mexico’s mod­ern­iza­tion, he said.

Green­berg believes sev­eral large finan­cial insti­tu­tions will soon expand to Mexico.“Watch for banks, such as Wells Fargo and Bank of Amer­ica, to join Deutsche Bank, Citibank and HSBC,” he said.

Green­berg, among the most active apprais­ers in west­ern Mex­ico, also expect swell-known real estate firms to become active in more areas of the country.“ReMax, Cen­tury 21, Cold­well Banker and Pru­den­tial are com­mon in ocean­re­sort com­mu­ni­ties,” he said. “Watch for their growth in the interiorcities.”

Green­berg expects Mul­ti­ple List­ing Ser­vices, which are in short sup­ply in Mex­ico, to soon take root.“I pre­dict that Real­tor asso­ci­a­tions and the MLS will grow enor­mously through­out the resort com­mu­nity cor­ri­dors of Mex­ico,” he said. “Besides LosCa­bos and Puerto Val­larta, lenders from Wall Street will demand this ser­vice, along with other more sophis­ti­cated infor­ma­tion data.

“The state of Sonora was a voter strong­hold for Calderon. Green­berg said Calderon’s elec­tion means rapid growth in Sonora will continue.“I think you’ll see San Car­los become another grow­ing area for sec­ond homes, sim­i­lar to Rocky Point,” he said.

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/19556.php

Mexico’s elec­tions

A nation awaits

Jul 13th 2006 MEXICO CITY

From The Econ­o­mist print edition

With court chal­lenges under way, a clear win­ner looks unlikely before September

AP

ON JULY 12th demon­stra­tions in sup­port of Andrés Manuel López Obrador swept Mex­ico. But they were not what the pres­i­den­tial can­di­date of the centre-left Party of the Demo­c­ra­tic Rev­o­lu­tion (PRD) had hoped for in his last-ditch bid to be pro­claimed the victor.

Although Mr López Obrador has called for a mas­sive rally in Mex­ico City on July 16th in protest against alleged fraud in July 2nd’s elec­tion, the gath­er­ings around the coun­try have so far attracted pro­test­ers only in the hun­dreds, and the thou­sands, rather than the hun­dreds of thousands.

Accord­ing to the final offi­cial count by Mexico’s inde­pen­dent Fed­eral Elec­toral Insti­tute (IFE), Felipe Calderón, the can­di­date of Pres­i­dent Vicente Fox’s centre-right National Action Party (PAN), pipped Mr López Obrador to the post by just 0.58%, or 244,000 votes.

Although Mex­ico City’s for­mer mayor had been ahead for much of the count, he fell behind as late results from states sup­port­ing Mr Calderón came in. He is now con­test­ing the vote.The final out­come rests with a spe­cial elec­toral court, known by its Span­ish acronym, Trife, whose deci­sion is final.

It will eval­u­ate chal­lenges to the count made by all three main par­ties. Mr López Obrador is dis­put­ing the count in 50,000 of the country’s 130,000 polling sta­tions; the PAN is con­test­ing it in 1,500, and the PRI in 800.

Mr López Obrador is also chal­leng­ing the vote on the ground that gov­ern­ment inter­ven­tion notably adver­tise­ments by Mr Fox laud­ing the government’s achieve­ments gave him anadvantage.

Although some of Mr López Obrador’s chal­lenges may be legit­i­mate, he seems to be mak­ing some ille­git­i­mate ones. At a press con­fer­ence on July 10th, he pre­sented two videos allegedly show­ing irreg­u­lar­i­ties, which now appear to be bogus.

One of them showed a man stuff­ing a bal­lot box. But it turned out that the man, who is a school teacher and the local elec­toral over­seer, was trans­fer­ring pres­i­den­tial bal­lots, which had mis­tak­enly been placed in the leg­isla­tive bal­lot box, to their cor­rect place. The local PRD rep­re­sen­ta­tive has con­firmed that it was done correctly.

The Trife has until the end of August to make a deci­sion about any alleged irreg­u­lar­i­ties, and must announce its deci­sion by Sep­tem­ber 6th. It islikely to take its full allot­ted time. Com­posed of seven inde­pen­dent judges,the court has broad pow­ers, though these have never been used before in a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. It can cer­tainly order recounts, or even annul the vote, of spe­cific polling sta­tions, though it is not clear whether it could order a total recount or annul the elec­tion entirely.

Accord­ing to Fer­nando Franco, a for­mer Trife judge and now a pro­fes­sor at ITAM, a uni­ver­sity in Mex­ico City, a fail­ure by the court to declare the vote valid by the Sep­tem­ber 6th dead­line would be tan­ta­mount to annulling the election.But, as Mr Franco notes, there is a pre­sump­tion of valid­ity. The court would have to find extra­or­di­nary evi­dence that the elec­tion was flawed to take such a step. This seems unlikely. No evi­dence of sys­tem­atic irreg­u­lar­i­ties has yet surfaced.

Some errors have been found in the over­all tab­u­la­tion of votes but, accord­ing to José Wold­en­berg, the respected head of the IFE dur­ing the 2000 elec­tions, these are likely to can­cel each other out with­out affect­ing the over­all result. Inde­pen­dent EU observers said the IFE had been impartial.

Mr López Obrador’s claim that Mr Fox is a trai­tor to democ­racy, is rooted in the president’s per­sis­tent attempts to pre­vent him from even enter­ing the race. But in end­ing seven decades of rule by PRI, Mr Fox is also regarded as one of the founders of Mexico’s nascent democracy.

Mr López Obrador’s legal case is hurt by the fact that his own party rep­re­sen­ta­tives signed off on the count in many of the polling sta­tions where he is now chal­leng­ing the vote. The for­mer mayor is now insin­u­at­ing that some of them may have been paid off. But in more than a quar­ter of the sta­tions, the PRD did not even have a rep­re­sen­ta­tive present.Mexico’s finan­cial world seems much more con­cerned with what hap­pens after Decem­ber 1st than with the short term. In the expec­ta­tion that the cur­rent polit­i­cal cri­sis will be resolved by legal means, nei­ther Stan­dard & Poor’snor Fitch, two rat­ing agen­cies, have changed their rat­ings of gov­ern­ment bonds.

Although inter­est rates inched up at the most recent auc­tion of gov­ern­ment debt and most peo­ple expect the peso to fall, this is due as much to exter­nal fac­tors (such as ris­ing Amer­i­can inter­est rates) as to elec­toral uncertainties.

Mean­while, the jit­tery Mex­i­can stock­mar­ket has been ris­ing with every bit of good news for Mr Calderón, and falling with every sign that Mr López Obrador might still have a chance.In all prob­a­bil­ity the mar­ket will set­tle down as it, like the rest ofMex­ico, gets used to the long wait until Sep­tem­ber 6th. What is needed now is patience.

It is far from ideal that the final deci­sion over who becomes Mexico’s next pres­i­dent rests with the seven indi­vid­u­als who sit on theT­rife rather than the mil­lions of Mex­i­cans who voted on July 2nd. But the court has estab­lished a track record of impar­tial­ity, rul­ing in favour of the three major par­ties in almost equal pro­por­tions over the past decade. Fur­ther, the court’s judges are barred from any other gov­ern­ment post tha tmight have been affected by their deci­sions for two years after their terms end. Six of the court’s seven judges end their ten-year terms in October.

Regard­less of how they rule, a large por­tion of the coun­try is sure to beun­happy. But the 1996 reform that empow­ered the Trife as the final arbiter of any elec­tion is far supe­rior to what came before, where a sim­ple major­ity of the lower house of Con­gress suf­ficed to declare a vote valid.

Amer­i­cans look­ing for land deals migrate to Mex­i­can coast

03:34 PM CDT on Thurs­day, June 15, 2006

By Angela Kocherga / KVUE News

Mex­ico used to ban for­eign­ers from own­ing ocean­front property.

Now, Amer­i­cans can buy homes right on the beach, and that’s sparked a boom in once remote regions like Nayarit which sits along Mexico’s Pacific Coast.

Land bar­gains spark build­ing boom along Mexico’s Pacific Coast. Many of the real estate sale signs there are in English.

“I think it’s going to be one of the pre­miere, upscale res­i­den­tial options for Amer­i­cans here in Mex­ico,” said real estate agent, Fred Feibel.

Feibel, a Hous­ton native, moved to Nayarit eight years ago when the area was largely undis­cov­ered by Amer­i­cans, except for a few surfers. Real estate experts in that once remote area said prices have doubled,tripled and in some cases quadru­pled in recent years.

A few homes ares elling for more than $1 million.

“I saw the beaches, the unde­vel­oped beaches,” said real estate bro­ker, Car­ol­Dav­en­port. Those beaches were what attracted Dav­en­port. She moved here from Dal­las last sum­mer to scout prop­er­ties for Texas Investors.

But what about those who don’t have mil­lions to invest? Can they buy a dream home in Mexico?

Well, that depends on the dream said Dav­en­port, “you can’t have some­body who retires on $600 a month and expect them to get resort prop­erty. That’s notre­al­is­tic.” But the real estate experts say there are still bar­gains, although not right on the beach.

“One can live in Mex­ico on any bud­get,” said Ann Emboury who is a Nayarit res­i­dent. “We’re not investors. We just wanted a home. We wanted to be part of a com­mu­nity.” The for­mer Tuc­son teacher moved here with her hus­band and roy less than a year ago. They live in a mod­est home just a few blocks from the beach.

Experts pre­dict more Amer­i­cans will move to Mex­ico in the near future as baby boomers cross bor­der in search of afford­able retire­ment property.

http://www.kvue.com/news/state/stories/061506kvuemexicoproperty-cb.8c45de30.html

Mex­ico becom­ing more than a spring break des­ti­na­tion
Strong work force, prox­im­ity allow neigh­bor to com­pete with Asia

By Ryan Johnson

Like a large chunk of stu­dents at the UA, I went to Mex­ico over springbreak.

I even went to a tequila fac­tory. But I’m pretty sure I came away with an extremely dif­fer­ent impres­sion ofthe coun­try than the rev­el­ers in Rocky Point, Aca­pulco, Puerto Vallarta,Mazatlan, Cabo San Lucas, Can­cun, Cozumel, Playa Del Car­men and Rosaritadid.

While they saw beaches, bead ven­dors and beer, I saw a coun­try of opportunity.As part of a master’s in busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion class called Inter­na­tional Man­age­ment, I had the oppor­tu­nity to attend a field trip to Guadala­jara over spring break.

The dozen or so of us on the trip went from fac­tory to fac­tory, see­ing howMex­ico is try­ing to rede­fine itself. We watched Mex­i­cans make DVDs at aTe­ch­ni­color plant (if you buy “The Chron­i­cles of Nar­nia” next month, weprob­a­bly saw it being made). We saw how Won­der Bread was made, from flour tobag­ging. We saw where lots of Hewlett-Packard cus­tomer ser­vice calls are­an­swered — it’s not just India any­more. And we saw a plant for Jabil, a high-tech elec­tron­ics manufacturer.

Glob­al­iza­tion has been both a boon and a bane for Mex­ico. The North Amer­i­can Free Trade Agree­ment brought growth and new mar­kets — fac­to­ries right across­the bor­der sprang up to pro­duce our tele­vi­sions, video­cas­sette Now it appears that Mex­ico is find­ing its niche.
Unable to com­pete with Asia onprice, Mex­ico is now com­pet­ing in qual­ity and prox­im­ity.
recorders and shirts. But not long after, just as Amer­i­cans got used tosee­ing “Made in Mex­ico” on their under­wear, Mex­i­cans faced “Made in China“underwear. Turns out when it comes to employ­ers, $5 per day is great­com­pared to $5 per hour, but pales in com­par­i­son to $5 per week.

Many of the bor­der fac­to­ries closed, and it appeared that Mex­ico was stuckin an uncom­fort­able void: too rich to be able to pro­duce cheap goods for theU.S. and the rest of the rich world, but too poor to be in thedeveloped-world club.

Now it appears that Mex­ico is find­ing its niche.
Unable to com­pete with Asiaon price, Mex­ico is now com­pet­ing on qual­ity and proximity.

Tech­ni­color says that movie stu­dios pre­fer to pro­duce DVDs in Mex­ico becausethe coun­try is widely viewed as more secure for intel­lec­tual prop­erty thanChina. In fact, a Chi­nese tour group to HP was turned away sim­ply because of nation­al­ity. Mex­ico is also mar­ket­ing its prox­im­ity to the U.S. as an asset for therapid-turnover, high-velocity world of tech­no­log­i­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing.
Trend­schange so quickly that the three– or four-week boat ride from Asia to Los Ange­les can mess up a prod­uct cycle. Grupo Bimbo, the com­pany behind Oroweat­bread and Entenmann’s pas­tries, can get a prod­uct from the mid­dle of Mex­ico to the U.S. in hours.Moreover, com­pa­nies want to be in Mex­ico for the chance to take part in the grow­ing domes­tic market.

Indeed, the big con­cern of 2004 — out­sourc­ing — is now look­ing like a global bless­ing. While it used to be that for every job out sourced, one U.S. job was lost, now the Har­vard Busi­ness Review reports that it takes 13 jobs out­sourced to cost a sin­gle U.S. job. Not only is HP sav­ing costs by out­sourc­ing to Mex­ico, but it is also sell­ing more com­put­er­s­there and cre­at­ing more jobs in Sil­i­con Val­ley, Calif. And every job cre­ated in a Mex­i­can city cre­ates even more job oppor­tu­ni­ties through­out the country.

Jabil, the elec­tron­ics man­u­fac­turer, says that its 4,000 Guadala­jara jobs cre­ate 13,000 jobs through­out Mex­ico. What about the next step for Mex­ico? “Doesn’t it still have corruption?“asked my father, who stud­ied for two years in Guadalajara.It is get­ting bet­ter, Mex­i­cans respond.

One of the biggest themes of the com­pa­nies we vis­ited was trans­parency as well as open­ness of data. A work­erat Tech­ni­color couldn’t steal a screw if he tried. And every piece of moth­er­board at Jabil is trace­able by com­puter from any­where in the world.

We heard from the for­mer Mex­i­can ambas­sador to India, who said that glob­al­iza­tion is forc­ing Mex­ico to stamp out cor­rup­tion. What about Latin America’s age-old vice, lack of punctuality?

Com­pa­nies are forc­ing employ­ees to stamp out the old cul­ture. Besides, Amer­i­can col­lege stu­dents sleep­ing in until 3:30 p.m. on spring­break can’t really say much for their own punc­tu­al­ity. Mex­ico may be a play­ground for overzeal­ous U.S. col­lege stu­dents dur­ing spring break, but while we’re pass­ing out on the beach, they’re working.

Pacific Ham­let could become Mexico’s next hot stop

By Alfredo Corchado

SAN FRANCISCO, Mex­ico — Maybe it was the impos­si­bly bright orange sun­se­tover the Pacific Ocean, the sound of waves crash­ing onto the shore, briefly­dis­turb­ing the peace and the silence around us. Or it may have been the eclec­tic crowd — old hip­pies, yup­pies and theul­tra­rich — enjoy­ing the iso­lated inno­cence on an unspoiled Mex­i­can beach. What­ever it was, I couldn’t avoid a creep­ing real­iza­tion: I didn’t miss Can­cun, its blind­ingly white sandy beaches, or the turquoise Caribbean waters. And just for­get Aca­pulco and its non­stop nightlife and foul bay.

I had found a new par­adise, and just in time. I’d thought I’d vis­ited every­beach in Mex­ico. I had grown jaded about many places where you arrive eagerto hit the water or relax and read a book, only to end up feel­ing cleaned­out by resort oper­a­tors and their hid­den costs, such as the 5 per­cent cov­er­charge just to dine.

This quiet stretch of Pacific coast in Nayarit state renewed my faith. I’m enjoy­ing this place, just 45 miles north of Puerto Val­larta and a world away from Mexico’s more well-known and crowded tourist des­ti­na­tions. Before long, how­ever, the inevitable pres­sure of beach-seeking human­ity will be arriv­ing by the plane load. The place is no longer a secret beyond the small but ded­i­cated group of vaca­tion­ers, the vast major­ity from California,who come back year after year to live a few days in sim­ple lux­ury. The north­ern rim of Bahia de Ban­deras has become an eclec­tic refuge for the pinch­ers of pen­nies and the deep pock­ets alike. Lodg­ings go for any­where­from $35 for a no-frills room in Cielo Rojo to $550 at the Four Sea­son­sPunta Mita.

This windswept coast was once a string of remote fish­ing vil­lages nes­tled byhilly jun­gles. But it’s now a play­ground for jet-setters and surfer dude­sa­like, all chas­ing the next big wave. At once, a vivid reminder of Spain’sCosta Brava and California’s Santa Cruz. Nayarit state, made famous in the movie “Night of the Iguana,” has been known as the jun­gle around Puerto Val­larta — for decades a prin­ci­pal des­ti­na­tion for U.S. trav­el­ers from the West Coast. It was a small, unhur­ried resort area squeezed against the Pacific by tall moun­tains hid­ingthe col­or­ful but reclu­sive cul­ture of Mexico’s Hui­chol Indians.

The charm­ing ham­let of San Fran­cisco, known locally as San Pan­cho, won meover with its trop­i­cal beach­front and lush green hill­sides of seem­ing­lyundis­turbed par­rots. It has some of the best bird and whale watch­ing in the world. It’s off the beaten path and reflects a down­shift tourism — a qui­eter and­more relaxed envi­ron­ment. More impor­tant, it was the unusual, wel­come hos­pi­tal­ity offered by friendly locals who appear eager to embrace the trans­for­ma­tion of this fish­ing vil­lage into a world-class resort.

Its cob­ble­stone streets and white sands call out for early morn­ing or evening walks. It’s also a surfer haven, this point proved by a trav­el­com­pan­ion who’d wake up at 5:30 a.m. to hit the waves. I pre­ferred hik­ingth­rough moun­tains, tak­ing in the views and end­less miles of pris­tine beach­esa­long the Nayarit coast. Like the region itself, ours was a peacefulcoexistence.

That doesn’t mean that some aren’t wor­ried about los­ing a tra­di­tional way oflife. They’ve seen what’s hap­pened to once-secluded Can­cun, or Nuevo­Val­larta. A local group of women is protest­ing to pre­serve pub­lic beach access they’ve always had before.

Yet change is com­ing: Both the fed­eral and state gov­ern­ments are pump­ing­mil­lions of dol­lars into roads, elec­tric lines and munic­i­pal water projects.They’re cre­at­ing what locals proudly call Mexico’s next best tourism des­ti­na­tion. Among the projects: a new road to con­nect San Pan­cho to Sayulita, anin­do­lent fish­ing vil­lage known for its surfer-worthy waves, and Punta Mita, where Four Sea­sons is the star attraction.

It’s one charm­ing beach after­a­n­other, inter­rupted only by trop­i­cal forests and man­groves. Far­ther inlan­dare Nayarit’s vol­canic high­lands and the cul­tural attrac­tions and pristinebeaches of Guayabitos and big-city Tepic. I stood on top of a moun­tain, watch­ing the sun­set and Bun­ga­low Lydia belowus, tak­ing in the whis­per­ing wildlife and hushed sounds, mind­ful that the secret will soon reach Tex­ans, if it hasn’t already.

http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/03262006/travel/94639.htm

Mon­day, July 3, 2006

Mex­ico Plans Con­trols for the Sea of Cortez and its Bor­der­ing Land Areas

By Barnard R. Thompson

The Mex­i­can Sec­re­tariat of Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ural Resources (SEMARNAT), onJune 21, 2006 pub­lished a notice in the Offi­cial Daily (Diario Ofi­cial de laFed­eración) of not just national but too inter­na­tional inter­est andim­por­tance. Notice that a law that bet­ter man­ages Mex­i­cos Gulf ofCal­i­for­nia (Sea of Cortez) and its con­tigu­ous coastal areas is to go into­ef­fect, plus a call for com­ments on the draft pro­pos­als a pub­li­cop­por­tu­nity that will end 60 days from the pub­li­ca­tion date.

The Noti­fi­ca­tion of the Pro­posal of the Marine Eco­log­i­cal Ordi­nance of theG­ulf of Cal­i­for­nia refers to a 168-page Span­ish lan­guage doc­u­ment that isnow avail­able for review and com­ment, part of a Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment pub­lic­consul­ta­tion mech­a­nism. A link to the draft doc­u­ment can be found on the­SE­MAR­NAT Inter­net site, plus print copies are avail­able at sites listed inthe pub­lished notice. Infor­ma­tion on an Eng­lish lan­guage syn­op­sis of the­do­c­u­ment and its attach­ments, and the pub­lic com­ment process, is obtain­able­via mexintel@ix.netcom.com.

*The Pro­posal of the Marine Eco­log­i­cal Ordi­nance of the Gulf of California,”hereafter referred to as the Pro­posal, is divided first into sec­tions thatin turn are sub­di­vided and indexed to deal with 15 Coastal Man­age­ment Units(UGC), and seven Oceanic Man­age­ment Units. The coastal and land zones canbe described as start­ing at Cabo San Lucas, Baja Cal­i­for­nia Sur; run­ning upthe Gulf of Cal­i­for­nia to its north­ern­most Baja Cal­i­for­nia– Sonora terminus;and back down main­land Mex­ico to Punta Mita, Nayarit, which is just­north­west of Puerto Val­larta, Jalisco. And then the south­ern demar­ca­tion isan oceanic line drawn straight between Punta Mita and Cabo San Lucas.

The Oceanic Man­age­ment Units, or UGOs, include the islands and every­thin­gelse within the greater marine limits.Environmental pro­tec­tion and nat­ural his­tory inter­ests heav­ily influ­encedthe draft Pro­posal it would seem, espe­cially when hear­ing par­tic­i­pant and­work­ing group mem­ber lists are also taken into con­sid­er­a­tion. To the degreethat devel­op­ers, landown­ers, tourism inter­ests, recre­ation and sport­sen­thu­si­asts, and some entre­pre­neur­ial sec­tors seem to have got­ten the short­end of the stick. Yet maybe this is nec­es­sary con­sid­er­ing the fragility ofthe region, and the exploita­tion of cer­tain areas therein.

From the very begin­ning, the Pro­posal states that the ordi­nance is designedto be an envi­ron­men­tal plan­ning and pol­icy instru­ment. A man­age­ment plan­im­ple­mented due to need, and a work­ing pro­gram that will be kept cur­rent­through the con­tin­u­ous work and involve­ment of all lev­els of government,along with civil and sec­toral interests.

This plus reg­u­lar reviews in orderto make changes or adjust­ments when deemed nec­es­sary, and to enforce the­code and principles.To the­o­ret­i­cally insure a bal­ance between envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion and­pro­duc­tive activ­i­ties, with the goal of a regional devel­op­ment vision base­don sus­tain­abil­ity, a large Marine Eco­log­i­cal Ordi­nance of the Gulf ofCal­i­for­nia Com­mit­tee was formed, and work began on June 5, 2004.According to the draft doc­u­ment, this two-part com­mit­tee con­sists of anex­ec­u­tive sec­tion and a tech­ni­cal divi­sion. A com­mit­tee of the whole thatwill gov­ern and direct processes to insti­tu­tion­al­ize a plural par­tic­i­pa­tion­mech­a­nism in order to pre­vent and attend to envi­ron­men­tal con­flicts in there­gion, and thus legal­ize deci­sion mak­ing around regional devel­op­ment, the doc­u­ment states.

So work began, divided into four basic cat­e­gories: characterization;diagnostic; prog­no­sis; and pro­posal. And this last point called for the­draft Pro­posal now com­pleted and under final review, “the model of eco­logi­cor­di­nance and eco­log­i­cal strategies.Information and con­cerns regard­ing each of the 22 UGC and UGO units are­out­lined in the Mod­els chap­ter, whereas the rec­om­men­da­tions and plans fornot only marine areas and insu­lar prop­er­ties, but too for adja­cent coastal­lands, are found in the Eco­log­i­cal Strate­gies chap­ter of the Proposal.

Among the items addressed, espe­cially within the Eco­log­i­cal Strate­gies, are­points and mat­ters any­one inter­ested in the Gulf of Cal­i­for­nia, its coastal­en­vi­rons, and its flora and fauna might want to review and maybe submitcomments.The Eco­log­i­cal Strate­gies are dis­cussed in nine sub­ti­tles: regional trends;general sus­tain­abil­ity actions; inter­ac­tion between marine and coastal­en­vi­ron­ments; inter-sectoral; social par­tic­i­pa­tion; inter-cultural;follow-up process; pre­cau­tion­ary focus; and research agenda.Commercial fish­ing is a con­cern, as are aqua­cul­ture sites.

It goes into coastal area land prob­lems, espe­cially agri­cul­tural runoff areas. And itmen­tions energy explo­ration and exploitation.The Pro­posal addresses tourism and land devel­op­ments, plus urban growth­prob­lems in vul­ner­a­ble loca­tions. Among other things, mari­nas are acon­cern, recre­ational boat­ing (and com­mer­cial ship­ping) are wor­ries, and itasserts plea­sure activ­i­ties such as sport­fish­ing must be controlled.

Mankar­ios Part­ner­ship To Spear­head New Lux­ury Projects
7/6/2006
By Glenn Haussman

DALLAS – Hot on the heels of its suc­cess­ful gig man­ag­ing more than $1.5 bil­lion in assets with Ty Warner Hotels & Resorts, The Mankar­ios Part­ner­ship is mov­ing into the next phase of its evo­lu­tion. The com­pany, with its exper­tise in lux­ury hotel devel­op­ment, asset man­age­ment and prop­erty man­age­ment, has just signed an agree­ment with Serendip­ity Land Hold­ings to pro­vide tech­ni­cal ser­vices and ongo­ing man­age­ment and mar­ket­ing for a new $100 mil­lion project in Punta de Mita, Mexico.

This marks the sec­ond major deal the com­pany has signed dur­ing the last three months. In May, Mankar­ios Part­ner­ship announced a strate­gic alliance with RPC Hold­ings (for­merly Royal Palm Com­mu­ni­ties), to assist with the devel­op­ment, exe­cu­tion and ongo­ing man­age­ment of the Para­mount brand of ultra-luxury mixed use devel­op­ments. Here the com­pany will pro­vide gen­eral advi­sory ser­vices, tech­ni­cal assis­tance, pre-opening ser­vices and long-term hotel and con­do­minium man­age­ment. The first project is to be located in Miami.

When it comes to build­ing the next gen­er­a­tion lux­ury hotel, found­ing part­ner Atef Mankar­ios said in an exclu­sive inter­view with Hotel Inter­ac­tive that today’s lux­ury con­sumer is not just more savvy, but brings with them an under­stand­ing of the lux­ury hotel expe­ri­ence gleaned from high-end mag­a­zines, tele­vi­sion shows on the Travel Chan­nel and per­sonal experiences.

This under­stand­ing, com­bined with a fore­sight of where the mar­ket is headed, will help Mankar­ios advise Serendip­ity on the type of expe­ri­ence that must be deliv­ered to define the new lux­ury market.

“We are build­ing a prod­uct that is in com­pe­ti­tion with every great hotel our guests have ever stayed in, and they have been to the world’s great­est hotels,” Mankar­ios said. “To be suc­cess­ful we have to be more cre­ative, more pre­cise and more exact­ing in the exe­cu­tion of ser­vices and con­sis­tency of delivery.”

The mixed use El Banco in Punta de Mita project will con­tain just 40 hotel suites and 35 casitas. Each room will have its own pool and the finest ameni­ties and facil­i­ties, includ­ing a beach club and 10,000 square foot stand alone spa.

When Mankar­ios was the Pres­i­dent of Rose­wood Hotels & Resorts he put his imprint on Las Ven­tanas al Paraíso, a Los Cabos resort he helped cre­ate. He also man­aged the resort through his asso­ci­a­tion with Mankar­ios Part­ner­ship while his com­pany was advis­ing Ty Warner Hotels & Resorts. The prop­erty is widely con­sid­ered one of the world’s best resorts.

Now, Mankar­ios said the con­cepts cre­ated there will serve merely as a spring­board for the El Banco project, which his com­pany will man­age under a long-term agree­ment when it opens. “We are going to take every­thing we learned from build­ing Las Ven­tanas and make that our start­ing point. That project taught us great lessons, but we have evolved and we will use that project as a frame of ref­er­ence in cre­at­ing this new resort.”

For RPC, Mankar­ios said his com­pany will be an inte­gral part in help­ing the com­pany build a col­lec­tion of world class mixed use devel­op­ments that inject each prop­erty with not only a sense of place, but a dis­tinct style, archi­tec­ture and an extremely per­son­al­ized style of ser­vice. At this level of the mar­ket, Mankar­ios said, ser­vice is the major defin­ing fac­tor that wins or loses a guest.

Mankar­ios has long been an expert in ser­vice deliv­ery, his firm’s hall­mark. “Ser­vice is our defin­ing fac­tor and the abil­ity to deliver com­pre­hen­sive per­son­al­ized ser­vice. We will take each guest and make sure they feel they are the only guest in the build­ing,” said Mankarios.

Tim Koogle, CEO of Serendip­ity Land Hold­ings, said one of the rea­sons they selected Mankar­ios Part­ner­ship was the company’s under­stand­ing of per­son­al­ized lux­ury and ser­vice. “Atef Mankar­ios and his team’s expe­ri­ence in devel­op­ing and oper­at­ing such world class resorts as Las Ven­tanas at Paraiso in Cabo San Lucas, The Lanes­bor­ough in Lon­don, and some of the world’s great­est hotels and resorts, led us to this excit­ing selec­tion. Their level of exper­tise and cred­i­ble track record in cre­at­ing and oper­at­ing one-of-a-kind resorts guided our deci­sion mak­ing. We are look­ing for­ward to a long and suc­cess­ful rela­tion­ship,” Koogle said.

One way he said the expe­ri­ence will be deliv­ered is through an excel­lent food and bev­er­age pro­gram he promises will never rely on celebrity chefs, who he said are rarely behind the stove because they are off open­ing even more out­lets. Instead, they groom chefs from the inside and give them the nec­es­sary tools to cre­ate a top culi­nary expe­ri­ence. In any event, Mankar­ios said true lux­ury afi­ciona­dos are past hav­ing their meals served under the moniker of a celebrity chef.
“The con­sumer today is more sophis­ti­cated and well rounded and doesn’t believe in going to a place because there’s a name on the door. They go beyond that to what is on the table. We also know bet­ter than to chase around a name; we will leave that for the uni­formed,” Mankar­ios said.
Though the Mankar­ios Part­ner­ship has been offered many advi­sory and man­age­ment con­tracts, Mankar­ios said the only effec­tive way to run this busi­ness is to be highly selec­tive regard­ing the projects his team takes on. He stud­ies the fun­da­men­tals to make sure it is a new or exist­ing devel­op­ment is worth pur­su­ing. With the Punta de Mita project, Mankar­ios said in 10 years the mar­ket will be as strong as Los Cabos.

The Punta de Mita project will make its debut some­time in 2008.

Fadesa invests 27 mln eur in land for in planned Mex­i­can tourist resort

MADRID (AFX) — Fadesa Inmo­bil­iaria SA said it has invested 27 mln eur to acquire four stretches of land in Nayarit, on the Mex­i­can Pacific coast, to develop a tourist resort.

In a state­ment, Fadesa said it plans to build a 640-room hotel, a res­i­den­tial area of 1,284 rooms and a beach club on the land.

‘The project forms part of the first phase of a plan designed by the Mex­i­can gov­ern­mentto con­vert the Clip Nayarit in to a lead­ing tourist area, such as the Riv­iera Maya on the Caribbean,’ Fadesa said.

Fadesa’s invest­ment accounts for only four of a total of 21 sec­tions of land due to be devel­oped, the com­pany added.

A Mex­i­can trend­set­ter
By Andréa R. Vaucher
Inter­na­tional Her­ald Tri­bune
FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2005

COSTA CAREYES, Mex­ico Approach Costa Careyes from the sea, and the vibrant col­ors of the houses pop out at you. The indi­gos and ochres echo the plumage of the exotic birds that inhabit this jun­gle par­adise; the pur­ples and ver­mil­ions are as daz­zling as the birds of par­adise and gin­ger lilies.

Archi­tec­turally, the vil­las are as auda­cious as their exte­rior tints and seem to sprout from the ver­tig­i­nous cliffs as organ­i­cally as the lush vegetation.

At the beach­front restau­rant where the con­ver­sa­tion is in half a dozen lan­guages, Gian Franco Brignone, his white hair and caf­tan flow­ing, chat­ted with a bikini-clad beauty and a dash­ing young man in mud-covered polo clothes.

Thirty-five years ago, Brignone, now 79, had the fore­sight to buy a swath of rain for­est and sandy coast along 13 kilo­me­ters, or 8 miles, of this deserted stretch of Mexico’s Pacific coast between Man­zanillo and Puerto Val­larta, in the state of Jalisco, even though no road con­nected the towns.

This lux­ury devel­op­ment now con­sists of 42 vil­las, 40 smaller casitas and a 48-room hotel.
An artist and entre­pre­neur from a Turin bank­ing fam­ily, Brignone came to Careyes on a tip from Antenor Patiño, the Boli­vian tin baron who devel­oped Las Hadas, one of Mexico’s first lux­ury resorts. Brignone hired a plane and flew over Careyes’s dra­matic ram­parts, which rise steeply out of the sea. Then he packed up his fam­ily in Paris and moved.

His son Gior­gio Brignone, who runs the Careyes real estate oper­a­tion and its polo club, said: “My father wanted to go to a coun­try that had good weather all year round, a place with a sta­ble polit­i­cal sys­tem that was close to an impor­tant mar­ket. Europe was a lit­tle nar­row for my father, because he had a broad imagination.”

The bun­ga­lows that Gian Franco Brignone built on the beach became a place for friends, like the Fiat tycoon Gianni Agnelli and the British financier James Gold­smith, to don pareos and Speedos and take a break from the Euro­pean hus­tle. In 1973, as the Man­zanillo air­port opened and a road linked Man­zanillo and Puerto Val­larta, Brignone began to build his dream.

Inspired by Glo­ria Guinness’s Aca­pulco villa, which fea­tured curved stucco walls and open-air liv­ing areas, Brignone pieced together his Careyes aesthetic.

He com­bined ele­ments of Mex­i­can mod­ernism — specif­i­cally the vivid col­ors and inter­play with nature espoused by Luis Bar­ragán, win­ner of the 1980 Pritzker Archi­tec­ture Prize — with his own Euro­pean sen­si­bil­ity and eye for detail.

The first house — the eight-bedroom, bright blue Casa Mi Ojo, with its dra­matic hang­ing bridge sus­pended 30 meters, or 100 feet, over the crash­ing waves and con­nect­ing the house with a pri­vate island — was a col­lab­o­ra­tion with a Bar­ragán dis­ci­ple, Marco Aldaco, and set the stan­dard for future Careyes residences.

If the Careyes house has sig­na­ture details, they are the infin­ity pool, seem­ingly sus­pended over the sea, and the open-air great room.

The win­dows have shut­ters, but never screens, and frame breath­tak­ing views. The floors are made from ham­mered con­crete and mar­ble chips, and much of the cus­tom fur­ni­ture is built of the same “ele­phant skin” stucco as the walls. Cab­i­netry is carved from local woods to look like Moroc­can mouchara­bie screens and to allow the air to cir­cu­late through­out the rooms.
“My father made a mar­riage of Mediter­ranean and Mex­i­can archi­tec­ture, mix­ing the Euro­pean sen­su­al­ity with the Mex­i­can dar­ing, col­ors and open­ness,” Gior­gio Brignone said.

“And in doing so he enriched both styles. This became the Careyes style — a very human archi­tec­ture, which has been copied up and down the coast.”

Gian Franco Brignone began sell­ing land in 1976, shortly after he built the hotel, the El Careyes Beach Resort, which is now man­aged by Star­wood under its Lux­ury Col­lec­tion brand. To pur­chase land, buy­ers had to respect his strict archi­tec­tural and eco­log­i­cal require­ments.
Gior­gio Brignone said: “We don’t use bull­doz­ers here. If there’s a rock or a tree we build around it.”

There is also a slightly tongue-in-cheek list of 27 emo­tional, spir­i­tual and prac­ti­cal qual­i­ties that the founder expects Careyes home­own­ers to pos­sess. (See “What to bring,” at right.) These include liv­ing in the present, respect­ing the her­itage of Mex­ico, being poly­glot and hav­ing com­mit­ted most of the seven deadly sins, espe­cially sloth.

The first per­son to buy land in Careyes — an Amer­i­can widow who lived in Switzer­land and Punta del Este, Uruguay — epit­o­mizes the cur­rent Careyes community.

It is an urbane crowd that has done the Costa Smer­alda and St. Bart’s and has at least a sec­ond home in places like Man­hat­tan and Mon­te­v­ideo, Uruguay. A young Mex­i­can steel mag­nate recently bought the adja­cent prop­erty, the old Club Med Playa Blanca, and plans to turn it into a vaca­tion com­pound for fam­ily and friends.

Ini­tially, life in Careyes was hardly what such sophis­ti­cates were used to; there was no phone ser­vice until the mid-1990s. Kari Ardis­sone, the wife of the for­mer inven­tor and plas­tics tycoon Alberto Ardis­sone recalled dri­ving down the coast to a lit­tle town and wait­ing in line with Henry Kissinger to use the only phone for miles.

Since 1988, the Ardis­sones have spent the Christmas-to-Easter polo sea­son in Careyes; the rest of the year they divide between Lon­don and Lake Mag­giore in Italy. Like most Careyes home­own­ers, who come from 27 dif­fer­ent coun­tries, both speak sev­eral languages.

Alberto Ardis­sone calls their villa, Agua Alta, a “Moroc­can hacienda,” which cov­ers 1,000 square meters, or 11,000 square feet, and includes nine bed­rooms and two pools.

Describ­ing the huge appre­ci­a­tion in value at Careyes, Gior­gio Brignone said: “We orig­i­nally sold the land here for $2 a square foot. Now it’s $20 a square foot. Orig­i­nally four– or five-bedroom vil­las in Careyes went for $600,000 and now they are $2.5 million.”

“But the peo­ple who bought didn’t buy for the invest­ment,” Brignone added. “They bought for plea­sure and it ended up being a good business.”

Some Careyes vil­las cost even more. The twin 930-square-meter ochre “cas­tles” — as Gian Franco Brignone calls them — posi­tioned on promon­to­ries on either side of the bay, are for sale at more than $10 mil­lion and rent for $5,000 a night.

Built in 1996 by Brignone and another Bar­ragán dis­ci­ple, Jean-Claude Gal­ib­ert, Sol de Ori­ente and Sol de Occi­dente are named for the direc­tions that they face.

Each has eight bed­rooms and a 930-square-meter infin­ity pool that sur­rounds the house like a moat. These are the accom­mo­da­tions that have been favored by Gior­gio Armani, Fran­cis Ford Cop­pola, Sil­vio Berlus­coni and Ste­vie Wonder.

Res­i­dents say Careyes is seductive.

“It’s a place where you can have a din­ner party with fan­tas­tic peo­ple every night or run off to a deserted beach and feel the power of the sea and the nature,” Kari Ardis­sone said.
“The clos­est gas sta­tion is one hour away. There’s no Sam’s Club. You still have to be a roman­tic, dare­dev­ily kind of per­son to love it here, CNN notwithstanding.”