Hook the Cure Fish­ing Tour­na­ment nets over $150,000 for cys­tic fibro­sis patient care and research
The inau­gural Red­bone Tour­na­ment Series event brought U.S. anglers to Puerto Val­larta Mex­ico for fun in the sun and excit­ing fish­ing action

(Press­Method) — Puerto Val­larta Mex­ico was the des­ti­na­tion for anglers who par­tic­i­pated in this year’s IOTEC/Toshiba Hook the Cure Tour­na­ment to ben­e­fit the Cys­tic Fibro­sis Foun­da­tion that occurred this week­end, Octo­ber 27th and 28th.

The inau­gural Red­bone Tour­na­ment Series event brought sev­eral boats brim­ming with anglers early at the docks ready and eagerly await­ing for the clock to strike six mark­ing the start of the Tour­na­ment. Fri­day was day one of the com­pe­ti­tion, on Sat­ur­day it cul­mi­nated with the offi­cial weigh in at Char­ter Dreams.

Week­end fes­tiv­i­ties included a pre-tournament recep­tion, spon­sored by Vene­gas World Star Realty, at Villa Pre­miere Hotel and Spa with Puerto Val­larta Mayor, Lic. Gus­tavo Gon­za­lez Vil­lasenor; Tra­di­tional Mex­i­can Fiesta spon­sored by PVRPV.com; and live auc­tion at Casa Las Pal­mas in Punta de Mita hosted by Paul Motenko and Jerry Hen­nessy of BJ’s Restau­rants. Puerto Val­larta All Stars and Los Bam­bi­nos pro­vided enter­tain­ment through­out the weekend.

The Inter­na­tional Friend­ship Club of Puerto Val­larta secured all of the vol­un­teers. As excited spec­ta­tors and spon­sors filled the Marina, most boats made it in by five for the offi­cial weigh in “party” hosted by Landbanker’s Inter­na­tional. Win­ners included over­all cham­pi­ons, Jerry Sabino and Ron Wil­son (Tuna Divi­sion 98.5 pounds); Reg­gie Debuhr and Len Pieroni (Dorado Divi­sion 30.5 pounds); and Mike Feld­man and Mike Amador (Most Released Bill­fish 2 released). Accord­ing to Bob Hus­ton, 2006 event chair­man, $151,000 NET was gen­er­ated for cys­tic fibro­sis patient care, research and education.

Cys­tic fibro­sis is a genetic dis­ease affect­ing approx­i­mately 40,000 peo­ple in the United States and Mex­ico. A defect in the CF gene causes the body to pro­duce abnor­mally thick, sticky mucus that leads to chronic, life-threatening lung infec­tions and impairs digestion.

When the Cys­tic Fibro­sis Foun­da­tion was estab­lished in 1955, few chil­dren lived to even attend ele­men­tary school. Today because of research and care sup­ported by the CF Foun­da­tion with money raised through dona­tions from fam­i­lies, cor­po­ra­tions and foun­da­tions the median pre­dicted age for peo­ple with CF is nearly 37 years.

Addi­tional spon­sors include Wat­son Land Com­pany, Pacific Design Estates Con­struc­tion, Norm Wil­son & Sons, Inc., William and Helen Close, Archi­tec­tural Tra­di­tions, Rotary Inter­na­tional, Out­look News, Gray Taxi­dermy, Col­liers Inter­na­tional and Skip­per & Dukes Off­shore Fish­ing Series. 97.1 FREE FM on-air per­son­al­ity, Leo Quinones, served as week­end mas­ter of cer­e­monies and auctioneer.

Plans are under­way for the 2007 event. Spon­sors, anglers, and vol­un­teers are needed. Con­tact Gary Green, Cys­tic Fibro­sis Foundation’s Direc­tor of Cor­po­rate Devel­op­ment, at (714) 938‑1393 or through email at ggreen@cff.org for information.

Novem­ber 20, 2006 06:29 PM

Des­ti­na­tion club indus­try leader Exclu­sive Resorts is on pace to announce a $1 bil­lion lux­ury real estate port­fo­lio by the end of 2006.

In Octo­ber, Helium Report spoke with COO Michael Bein­dorff about the club’s antic­i­pated release of 70 new res­i­dences in the fourth quar­ter of this year. The des­ti­na­tion club’s total port­fo­lio is expected to increase to 370 homes in 35 des­ti­na­tions worldwide.

$1 Bil­lion Portfolio

At an aver­age home value of $3 mil­lion each, the implied total value of the 370 resort and met­ro­pol­i­tan res­i­dences exceeds $1 bil­lion, a stag­ger­ing fig­ure for the still nascent des­ti­na­tion club indus­try. Exclu­sive Resorts dom­i­nates the new lux­ury travel seg­ment with more than 2,400 members.

A recent fea­ture in Newsweek about Steve Case, Exclu­sive Resorts’ pri­mary investor, high­lighted the buy­ing power of the rapidly expand­ing des­ti­na­tion club:

“Today [Exclu­sive Resorts] buys 20 or more [homes] at a time, allow­ing it to get dis­counts from builders and to spread the costs of house­keep­ing, main­te­nance and concierges over mul­ti­ple properties.”

An inde­pen­dent finan­cial audit by a Big 4 account­ing firm could ver­ify the pro­jected ten-figure real estate port­fo­lio some time next year. Exclu­sive Resorts has a third-party firm audit its books to assure mem­bers that the club has suf­fi­cient net assets to refund mem­ber deposits.

Ear­lier this year, the sec­ond largest club in the indus­try, Tan­ner and Haley, filed for Chap­ter 11 bank­ruptcy pro­tec­tion, putting all of its 874 mem­bers on a list of unse­cured creditors.

360% Annual Growth Rate

Despite the chal­lenges faced by its com­peti­tor, Exclu­sive Resorts appears to have achieved more than a 360% annual growth rate over a four-year period. Newsweek reported, “[in the] spring of 2003, Exclu­sive Resorts had just 25 mem­bers and four homes.” By next spring, the club will likely have more than 2,500 mem­bers and nearly 400 homes, imply­ing the firm has grown close to 100X and roughly quadru­pled in size every year since Steve Case bought a stake in early 2003.

The announce­ment of a $1 bil­lion port­fo­lio could fur­ther stim­u­late both con­sol­i­da­tion and invest­ment in the indus­try. Two merg­ers have already occurred this year (more here and here) and oth­ers may be in the works. In the Newsweek story, Exclu­sive Resorts’ man­age­ment alluded to the pos­si­bil­ity that “they wouldn’t be sur­prised if luxury-hotel play­ers like the Four Sea­sons or Ritz Carl­ton enter the fray.”

Indeed, we reported ear­lier today that Banyan Tree Resorts has launched a des­ti­na­tion club based in Asia. Last month, we broke the news about Ciel, the third des­ti­na­tion club founded by a bil­lion­aire. If Case’s vision is right and Exclu­sive Resorts ulti­mately serves “tens of thou­sands of mem­bers,” then it might not be long before the firm is announc­ing a ten bil­lion dol­lar real estate port­fo­lio. Good thing they just added Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf to their team.

Web Posted: 11/21/2006 01:56 AM CST
Meena Thiru­ven­gadam
Express-News Busi­ness Writer

Cacheaux, Cava­zos & New­ton is the law firm that NAFTA built.

It opened Jan. 24, 1994, about a month after the land­mark North Amer­i­can Free Trade Agree­ment took effect. Busi­ness has been boom­ing ever since.

“It’s the NAFTA effect,” said Rene Cacheaux, one of the firm’s founders. “That cre­ated a need for a niche firm like this.”

When it opened, Cacheaux, Cava­zos & New­ton had just six attor­neys in three offices. But as the value of bilat­eral trade between the United States and Mex­ico nearly tripled from 1994 to 2005 — from $100.3 bil­lion to $290.5 bil­lion — the firm has expanded to include 37 lawyers in eight cities.

The major­ity of its lawyers are based and licensed to prac­tice in Mex­ico, where the firm does much of its work.

“This is a very unusual struc­ture for a law firm,” part­ner Joseph B. New­ton said. “As the bor­der gets blurred and as more peo­ple get used to being in the U.S. and in Mex­ico, I think the move­ment will be toward hav­ing more firms like this.”

When one of the country’s largest insur­ance com­pa­nies wanted to enter the Mex­i­can mar­ket, it came to Cacheaux, Cava­zos & New­ton. Mex­i­can investors want­ing to make money north of the bor­der look to the firm for guid­ance. And U.S. com­pa­nies inter­ested in man­u­fac­tur­ing in Mex­ico seek its advice.

Among Cacheaux, Cava­zos and Newton’s clients are Frost Bank, John­son Con­trols, Nokia and Fruit of the Loom.

“We’ve been work­ing with Cacheaux, Cava­zos & New­ton very hap­pily for a num­ber of years now,” said Frank Mar­tinez, exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent of Frost Bank’s inter­na­tional com­mer­cial lend­ing divi­sion. About 99 per­cent of that division’s busi­ness is Mexico-related.

“We needed a lawyer who under­stood Mex­i­can law but was also an Amer­i­can lawyer,” Mar­tinez said.

“A lot of our suc­cess depends on the type of legal advice we receive. We need to know that if we do have a prob­lem with our loans, that our doc­u­ments and paper­work would hold up in Mex­i­can courts,” he said.

It’s the need for that spe­cial­ized knowl­edge that has put inter­na­tional busi­ness lawyers in high demand, said Luis Unikel, a for­eign legal adviser with San Antonio-based Mar­tin & Drought.

“It’s such a gen­er­ous mar­ket,” he said. “It’s enough for me to keep busy eight hours a day, five or six days a week, and still be asked to come back the next year and do the same.”

Cacheaux, Cava­zos & New­ton focuses on busi­ness trans­ac­tions involv­ing the United States, Mex­ico, and to a lesser extent Canada. It’s the kind of work that founders Cacheaux, New­ton and Daniel Cava­zos were doing long before NAFTA.

Cacheaux fol­lowed in his father’s foot­steps, becom­ing a lawyer in Mex­ico City before mov­ing to South Texas for what was to be a one– or two-year break from big-city life. He met New­ton while work­ing in McAllen and San Anto­nio for Mar­tin & Drought, then known as Mar­tin, Drought & Tor­res Inc. The two paired up with Cava­zos, a lawyer friend of Cacheaux’s who was work­ing in McAllen, and their bina­tional law firm was born.

At the time, man­u­fac­tur­ing accounted for about 80 per­cent of the busi­ness. But as that indus­try has matured and faced increased com­pe­ti­tion from Asia, real estate trans­ac­tions have begun com­mand­ing more of the firm’s time.

Now about 40 per­cent of the firm’s work­load is related to man­u­fac­tur­ing, 30 per­cent to real estate and 30 per­cent to taxes, cus­toms and litigation.

More U.S. retirees and vaca­tion­ers are now look­ing to put their dol­lars into Mex­i­can prop­erty. “There’s not this fear any­more about ‘if I buy a condo in Mex­ico, is it going to get taken away?’” New­ton said.

More large-scale real estate investors also are flock­ing to Mex­ico. Com­pa­nies around the world are look­ing to develop the country’s coast­lines. “All of these small, over­looked spots are boom­ing now,” Cacheaux said.

More for­eign com­pa­nies are explor­ing south-of-the-border agri­cul­tural oper­a­tions as well.

“Mex­ico has loos­ened its restric­tions on the own­er­ship and oper­a­tion of agri­cul­tural land,” New­ton said. “That’s mak­ing this a big growth area.”

And there are more Mex­i­can invest­ment dol­lars flow­ing north to cities like San Antonio.

“The mind­set of the Mex­i­cans has changed toward San Anto­nio,” Cacheaux said. “They used to see San Anto­nio as a place for shop­ping. Now it’s seen as a sophis­ti­cated place to do business.”

As NAFTA grows older, these attor­neys expect busi­ness to con­tinue boom­ing — both in Mex­ico and San Anto­nio. “There are more and more of these projects every day,” New­ton said. “And they need lawyers.”

Hot Mar­ket In Hous­ing
Lisa Hess 11.27.06, 12:00 AM ET

South of the bor­der, home builders are hot. Shares of the dom­i­nant Mex­i­can builders rose 50% on aver­age over the past 12 months. That’s a sharp con­trast to the U.S., where a slow­down in hous­ing has doused investors’ ardor for any­thing to do with real estate. But Mex­i­can hous­ing stocks will go higher. You should buy some.

Credit Mexico’s Pres­i­dent Vicente Fox for reju­ve­nat­ing the nation’s mori­bund mort­gage mar­ket and boost­ing sub­si­dies to low-income buy­ers, thereby per­mit­ting them to get home loans. The need is huge: Two mil­lion Mex­i­can fam­i­lies do not have homes, and 2 mil­lion more homes are in dire need of repair.

While Fox was unable to get tax code and labor law reform passed in the opposition-controlled leg­isla­tive branch, he did man­age to stream­line the bloated bureau­cra­cies that were doing very lit­tle to deliver hous­ing. His first step was to con­sol­i­date hous­ing plan­ning under one agency he cre­ated. Until then there was no cen­tral­ized source of data on home sales, hous­ing starts or even an inven­tory of land.

Mak­ing mort­gages eas­ier to pro­cure had a pro­found effect. The bot­tle­neck to growth has been the avail­abil­ity of a mort­gage rather than how many houses could be built. Unlike their coun­ter­parts in the U.S., Mex­i­can devel­op­ers won’t build on spec.

In a coun­try with a 50% poverty rate, the vast major­ity of mort­gage credit comes from two gov­ern­ment hous­ing funds, known as Infon­avit, for low-income work­ers in the pri­vate sec­tor, and Fovis­ste, for those who work for the gov­ern­ment. These orga­ni­za­tions are funded with oblig­a­tory employer con­tri­bu­tions equal to 5% of total salaries. Between the two they orig­i­nate two-thirds of all mort­gage loans.

Mex­i­can lenders are pro­tected from ris­ing inter­est rates because all new mort­gages are adjustable and indexed to infla­tion. Bor­row­ers are pro­tected by “neg­a­tive amor­ti­za­tion,” mean­ing that any rate hikes are tacked on to the prin­ci­pal and home­own­ers don’t have to fork over extra cash for their monthly pay­ments. Fur­ther, bor­row­ers under the Infon­avit pro­gram need not put any money down.

In 2006 through Sep­tem­ber Infon­avit orig­i­nated 435,000 loans with an aver­age bal­ance of 230,000 pesos ($21,500), up 45% from 2004. Fovis­ste also saw its loan port­fo­lio expand.
Infon­avit has pub­lished a five-year fore­cast of a 9% min­i­mum aver­age yearly rate in mort­gage growth, with an opti­mistic sce­nario of 22% growth. I think growth will be closer to the higher num­ber.

More good news is that Fox’s suc­ces­sor, Felipe Calderon, wants to increase the hous­ing sub­sidy pro­gram. Calderon, who takes office in Decem­ber, belongs to Fox’s center-right National Action Party (PAN). Home builders got the jit­ters ear­lier this year over the prospect that left­ist can­di­date Lopez Obrador might win the elec­tion, yet Calderon nar­rowly pre­vailed, in some­thing of a replay of Florida 2000. Another plus: PAN has increased its minor­ity mem­ber­ship in Mexico’s Con­gress, giv­ing Calder??n more bar­gain­ing power.

This growth story is why I am inter­ested in four excel­lent Mex­i­can home builders with good to great man­age­ments, strong bal­ance sheets and geo­graph­i­cally diver­si­fied activ­i­ties. Three are found on the Mex­i­can exchange; only one has Amer­i­can Deposi­tary Receipts traded on the New York Stock Exchange. An equal dol­lar invest­ment in each of the four is prob­a­bly the best strategy.

Homex (44, HXM ), with a $2.5 bil­lion mar­ket cap­i­tal­iza­tion, is the one on the NYSE and has an afford­able trail­ing price/earnings ratio of 17. Canny investor Samuel Zell invested $32 mil­lion in the com­pany in 2002, which quadru­pled by the time Homex went pub­lic in June 2004.

Cor­po­ra­cion Geo (3, GEOB.MX ) has a P/E of 20 and is poised for even bet­ter growth. Its inven­tory of vacant land will last it, at its present con­struc­tion rate, for 4.6 years.

Urbi Desar­rol­los Urbanos (3, URBI.MX ) focuses on urban areas and the north­ern part of Mex­ico, which have the fastest pop­u­la­tion growth. Using an elec­tronic sys­tem it calls Urbi­net, the com­pany helps peo­ple get loans. The most costly of the lot, at 25 times trail­ing earn­ings, this stock nev­er­the­less is worth the money.

Con­sor­cio Ara (5, ARA.MX ) has a tremen­dous bal­ance sheet, with cash (net of all interest-bearing lia­bil­i­ties) of $545 mil­lion. It has long traded at a dis­count to the oth­ers, likely because one wealthy fam­ily, the Ahu­mada clan, owns 50% of the stock. But the float is siz­able enough and the prospects bright enough for that dis­count to narrow.

Lisa W. Hess is a New York money man­ager. Visit her home­page at
www.forbes.com/hess.

You’re ready to com­mit to a prop­erty in Mex­ico – now comes the paper­work phase. Actu­ally, this is pretty pain­less when man­aged by a com­pe­tent Notario, or notary. One thing he will han­dle for you is the required appraisal process – that is, obtain­ing an opin­ion or esti­mate of value from a pro­fes­sional in the field. In Mex­ico the autho­rized appraisal is quite dif­fer­ent from a com­mer­cial, or mar­ket, valuation.

As part of the pur­chase process in Mex­ico, an offi­cial appraisal of the land, or an avaluo, is required before any trans­fer of title and will be obtained after the sale con­tract is signed. The appraisal must be made by an offi­cial appraiser, usu­ally an archi­tect or a civil engi­neer, who is rec­og­nized as a Per­ito Val­u­ador by the prop­erty tax author­i­ties in the munic­i­pal­ity where the prop­erty is located. In addi­tion to the costs of the appraisal ($300 to $500 USD), a small fee will need to be paid to the pub­lic reg­istry depart­ment for autho­riza­tion of the appraisal.

In Jalisco and Nayarit, as in most Mex­i­can states, there is a pub­lic entity that pro­vides the “min­i­mum legal value” of the prop­erty, or the Cat­a­stro. Although the Cat­a­stro is an essen­tial num­ber for tax lia­bil­i­ties and other mat­ters related to the prop­erty, it is usu­ally a frac­tion of the true com­mer­cial value of the property.

Pur­chasers wish­ing to obtain a com­mer­cial val­u­a­tion of a prop­erty before con­tract­ing or those obtain­ing insti­tu­tional financ­ing should con­sult an inde­pen­dent appraiser. Orga­ni­za­tions based out­side Mex­ico, such as The National Asso­ci­a­tion of Inde­pen­dent Fee Apprais­ers, which has mem­bers in Mex­ico, or another per­son involved in the trans­ac­tion, such as the Notario, who is bound by law to be a neu­tral party, the mort­gage bro­ker or the real estate agent, may sug­gest some­one. Alter­na­tively, check the tele­phone book for Puerto Val­larta or Guadala­jara under Avalúos en General.

You’ve found the per­fect place to pur­chase in Bahía de Ban­deras. Now, meet your Notario. Although the trans­la­tion of “Notario” is “notary pub­lic,” the Notario in Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries has a very dif­fer­ent role than the notary in the United States or Canada, who autho­rizes signatures.

The Mex­i­can Notario is an attor­ney, at least 35 years old, who has prac­ticed in a notary’s at least three years, passed a strin­gent exam­i­na­tion, and has been appointed as a Notario by the gov­er­nor of the state in which he is prac­tic­ing. (There is sup­posed to be one Notario for every 30,000 inhab­i­tants.) The Notario has the power to wit­ness and cer­tify doc­u­ments that require absolute authen­tic­ity and han­dles wills and busi­ness con­tracts, as well as real estate mat­ters. In addi­tion, the Notario has the respon­si­bil­ity for the man­age­ment and stor­age of orig­i­nal documents.

Although the Notario is a lawyer and gen­er­ally selected and paid for by the buyer, the Notario won’t func­tion as your attor­ney in the real estate trans­ac­tion. Rather, the notary is respon­si­ble for being neu­tral and fair to all par­ties and he can­not advise any­one involved in a trans­ac­tion for which he is act­ing as notary. Accord­ingly, if you wish legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion in a real estate mat­ter, you’ll need to hire your own attorney.

Under Mex­i­can law, the deed to prop­erty must be pre­pared by a Notario, who will ensure that all doc­u­men­ta­tion and per­mits are in order and that there are no liens or judg­ments against the prop­erty, so that the trans­ac­tion can pro­ceed. He will also cal­cu­late the seller’s cap­i­tal gains taxes and the buyer’s acqui­si­tion taxes. In short, every­thing offi­cial to do with your trans­ac­tion should be done by the Notario.

Because of the respon­si­bil­ity and poten­tial lia­bil­ity the Notario may incur, notary fees are sig­nif­i­cantly greater in Mex­ico than those of notaries in the USA and Canada. These fees are based on a rate sched­ule set by an offi­cial com­mis­sion and are tied to the amount declared in the prop­erty trans­fer and are about 1.5% of the trans­ac­tion value. There is also the 15% I.V.A. to be paid on the services.

Your real estate agent or lawyer may sug­gest the Notario with whom he usu­ally works, or you may solicit ref­er­ences from peo­ple who already own in Mex­ico. Fees can vary because of the “ser­vice” com­po­nent of the charge, so a few tele­phone calls may be in order, most Notar­ios speak­ing Eng­lish. Find some­one you’re com­fort­able with because you may be call­ing on him again for other matters.

That beau­ti­ful home or condo on the bay is now yours, and you’re plan­ning to enjoy more time in Val­larta. Not meant as a dire pre­dic­tion, but a prac­ti­cal approach, you may need to spend some time in a lawyer’s office in Mex­ico, as well. The con­tracts for that new busi­ness, the will for cer­tain assets in Mex­ico, and the lease on the condo you’re rent­ing out will all require local legal ser­vices. And in the event of an unfor­tu­nate occur­rence such as an auto­mo­bile acci­dent or a law­suit, an attor­ney would be nec­es­sary.
The Notario who han­dled your real estate pur­chase is, indeed, a highly trained attor­ney. These spe­cial lawyers give up pri­vate prac­tice to become agents of record, their duties includ­ing authen­ti­cat­ing doc­u­ments, exam­in­ing wills and con­tracts as to proper form, and act­ing as offi­cial recorder in con­nec­tion with real estate and other busi­ness. Although he can­not rep­re­sent you in lit­i­ga­tion or act as your advo­cate, only advise to pre­vent lit­i­ga­tion, the Notario can prob­a­bly rec­om­mend an Abo­gado, or attor­ney, for your par­tic­u­lar need, per­haps some­one from his own office.

As in the USA or Canada, you should seek advice from trust­wor­thy sources and check ref­er­ences before hir­ing a lawyer. Legally, only a licensed attor­ney should pro­vide legal advice. If an attor­ney is qual­i­fied in Mex­ico, he should have a cedula pro­fe­sional. You may ask to see this doc­u­ment and to have the attorney’s license num­ber included in a retainer agree­ment before employ­ing any ser­vices. Also as in the USA and Canada, Mex­i­can lawyers are becom­ing more spe­cial­ized as the vol­ume and com­plex­ity of Mex­i­can law grows. So, seek an attor­ney with expe­ri­ence and knowl­edge regard­ing your mat­ter.

Mex­i­can lawyers are highly edu­cated and many speak Eng­lish. Stu­dents enter law school after 11 years of for­mal edu­ca­tion and then work for a firm or gov­ern­ment office as a clerk (Pas­ante), until pre­sent­ing an oral exam­i­na­tion to become a Licen­ci­ado en Dere­cho. In Mex­ico, lawyers are licensed to prac­tice through­out the coun­try, not in just one state, as in the USA. There­fore, you can hire an attor­ney in Jalisco to han­dle an issue in Nayarit – or in Mex­ico City.

Mort­gage financ­ing is now avail­able in Mex­ico, although it is just being intro­duced and still work­ing through grow­ing pains. Purchase-only financ­ing is avail­able (no remod­e­la­tion loans) for sin­gle fam­ily res­i­dences and con­dos with a 20-year mort­gage (25 & 30 year amor­ti­za­tion loans are on the way) with a four-year fixed loan rate. Rates vary but at least they are well below 10%, finally.

The loans are cur­rently avail­able only for US cit­i­zens (sorry, Cana­di­ans!). The major hold­back with regards to how quickly the loans can be put together is on the seller’s side with regards to the can­cel­la­tion of the trust. Unfor­tu­nately not all the banks are han­dling the process as quickly as they could be. Bor­row­ers can be approved within 48 hours in most cases.

There are a num­ber of dif­fer­ent bro­kers enter­ing the mar­ket­place and it should be noted that some are bet­ter than oth­ers. Be sure to check around by ques­tion­ing a few com­pa­nies and ask­ing your realtor’s opin­ion on them. Hav­ing a bro­ker that knows how the sys­tem works locally can make the dif­fer­ence as to whether the loan will actu­ally hap­pen or not.

Have you seen that per­fect prop­erty on the bay, but you’re not quite pre­pared to cash in your US or Cana­dian invest­ments to make it yours? Are you set to make the move to Puerto Val­larta, but just a bit shy of ready cash for a condo? Now you can stock up on sun­tan lotion, because mort­gage financ­ing has come to Mex­ico. “The secret of great liv­ing and invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in Mex­i­can resort areas is out!” points out Eduardo Perez of Con­fi­casa Inter­na­tional, and he believes that “the avail­abil­ity of loans will only fuel that growth, with Val­larta lead­ing the way.”

Tra­di­tion­ally, real estate pur­chases in Mex­ico have been lim­ited to full cash pay­ment at the time of clos­ing, but recent changes in Mex­i­can reg­u­la­tions regard­ing fore­clo­sure on foreign-financed prop­erty have made lenders more com­fort­able, and cross-border loans are now avail­able through sev­eral bro­ker­age firms with rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Val­larta. Lenders range from inter­na­tion­ally known finan­cial insti­tu­tions to pri­vate entre­pre­neurs and funds. Ter­ence Reilly of Mexlend explains that because real estate here has been mov­ing upwards so steadily lenders want to par­tic­i­pate in this sta­ble, but vibrant, market.

A key word in real estate lend­ing in Mex­ico is “vari­ety.” While some bro­kers han­dle only com­pleted res­i­dences, oth­ers are explor­ing refi­nanc­ing, con­struc­tion loans, pre-construction bridge financ­ing and advances for unim­proved lots. Loans are avail­able in both US dol­lars and pesos, pri­mar­ily to US and Cana­dian res­i­dents. And terms can range from five years up to 30, with 20-year loans being the most com­mon. Although inter­est arrange­ments vary from fixed to float­ing rates based on an index such as “prime,” rates are gen­er­ally higher than in the USA. Other vari­ables are title insur­ance require­ments and loan fees.

Qual­i­fi­ca­tions for bor­row­ers take into account that many peo­ple buy­ing in Mex­ico will no longer be employed when liv­ing here, so lenders will look at avail­able assets and credit his­tory, as well as income. The process, which usu­ally takes about 60 days from appli­ca­tion to clos­ing, is sim­i­lar to pro­ce­dures in the USA, and ini­tial appli­ca­tions may be avail­able online.

“The mar­ket is hot these days even with­out financ­ing, and these advances in financ­ing will heat it up even more,” points out Doug Jones of Mort­gages in Mex­ico, while Charles Alexan­der of Alexan­der, Bar­rett notes that these devel­op­ing pro­grams will help the com­mu­nity by allow­ing a diverse group of peo­ple to par­tic­i­pate in life on this beau­ti­ful bay.

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

The well kept secrets of Pacific Mexico’s dra­matic cliffs, coves and sand have long attracted the Blue blooded and Hol­ly­wood set look­ing for a quiet escape. Since open­ing up to for­eign invest­ment, Mex­ico has seen an explo­sion in lux­ury res­i­den­tial resort development.

Accord­ing to the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment, for­eign invest­ment in Mex­ico is on track to hit $20 bil­lion this year, up from $17.6 bil­lion in 2005.

Mex­ico also is draw­ing more atten­tion from Europe. Last year, Span­ish com­pa­nies were the top investors in the tourist indus­try, pump­ing $416 mil­lion into resort prop­er­ties. U.S. investors fol­lowed with $321 mil­lion, accord­ing to the tourism agency.

For North Shore Puerto Val­larta, the boom has brought world-class resort hotels, Mexico’s famed archi­tects, a com­mu­nity of celebrity CEOs, and a mas­sive out­lay of gov­ern­ment infrastructure.

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 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 devel­op­ment of North Shore Puerto Val­larta, Punta de Mita and the Nayarit coast is a spe­cial phe­nom­e­non for Mex­ico. Low den­sity devel­op­ments pre­serve the envi­ron­ment and cre­ate a bal­ance that is essen­tial for the high end coastal lifestyle that peo­ple dream about. It is truly amaz­ing what is hap­pen­ing. There are many active devel­op­ments to choose from along the North coast and the prop­er­ties are sell­ing well.

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 keeps the num­ber of landown­ers down and encour­ages devel­op­ment of high-end liv­ing. La Punta Realty, for exam­ple, offers pri­vate beach­front home site lots priced from $600,000 — $7 mil­lion USD. Unique and lux­u­ri­ous beach vil­las range from 2 to 20 mil­lion USD.

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, a Deepak Chopra branded res­i­den­tial spir­i­tual retreat. All have their own spe­cial­ized high end res­i­den­tial vil­las and condo projects.

Andrew Harper’s Hide­away Report, a bible for lux­ury trav­el­ers, high­lighted the Four Sea­sons, Punta Mita in its 25th annual read­ers’ sur­vey as the Best inter­na­tional resort.

Adja­cent to Punta Mita, other lux­ury hotel groups like the Ritz, Banyan Tree, The Omni, Hilton, One and Only Resorts and other hope to com­pete with sim­i­lar offerings.

La Punta Realty’s flag­ship devel­op­ment, El Banco will eas­ily be among the nicest lux­ury resorts in Mex­ico. Devel­oped by for­mer Yahoo Corp. CEO Tim Koogle , looks to exceed the qual­ity and archi­tec­tural sig­nif­i­cance of the Punta Mita Resort bring­ing grand colo­nial hacien­das to the seascapes and jun­gles of North Shore Puerto Val­larta.. The first phase of beach­front home sites at full ask­ing price in the pri­vate pri­or­ity pur­chas­ing period.

La Punta Realty has the most com­plete and inti­mate knowl­edge of the diverse and expan­sive coast­line of Nayarit and Jalisco. Please visit our booth to ask about the Mex­ico Land Cat­a­log of beaches and coves best suited for res­i­den­tial, hotel resort, or home site lots.. ( http://www.mexicolandcatalog.com)

The Future of Ban­deras Bay and beyond…

Mexico’s push to stim­u­late tourism and attract pri­vate investors began to take shape in 1974 with the cre­ation of the National Trust Fund for Tourism Devel­op­ment (Fonatur). Since its incep­tion, Fonatur has been respon­si­ble for plan­ning and devel­op­ing five sea­side des­ti­na­tions — Can­cun, Los Cabos, Ixtapa, Loreto and Huat­ulco — that gen­er­ate about 54% of Mexico’s for­eign tourism spending.

The goal now is to ele­vate the qual­ity and quan­tity of the tourism prod­uct while diver­si­fy­ing the prod­uct in an effort to attract even more invest­ment. At the same time, tourism offi­cials want to focus on attract­ing sus­tain­able devel­op­ment with rig­or­ous envi­ron­men­tal safeguards.

The Bay of Ban­deras has grown nat­u­rally, organ­i­cally, pri­vately, and 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. Val­ues in some mar­kets have tripled in five years — far exceed­ing the rates of return you find in the United States.

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 in the North of the bay, only a short dis­tance away from the sophis­ti­cated din­ing, gal­leries, shop­ping, and night life of Puerto Vallarta.

In the South is a con­do­minium explo­sion, pri­mar­ily in Nuevo Val­larta, Marina Val­larta and along the hill­sides of the Sierra Madres over­look­ing the town and the bay.

Earn­ing its rep­u­ta­tion as a pre­mier golfers’ des­ti­na­tion with Travel and Leisure hon­or­ing Punta Mita as third best golf resort in Mex­ico and Latin Amer­ica. 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 7 more golf courses around Puerto Val­larta Punta de Mita alone.