What to do when you have a net­work of real-estate bro­kers sell­ing new con­do­mini­ums, but few new con­dos to sell?

Edgardo Defor­tuna, who has made mil­lions sell­ing South Florida con­dos, hopes one answer is found on the Pacific shores of Mexico.

Defor­tuna, who heads For­tune Inter­na­tional, last year agreed to start sell­ing condo units built by Miami’s Related Group in Puerto Val­larta. It’s part of a plan that he and Related CEO Jorge Perez hope will ulti­mately include more than a half dozen projects across Latin Amer­ica and the Caribbean — and pro­vide a fruit­ful mar­ket until South Florida’s for­merly hot hous­ing indus­try recov­ers from its cold snap.

At a time when starts for res­i­den­tial projects are slow­ing to a trickle from West Palm Beach to Home­stead, those who sell new hous­ing like DeFortuna’s Brick­ell Avenue com­pany are hav­ing to strike out for new markets.

They are fol­low­ing dif­fer­ent trails. Inter­na­tional Sales Group in Aven­tura started mar­ket­ing a project in New Orleans last year, attempt­ing to take advan­tage of a lack of hous­ing after Kat­rina. Prodigy Net­work in Miami moved its head­quar­ters to New York City to bet­ter focus on its projects there, while also push­ing units in places like Mex­ico and Panama.

Latin Amer­ica has emerged as a place of oppor­tu­nity dur­ing the U.S. down­turn. A recent report by con­sul­tancy Ernst & Young cited the region for its steady eco­nomic growth yet rel­a­tive afford­abil­ity when com­pared to the United States and Europe.

”The over­all fun­da­men­tals are pos­i­tive,” said Roge­rio Basso, an E&Y ana­lyst cov­er­ing real estate and hos­pi­tal­ity in Latin Amer­ica. “Those investors who have the appetite to take mod­er­ate risks and iden­tify joint ven­ture part­ner­ships with local play­ers should be able to observe higher yields than in the U.S. today.”

For Defor­tuna and Perez, both of whom spent their child­hoods in Latin Amer­ica, the push into the region is being done with a dis­tinctly Miami flavor.

THE MIAMI CONNECTION

Take the Val­larta project. Its name, Icon Val­larta, echoes the Icon South Beach condo and the Icon Brick­ell hotel and condo project under con­struc­tion. Its archi­tect is Bernardo Fort-Brescia of Miami’s Arqui­tec­ton­ica. Not only are the devel­oper and the bro­ker­age com­pany from Miami, but so are many of the sales­peo­ple in Mexico.

Already, Defor­tuna said, he has sent eight Miami real estate bro­kers south of the bor­der. He expects that num­ber could even­tu­ally be between 40 and 50, depend­ing on the num­ber of projects launched by Related Group.

”I expect the bro­kers will even­tu­ally be back here in Miami,” said Defor­tuna, whose com­pany at one point dur­ing the boom was sell­ing units at 28 South Florida condo projects.

“But the real­ity is that some bro­kers got used to an income level that would be hard to main­tain in this sort of mar­ket. There won’t be much for them to do in the next cou­ple years.”

Michelle Minagorri, who has a home in Coconut Grove, picked up and moved to Puerto Val­larta to start sell­ing con­dos last fall. Dur­ing the South Florida hous­ing boom she sold units at Jade Ocean and Jade Beach in Sunny Isles Beach, and Mint and Ivy along the Miami River. But then things went quiet, and Mex­ico came calling.

”The mar­ket in Miami the past cou­ple years has been unbe­liev­able, an unsur­passed mar­ket,” said Minagorri, who grew up in South Florida. “But Miami’s mar­ket is tak­ing a breather and I thought this was a good opportunity.”

The tran­si­tion has been smooth, she said. ”Some­one from the Mid­west mov­ing to Mex­ico might feel a lit­tle more cul­ture shock, but not com­ing from Miami,” she said.

SELLING OUT

The mar­ket, too, has proved good so far. The first 133-unit tower at Icon Val­larta is sold out and nearly all of the units are sold in the sec­ond 133-unit tower, she said. Sales are under­way for the 75-unit third tower.

Half the buy­ers are com­ing from Mex­ico. The biggest U.S. feeder state is Cal­i­for­nia. Cana­di­ans, par­tic­u­larly from west­ern cities like Van­cou­ver, and Euro­peans are also drawn to lower prices for beach­front prop­erty than in the United States, she said. A large one-bedroom beach­front condo — say, 1,300 square feet — can be had from the high $200,000s to low $300,000s.

Mex­ico also hasn’t expe­ri­enced a giant dose of new con­struc­tion like South Florida or South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. It’s that pent-up demand cou­pled with com­pet­i­tive pric­ing that Defor­tuna and Perez hope to cap­i­tal­ize on. Defor­tuna said direct access by air­plane to the Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean des­ti­na­tions is a key fac­tor as well.

In Mex­ico alone, projects are also planned in Zihu­atanejo, Aca­pulco and Cabo Riv­iera. Other sites include Carta­gena, Colom­bia; Buenos Aires; Punta del Este, Uruguay; the Bahamas; and Panama City, Panama.

To be sure, some places like Panama City have seen vast new devel­op­ment in recent years — and already been inun­dated with South Florida builders and bro­kers. Defor­tuna acknowl­edged a dis­com­fort with that Cen­tral Amer­i­can city, ques­tion­ing the depths of its mar­ket. But he said Related Group’s Perez has secured a well-located site to build on there and thinks it can work.

Yet such ques­tions are not stop­ping bro­kers thirst­ing for new prod­uct to sell as South Florida’s lat­est hous­ing boom winds down. Indeed, Defor­tuna also oper­ates as a devel­oper and is him­self fin­ish­ing sev­eral South Florida projects and two in Argentina where he grew up.

”I have some­one com­ing into my office daily say­ing, don’t for­get me for the next project [in Latin Amer­ica and Caribbean],” he said. “For the young and aggres­sive, it’s a great oppor­tu­nity. It’s a good place to be for the moment.”

 

They say that par­adise is a state of mind. When the ingre­di­ents are all of the high­est qual­ity, it can also be a place. Puerto Val­larta, Mex­ico qual­i­fies for this dis­tinc­tion and the flam­boy­ant tourist city, sit­u­ated on the Pacific Ocean’s Bahia de Ban­deras, is set to host a major inter­na­tional beach soc­cer event for the first time in its history.

In a three-day, round-robin event begin­ning on 17 April, Costa Rica, El Sal­vador, Mex­ico and USA will com­pete for CONCACAF’s two berths at the FIFA Beach Soc­cer World Cup Mar­seille 2008.

Mex­ico and USA were the final­ists at the last year’s con­ti­nen­tal event and the Aztecas went on to cause a sen­sa­tion at Rio de Janeiro 2007, elim­i­nat­ing beach soc­cer heavy­weights Spain and Uruguay to reach the final in their first-ever FIFA Beach Soc­cer World Cup participation.

“It was a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence for us as a team and a huge step for­ward for Mex­i­can beach soc­cer,” said coach Ramon Raya. “Now it’s impor­tant to keep on work­ing hard and play a good tour­na­ment in Puerto Val­larta, to show the world that last year’s per­for­mance wasn’t a coincidence.”

USA have been present at every edi­tion of the FIFA Beach Soc­cer World Cup, although they have never man­aged to nav­i­gate their way beyond the first phase. The Amer­i­cans will be keen to rewrite this sta­tis­tic in Marseille.

This year’s CONCACAF qual­i­fi­ca­tion tour­na­ment will be capped by an exhi­bi­tion match on 20 April between Mex­ico and an All-Star selec­tion, which will be com­prised of the event’s top play­ers and some stars from Europe and South America.

For­eign invest­ment in Mex­i­can real estate is on the rise, and many favor­able fac­tors con­spire to keep this trend mov­ing for­ward.
 
Investors and devel­op­ers are increas­ingly look­ing to Mex­ico as a land of oppor­tu­nity. While Mexico’s econ­omy is closely tied to that of the United States and is expected to be impacted in some mea­sure by the cur­rent slow­down, the finan­cial cri­sis in the U.S. has not yet had any sig­nif­i­cant reper­cus­sions on Mexico’s eco­nomic activ­ity or inter­na­tional trade. Over the past 15 years, as Mex­ico has increas­ingly drawn for­eign invest­ment, the appeal of real estate as an asset class has con­tin­u­ously grown.

Secure prospects and gov­ern­ment incen­tives Devel­op­ers and investors have a ten­dency to take a longer-term per­spec­tive with regard to their activ­i­ties in Mex­ico. This is due in part to sev­eral key trend lines that sup­port invest­ment in Mexico’s real estate sec­tor and, more specif­i­cally, in lodg­ing and tourism. Mex­ico is host to the devel­op­ment of numer­ous master-planned projects offer­ing legal cer­tainty, qual­ity infra­struc­ture, ample ameni­ties, and devel­op­ment plat­forms for hotel and res­i­den­tial devel­op­ers. Like those in the U.S., urban and resort mar­kets in Mex­ico have wit­nessed a marked increase in projects com­bin­ing hotel and res­i­den­tial com­po­nents. In addi­tion, the Pacific and Caribbean coast­lines of Mex­ico are increas­ingly viewed as prime des­ti­na­tions for upscale devel­op­ments. Tourism and resort res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment are a national pri­or­ity for Mex­ico. The country’s reg­u­la­tory frame­work fully backs for­eign own­er­ship in the major­ity of ven­tures, includ­ing real estate, allow­ing 100% par­tic­i­pa­tion in shared cap­i­tal. Mex­i­can laws gov­ern­ing for­eign invest­ment pro­vide legal guar­an­tees and offer invest­ment secu­rity. The legal mech­a­nism also sim­pli­fies the paper­work involved in reg­is­ter­ing for­eign invest­ments, as well as the unre­stricted repa­tri­a­tion of prof­its, bonuses, div­i­dends, and inter­est pay­ments. In addi­tion, title insur­ance sim­i­lar to that offered in the U.S. is now widely avail­able for pur­chasers of large sites and indi­vid­ual hous­ing units alike.More indus­try, more demand

Accord­ing to the Sec­re­taría de Tur­ismo, Mex­ico received approx­i­mately $3.5 bil­lion USD in pri­vate tourism invest­ment in 2007, an increase of 11.12% over 2006. For­eign invest­ment, par­tic­u­larly from Spain and the U.S., accounted for 43.76% of the total. Mex­ico has con­sis­tently been one of the largest recip­i­ents of for­eign direct invest­ment in all eco­nomic sec­tors among emerg­ing mar­kets. As indus­try expands in sev­eral cities in north­ern and cen­tral Mex­ico, so does the demand for lodg­ing, par­tic­u­larly in the lim­ited– and focused-service seg­ments that cater to busi­ness trav­el­ers. Rel­a­tively few hotels out­side of the resort des­ti­na­tions are branded, offer­ing an excel­lent oppor­tu­nity for both domes­tic and inter­na­tional brands to obtain grow­ing mar­ket share. In urban areas, the devel­op­ment of mixed-use projects that com­bine hotel and res­i­den­tial uses with office and/or retail com­po­nents present another oppor­tu­nity for growth.

For the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year, con­do­minium con­struc­tion has out­paced that of hotels. Accord­ing to the hous­ing con­sult­ing firm Softec Mex­ico, sales of tourist hous­ing in 2007 totaled 18,000 units, an increase of 52.5% as com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year. Puerto Val­larta occu­pied the lead posi­tion in sales; other areas that demon­strated dynamic activ­ity included Los Cabos, Puerto Peñasco, Aca­pulco, Can­cún, Riv­iera Nayarit, and Playa del Car­men. Approx­i­mately 80% of the beach­front hous­ing was pur­chased by for­eign­ers, prin­ci­pally from the U.S. and Canada. Mixed-use devel­op­ments includ­ing hotel and res­i­den­tial com­po­nents are expected to mul­ti­ply with Mexico’s flour­ish­ing sta­tus as a second-home and retire­ment mar­ket for U.S. and Cana­dian baby boomers. In fact, Mex­ico ranked at the pin­na­cle of the 2007 Global Retire­ment Index, pub­lished by Inter­na­tional Liv­ing. Con­sumer con­fi­dence in buy­ing res­i­den­tial prop­erty in Mex­ico is bol­stered by the increas­ing avail­abil­ity of title insur­ance poli­cies issued by U.S.-based companies.

Out­look

Some chal­lenges do impose on Mexico’s attrac­tive invest­ment cli­mate. The biggest obsta­cle to ongo­ing activ­ity will likely be the tight­en­ing of credit mar­kets in the U.S. and Mex­ico. Loan-to-value ratios are expected to be reduced, and loans will be made on a more selec­tive basis, fac­tors that are bound to sti­fle devel­op­ment to some extent. How­ever, invest­ment and devel­op­ment plat­forms take a longer-term view, and in this light are some­what less focused on and less vul­ner­a­ble to the pos­si­ble impact of a slow­down in the very short term. The out­look for real estate devel­op­ment and invest­ment in Mex­ico is, there­fore, rel­a­tively sunny and streaked with the col­ors of a vari­ety of prospects, from hotels to res­i­dences in urban to resort locales. More­over, based on cur­rent trends and the government’s invit­ing stance, for­eign invest­ments stand on solid ground.

From the sunny Costa Careyes on the Mex­i­can Pacific coast, south of Puerto Val­larta, we wish you the best for year 2008.

Our 20th polo sea­son started great with Thanks­giv­ing in Novem­ber 2007, hav­ing 2nd Ladies Tour­na­ment Copa Giu­liana and mens cup, Copa Sombras.

Recently fin­ished Christ­mas and New years sea­son was also very spe­cial, hav­ing guests from USA, Mex­ico d.f., Colom­bia, Eng­land, Por­tu­gal, Ger­many and even Rus­sia with a very spe­cial for­mer 10 goal, best Mex­i­can polo player, Car­los Gracida.

We expect to have the same spirit in our next polo events, starting :

In Feb­ru­ary (8th to 17th) we will repeat the great expe­ri­ence of last years
Mas­ters Tour­na­ment play­ing 14–16 goals games with patrons and pros who want to share great polo and a beau­ti­ful vaca­tion. Olavo Novaes, Tano Vial, Oscar Garibay, Chino Li, Vale­rio Aguilar.
Ladies Tour­na­ment “Queens of Careyes” with the Chi­nese New Year Cup (Year of the Rat – 7th Feb.) will be played Feb­ru­ary 7th, 8th and 9th fol­lowed by a great celebration.

In March (15th to 22nd) we will repeat the great expe­ri­ence of last years
Copa Agua Alta spon­sored by Kary and Alberto Ardis­sone will be played from March 15th to April 22nd with a max­i­mum of 8 teams (6–8 goals) fea­tur­ing a com­pet­i­tive tour­na­ment with great Mex­i­can events (char­readas, escara­musas, horse bal­lets and rodeos) and par­ties, fol­lowed by
Easter Tour­na­ment (March 25th to 30th).

Mex­ico has been selected for the Fip world cham­pi­onship to be held in Mex­ico City. Prac­tice Games will also be held in Careyes dur­ing the event, from April 19th to May 4th 2008.

Please request Accom­mo­da­tion and Polo Pack­ages for Indi­vid­u­als and Teams.
Spe­cial dis­count on accom­mo­da­tion for polo play­ers are also available.

These are the high­lights of the sea­son but between those dates, indi­vid­ual play­ers or teams are wel­come and unless there is a tour­na­ment, we play prac­tice games 4 times a week. We can also orga­nize an event with your needs and fantasies!

How to get to Careyes:

Our clos­est air­port is Man­zanillo (1.10 hour drive to Careyes), then Puerto Val­larta (2.20 hours drive).
There are direct flights to and from Man­zanillo with Alaska Air­lines from L.A, Con­ti­nen­tal Air­lines from Hous­ton, Mag­nichar­ter directly from Mex­ico and Amer­i­can West from Phoenix. Make your flight reser­va­tions with time.

Please let us know and pass this infor­ma­tion to a spe­cial friend and polo lovers, who you wish to intro­duce to the Careyes Magic!

It’s not easy for a movie star, bas­ket­ball player, or cor­po­rate chief to buy a house with­out attract­ing a bit of attention.

It requires ingenuity—and help from pricey lawyers—to keep the paparazzi, celebrity blog­gers, and stalk­ers guess­ing. Last year movie star cou­ple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie failed to hide their $3.5 mil­lion pur­chase of a 19th cen­tury house in New Orleans’ French Quar­ter. News got out despite real estate records that listed the buyer as the “Mondo Bongo Trust,” a ref­er­ence to the Joe Strum­mer song, Mondo Bongo, which Brangelina danced to in the 2005 movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

Other stars have hid­den behind trusts with such clever names as “Ingodwe Trust,” “I before E Trust,” “Poopie Trust,” “Senior Moments Trust,” and “Thank You For the Trust Trust” (used by the late actor Heath Ledger), accord­ing to Bob Golds­bor­ough, the blog­ger for bigtimelistings.com who has become an expert at unmask­ing celebrity home transactions.

“They don’t want peo­ple to be able to find them,” Golds­bor­ough says. “It dri­ves them nuts when we put the name of their trust on a blog.”

Hid­den Identity

The super-rich also use hold­ing com­pa­nies to hide their iden­ti­ties and, in some cases, shel­ter them­selves from taxes. But for many elite buy­ers, who live behind gates or hedges far from the street, pri­vacy is the pri­mary con­cern. They require real estate agents to sign con­fi­den­tial­ity agree­ments and arrange for pri­vate show­ings dur­ing which the own­ers and all house­hold staff are absent.

Some wealthy buy­ers do their research on the Inter­net. They can view pho­tos, videos, and floor plans, and decide with­out even vis­it­ing the home, says Lau­rie Moore-Moore, founder and CEO of the Dallas-based Insti­tute for Lux­ury Home Mar­ket­ing. Accord­ing to her, a house listed for $100 mil­lion kept the most sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion such as floor plans and spe­cific inside views hid­den on a password-protected site. The pass­words were given only to pre-qualified billionaires.

Moore-Moore also reveals that a prop­erty of this type often has a three-tiered mar­ket­ing pro­gram. A casual inquirer would get a two-sided brochure with exte­rior pho­tographs and a lit­tle more infor­ma­tion on a Web site. A lux­ury agent with a top client would get a 16-page brochure with exte­rior views and a few care­fully cho­sen inte­rior shots (with haiku poetry along­side each pho­to­graph). Only a fully qual­i­fied client would have access to the password-protected Web site with floor plans, infor­ma­tion about the heat­ing and air-conditioning sys­tems, and inte­rior pho­tos and videos, she says.

Dis­cre­tion Advised

Regard­less of the house, the buyer might be invis­i­ble through­out most of the trans­ac­tion process. “Screen­ers” some­times visit an estate and con­duct nego­ti­a­tions on behalf of celebri­ties or high-income buy­ers who don’t want their fame to influ­ence the sales price. “If Madonna sud­denly expresses inter­est in buy­ing your house, you might say, ‘Well she can afford it, I’m not going to be nego­tiable,’” Moore-Moore says.

Some wealthy sell­ers also like dis­cre­tion, espe­cially if they’re going through a divorce, ill­ness, bank­ruptcy, or some other per­sonal cri­sis that they’d rather not draw atten­tion to. In some cases, the agent is told not to place the home on the mul­ti­ple list­ing ser­vice or even to adver­tise it. The agent might sug­gest sell­ing the house with­out a tra­di­tional mar­ket­ing campaign.

A well-connected agent can find a buyer by call­ing another lux­ury agent or wealthy client inter­ested in a great off-market list­ing with unique characteristics.

“Lots of really good stuff, you don’t even need to put on the mar­ket,” says Christo­pher Hain, real estate agent with Hol­ly­wood Hills (Calif.)-based Ramsey-Shilling. “Agents facil­i­tate the deal because it allows them to do both ends of the deal.”

Mar­ket­ing Plan

But most clients sell­ing expen­sive homes are happy to have a strong mar­ket­ing cam­paign. Their agents might set up a booth with brochures at an air show or boat show and put an adver­tise­ment on the Inter­net, in The Wall Street Jour­nal, The New York Times, Euro­pean pub­li­ca­tions, and niche mag­a­zines such as Unique Homes, Moore-Moore says.

“The more expen­sive a house is, the smaller the pool of poten­tial buy­ers in the area,” says Rick Good­win, pub­lisher of Unique Homes, a mag­a­zine and Inter­net site devoted to the lux­ury mar­ket. “As the price goes up so does the need to expose it out­side the mar­ket­place and out­side the country.”

But the adver­tise­ments fre­quently pro­vide lim­ited details. Good­win says it’s com­mon for ads for expen­sive prop­er­ties to say “price upon request.” The owner of a house on the mar­ket in Bev­erly Hills asked that the name of the prop­erty be dig­i­tally removed from a pho­to­graph appear­ing in the mag­a­zine; the name was dis­played on the wel­come mat in front of the house, Good­win says.

“Some peo­ple may not want to make a big deal about it,” Good­win says. “They might think, ‘I don’t want the fact that I’m sell­ing my house to be a big item in the newspaper.’”

A Varanasi pun­dit — Tri­pathi – would travel to Mex­ico to bless Ger­man super­model Heidi Klum and her singer hus­band, Seal, on their third anniver­sary on May 10. In fact, the invi­ta­tion card, that arrived last week, took the recip­i­ent, Shailaish Tri­pathi — a pun­dit and government-approved tourist guide — by surprise.

Designed in Indian style with Hindu sym­bols like ban­gles, Lord Gane­sha, the card also has ‘Om’ inscribed on it. The mar­riage cel­e­bra­tion that is sched­uled for 10th May at Costa Careyes in Mex­ico, will be per­formed in accor­dance with the Hindu rit­u­als and Tri­pathi will be fly­ing down to con­duct it. The cou­ple had met Tri­pathi dur­ing their visit to Lord Vishwanath’s city in Sep­tem­ber 2007.

 

Tri­pathi said that the cou­ple was mes­mer­ized by the city life and cul­ture. Heidi Klum and Seal had also wit­nessed the Ganga Aarti at the Dashash­wamedh Ghat and were enchanted by the chant­ing of Vedic mantras and the scenic beauty. “I told them about most of the things they wanted to know. I was sur­prised when they expressed the desire to have an Indian ‚” said Tri­pathi adding, “I ful­filled their desire and per­formed a sym­bolic mar­riage cer­e­mony for them.”

“I was unaware about another sur­prise that was in store for me till last Fri­day, when I received an invi­ta­tion to come over to Mex­ico and per­form same rit­u­als on their wed­ding anniver­sary,” he said, adding, “Being a singer him­self, Seal was impressed with the rhyth­mic pre­sen­ta­tion of Vedic mantras.”

Ini­tially, Tri­pathi was unaware that he was act­ing as a guide for a celebrity cou­ple. “I came to know about them later,” he said. He said Indian cul­ture has the poten­tial to bring the world closer. “This poten­tial can be exploited by pro­mot­ing tourism,” he said.

Many peo­ple have dreamed about buy­ing a sec­ond home out­side Canada for recre­ational or invest­ment pur­poses, or pos­si­bly a snow­bird or retire­ment lifestyle.Most think of buy­ing in the United States. Oth­ers think of Mex­ico or other coun­tries. Some actu­ally turn their dreams into real­ity. There are many exam­ples of Cana­di­ans who have enhanced their qual­ity of life immensely, through sound decision-making before buy­ing and liv­ing abroad for up to six months a year.

Here are some tips to consider:

Select­ing your piece of paradise

It is impor­tant to can­didly deter­mine your needs and wants in advance. For exam­ple, do you want to rent the prop­erty full-time, peri­od­i­cally, or not at all? How much time do you plan to spend at the prop­erty? What geo­graphic loca­tion do you want and why? How easy is access to the area? What about weather con­sid­er­a­tions? What about the lan­guage or polit­i­cal issues if you are liv­ing in Mex­ico or another for­eign coun­try? What are the tax, insur­ance and health care considerations?

 

Deter­min­ing the type of prop­erty is another issue. Do you want a house, a condo, pos­si­bly a time-share (no own­er­ship or equity build-up) or maybe a frac­tional (shared own­er­ship and equity inter­est) inter­est prop­erty? Do you want to live in an estab­lished resort area or off the beaten path? What about resale potential?

You can see why most peo­ple pre­fer to try before they buy by rent­ing in the cho­sen area first.

Taxes can be taxing

This issue is very impor­tant. Whether you buy a home in the U.S., Mex­ico or in another coun­try, there are tax con­se­quences. For exam­ple, the coun­try in which you own prop­erty will have tax poli­cies deal­ing with rental of the prop­erty, sale of the prop­erty and could have an estate tax should the owner die. These tax laws can be very dif­fer­ent than what you are accus­tomed to in Canada. For exam­ple, in the U.S., you are taxed on the value of the prop­erty on sale, whereas in Canada, you are taxed on 50 per cent of the gain from your orig­i­nal date of purchase.

In addi­tion to tax­ing issues in the coun­try of own­er­ship, you also need to keep the tax­man happy in Canada. The Canada Rev­enue Agency (CRA) requires you to annu­ally declare your world­wide income and cap­i­tal gains and pay taxes on them. Also, if you die and own prop­erty, whether inside Canada or out­side, CRA would con­sider that a deemed dis­po­si­tion of an asset, which nor­mally trig­gers cap­i­tal gains tax.

Although there is a U.S/Canada Tax Treaty, that could pro­vide a mutual for­eign tax credit relief so that you are not double-taxed, or other exemp­tions, that is not a given. You need to have planned and struc­tured your for­eign prop­erty own­er­ship care­fully and strate­gi­cally. In addi­tion, there could be state taxes that are not cov­ered by this tax treaty.

The net neg­a­tive impact of the total tax con­se­quences can be con­sid­er­able, when own­ing real estate out­side of Canada. You need to care­fully assess this finan­cial risk before purchase.

Get pro­fes­sional advice

Before you buy any real estate, you need to get expert advice. For tax issues in Canada, you need to get advice from a Cana­dian tax pro­fes­sional, such as a char­tered accoun­tant or cer­ti­fied gen­eral accoun­tant with tax exper­tise. For U.S. or Mex­i­can tax issues, you need to speak to a sim­i­larly qual­i­fied tax pro­fes­sional in the coun­try concerned.

It is pru­dent to seek advice from more than one pro­fes­sional to make sure the advice is con­sis­tent. Here’s the type of advice you are seek­ing: how to strate­gi­cally plan your tax affairs to legally avoid, min­i­mize or defer tax.

The same cau­tion applies to obtain­ing inde­pen­dent legal advice from a real estate lawyer in the coun­try in which you are plan­ning to pur­chase property.

Guess what! There’s another way to live besides work, work, work, rush, rush, rush!

I am just back from a week in Mex­ico, where res­i­dents seemed to amble, not run, through their daily routines.

In our lit­tle town — San Pan­cho, north of Puerto Val­larta — peo­ple kept busy enough, but their tasks seemed closer to home than yours and mine. They tended lit­tle open-air shops on the town’s main street, or fished for snap­per in the nearby ocean; they sold veg­eta­bles from a rolling cart, roasted chick­ens for sale in back­yard ovens, built walls for a smat­ter­ing of new casitas on tiny earth-baked lots.

They always had time to stop for a chat.

Three of the seven nights we spent at my nephew’s house, a Mex­i­can cou­ple joined us for sup­per, bring­ing gor­geous fresh food — roasted fish, home-made flan, tor­tilla soup. One night, they brought their son, too, and the three sang Mex­i­can songs together.

I was reminded of sum­mers at Tahoe, long ago, when our cabin door was always open, and no neigh­bor walked by with­out stop­ping in.

The inti­macy afforded by an unsched­uled life is long gone in my life in Marin.

Stop­ping in is by appoint­ment only.

Not that I wouldn’t love a rap on my door, but lots of times I’m not there to hear it.

In a tiny town like San Pan­cho, drop-ins are expected.

 Many res­i­dents, at this time of year, are from Canada, Switzer­land, the United States or from wher­ever else peo­ple are look­ing for an idyl­lic place to relax in the sun.

My nephew Ned –born in Belvedere, a Red­wood grad, a school prin­ci­pal in Den­ver — has, like many in San Pan­cho, retired from the 9-to-5.

He and his twin brother Guy have built homes in San Pan­cho. Ned has adapted well: he wears shorts and san­dals every day. His wife gar­dens. They both know every­one in town.

We woke every day to the sound of roost­ers on the bank of the dried-up creek along­side their bright yel­low casa; we fin­ished every day with a drink of Kahlua and cream.

My friend Carol and I slipped into the tempo with ease. We read by the pool, explored every restau­rant in town, basked on the pris­tine beach where a few low-key ven­dors ped­dled their wares. (“Want to see my cheap Mex­i­can junk?” one of them asked me.) Ned drove us to the resort town of Sayulita, to mar­ket day in Penita and through the dense, hilly jun­gle on the out­skirts of town.

There was lit­tle to do, and we did it.

I read four books — “Three Cups of Tea,” about Greg Mortenson’s cru­sade to build girls’ schools in Pak­istan; Barack Obama’s “Dreams From My Father” about his life in Hawaii, Indone­sia, Chicago and Kenya; a Sue Grafton mys­tery, and a sweet lit­tle noth­ing called “The Wednes­day Let­ters.” We scoured the Inter­net for news about Hillary, bas­ket­ball, Zimbabwe.

At both ends of our trip we spent time in Puerto Val­larta, a sleepy vil­lage 20 years ago, now plas­tered with hotels. We walked the male­con, attended a 5 p.m. ser­vice in the cathe­dral, ate din­ner in a Tex-Mex tourist trap that served boat-size mar­gar­i­tas and coconut shrimp. One morn­ing we hired a taxi for an hour-long trip into the hills, where fairy-tale houses of white­washed adobe, drenched in bougainvil­lea, looked down on the sea.

We passed Bill Gates’ yacht, tied up at the city marina. From a hill­top, we saw a whale or two, breaching.

Puerto Val­larta had its attrac­tions, but seemed pos­i­tively fre­netic com­pared to San Pancho.

Even that tiny town is en route to trans­for­ma­tion, with a devel­op­ment of 200 homes under way across the creek.

But last week it was a rev­e­la­tion, a reminder of my much lazier youth, when our doors and our friend­ships were open, when we could spend long hours star­ing at the sky or the trees or the sea, dream­ing dreams of what might be, and doing noth­ing that mat­tered at all.

How to Buy a Home South of the Bor­der, one of many top­ics to be cov­ered at Escapes! Second-Home Expo

THE WOODLANDS, Texas –– Spend­ing time south of the bor­der has always been a favorite vaca­tion option for Amer­i­cans. But now, an extra­or­di­nary num­ber of U.S. cit­i­zens are putting down roots in the sandy shores to the south and snap­ping up sec­ond homes in Mex­ico, Panama and neigh­bor­ing locales. The num­bers are remarkable.

“One and a half mil­lion Amer­i­cans already own res­i­den­tial real estate in Mex­ico,” said Mitch Creek­more, co-author of “Cash­ing in on a Sec­ond Home in Mex­ico,” and exec­u­tive VP of the title com­pany Stew­art International.

Creek­more is part of a dynamic lineup of inter­na­tion­ally acclaimed speak­ers at Escapes Second-Home Expo on April 19 and 20 at The Wood­lands Water­way Mar­riott Hotel and Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Out­stand­ing exhibitors include rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the hottest second-home prop­er­ties in Texas, the U.S., Mex­ico, Cen­tral Amer­ica and other des­ti­na­tions around the world.

“Mex­ico has it all,” said Creek­more, “and I look for­ward to talk­ing with atten­dees about why it is an excel­lent place to pur­chase a sec­ond home, as well as what they need to know before they purchase.”

He said that beaches, deserts, moun­tain­ous ter­rains or Caribbean cli­mates are all avail­able in Mex­ico. “There are very dis­tinct changes in the topog­ra­phy and geog­ra­phy depend­ing on where you go.”

Creek­more said that other advan­tages to liv­ing in Mex­ico include its prox­im­ity to the U.S., afford­able cost of liv­ing, advanced infra­struc­ture, qual­ity health­care and tax benefits.

Creek­more believes in the suc­cess and growth of Mex­ico as a des­ti­na­tion loca­tion so much that he owns prop­erty for invest­ment and devel­op­ment pur­poses there himself.

Accord­ing to the 2007 Global Retire­ment Index, as printed in Inter­na­tional Liv­ing Mag­a­zine, Mex­ico is now the No. 1 retire­ment des­ti­na­tion for Americans.

And to help Expo atten­dees find exactly the best place for them in Mex­ico, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from sev­eral Mex­i­can prop­er­ties will be at the Expo, includ­ing La Punta Realty, a lux­ury real estate and vaca­tion rentals firm based in Puerto Val­larta, Mex­ico. They spe­cial­ize in coastal lots and land, lux­ury res­i­dences, exclu­sive resort vil­las and deluxe beach­front condominiums.

Panama is another spec­tac­u­lar second-home hot spot. Adsi­nar Cajar-Bocek, Con­sul Gen­eral Panama, who will be speak­ing at the Escapes Expo, said “Amer­i­cans love our nat­ural beauty, food, fish­ing and nice weather. There is also a cer­tain com­fort level that Amer­i­cans have when vis­it­ing Panama because of the pos­i­tive his­tor­i­cal rela­tion­ship between the two countries.”

And it doesn’t hurt that Panama has the same cur­rency sys­tem as the U.S. — the dollar.

“Our health­care sys­tem is also excel­lent,” said Cajar-Bocek. “Many of the doc­tors and other pro­fes­sion­als stud­ied in the United States, which I also believe makes many Amer­i­cans more comfortable.”

Nicaragua is blos­som­ing with incred­i­ble second-home oppor­tu­ni­ties. Ann Koplas, with Ran­cho San­tana in Rivas, Nicaragua, said, “An increas­ing amount of peo­ple are see­ing the value in pur­chas­ing a sec­ond home in this area. You can live a lux­u­ri­ous lifestyle for about $20 a day,” she said. “At this price you could have a gar­dener, a cook, a maid and even a driver.”

Rep­re­sent­ing Nicaraguan and Costa Rican prop­er­ties is Inter­na­tional Home Bro­ker­age; and Green Seal Realty has prop­erty offer­ings in Costa Rica.

Reserva Con­chal, an extra­or­di­nary Costa Rican beach resort, offers stretches of sand over­look­ing the Catalina Islands, a cham­pi­onship golf course, con­do­mini­ums, five-star hotel, and activ­i­ties that include, surf­ing, hik­ing, sport fish­ing, and relax­ing by the pools.

Among the other Costa Rican prop­er­ties to explore at the Expo are: SeaBreeze Moun­tain, Cor­tijo los Lau­re­les in San Jose, Sea­side Tamarindo and Ailanto Well­ness Resort & Spa.

For Hous­to­ni­ans, the south-of-the-border play­grounds of Mex­ico, Panama, Costa Rica, Belize and Nicaragua are all just a short flight away. The “Gate­way to Latin Amer­ica,” Hous­ton has more non­stop flights to these areas than any U.S. city.

To help tie it all together, Saman­tha Brown, lively and viva­cious Emmy Award-winning host on the Travel Chan­nel, will dis­cuss explor­ing your inner self and how to tell if that second-home des­ti­na­tion under con­sid­er­a­tion is the per­fect choice or if you should con­tinue the quest.

A com­plete lineup of speak­ers and their sem­i­nar times is avail­able on the Expo’s Web site.

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- U.S. real estate entrepreneur

Sam Zell said Tues­day he sees no sig­nif­i­cant oppor­tu­ni­ties in the Euro­pean or U.S. prop­erty markets.Zell, who is chair­man of Equity Group Invest­ments, said “as an equity investor I see lit­tle oppor­tu­nity in the U.S. and even less in Europe,” advis­ing investors instead to look to emerg­ing mar­kets for growth.Speaking at the real estate invest­ment trust forum run by NAREIT, the U.S. real estate invest­ment trust, or REIT, asso­ci­a­tion, in Lon­don, Zell said he expects Euro­pean prop­erty val­ues to fall and he is iden­ti­fy­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in Mex­ico, Chile, Brazil and China instead.

“There is a grow­ing middle-class sce­nario across the world, espe­cially in emerg­ing mar­kets,” which is lead­ing to pent-up demand for hous­ing in those mar­kets, he said.

Zell said the rented apart­ment sec­tor will remain strong, despite the ongo­ing credit crunch, because it ben­e­fits from the slow­down in the hous­ing mar­ket. If ten­ants start buy­ing their own houses, it increases ten­ant turnover and also low­ers the eco­nomic sta­tus of ten­ants, he said.

In the cur­rent mar­ket where indi­vid­u­als are find­ing it dif­fi­cult to get suf­fi­cient credit to buy their own homes, the rented sec­tor remains strong.

Zell sold REIT Equity Office Prop­er­ties to Black­stone Group for $39 bil­lion in Feb­ru­ary last year and has since entered the media indus­try with the $8.2 bil­lion acqui­si­tion of news­pa­per and TV com­pany Tri­bune Co. (TRB). He is also chair­man of five listed com­pa­nies includ­ing Equity Res­i­den­tial (EQR), the largest U.S. REIT which spe­cial­izes in apartments.

The Same Word yet Two Coun­tries Apart

Trans­ac­tion secu­rity is essen­tial to a healthy real estate mar­ket. How­ever, many new buy­ers are sur­prised to learn processes that they take for granted in the United States are either

optional or don’t have an exact equiv­a­lent in Mex­ico. This col­umn will explain the key dif­fer­ences per­tain­ing to the term escrow since it means some­thing quite dif­fer­ent here than in the US.

In the United States escrow nor­mally refers to the com­plete process of clos­ing a trans­ac­tion and securely han­dling money, for which the escrow com­pany receives a fee. These com­pa­nies tend

to be title insur­ance com­pa­nies that also offer a title insur­ance pol­icy and pro­vide all clos­ing ser­vices. (See table below)

In Mex­ico escrow refers exclu­sively to the secure han­dling of money by a third party, usu­ally a title com­pany or notario público (Mex­i­can notary) for a fee of around $550. The remaining

clos­ing ser­vices are com­monly han­dled sep­a­rately, for a sep­a­rate fee, by an inde­pen­dent clos­ing com­pany, the devel­oper, a lawyer, the notary, or a loan company.

ESCROW	US	Mex­ico
Com­mon meaning	Funds man­age­ment Clos­ing ser­vices and admin­is­tra­tive over­sight of paper­work Order­ing of title insur­ance  Order inspec­tion reports Esti­mate clos­ing costs  Interface with lender requirements	Funds man­age­ment only
Admin­is­tered by	Title insur­ance companies	Title insur­ance com­pa­nies  Mex­i­can notaries

     
      Escrow means dif­fer­ent things in the USA vis-à-vis Mexico.When pur­chas­ing prop­erty one of the most impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tions for both a buyer and seller is whether, and under what con­di­tions, the trans­ac­tion funds will be safely held and

dis­trib­uted by an inde­pen­dent party. In an inter­na­tional trans­ac­tion, this issue is even more impor­tant and often com­pli­cated, as either the pur­chaser or the seller may not be familiar

with, or com­fort­able, hav­ing funds deposited in a for­eign juris­dic­tion or with an unfa­mil­iar attor­ney or bank. Uti­liz­ing escrow ser­vices from estab­lished title insur­ance com­pa­nies helps

pro­vide a fair level of secu­rity to all par­ties in the real estate transaction.

Accord­ing to an inde­pen­dent clos­ing ser­vices com­pany that I ques­tioned on the sub­ject, “The hold­ing of funds (escrow) by a neu­tral third party … is one of the safest ways of con­duct­ing a

real estate trans­ac­tion in Mex­ico.  One of the many ben­e­fits is that the buyer, the seller and the escrow com­pany must sign the escrow instruc­tions which explic­itly state the terms for

the money to be held in escrow.  In addi­tion, in order for any funds to be released from the account, both the buyer and the seller must sign the dis­tri­b­u­tion instruc­tions so that all

par­ties are aware of where, when, how much and to whom the money is going.”

I have per­son­ally observed that some agents tell their clients that “escrow doesn’t exist,” or that “escrow is not legal in Mex­ico.” My sin­cere hope is that this opin­ion is expressed

sim­ply due to a lack of knowl­edge about the pur­pose of escrow in Mex­ico, and not a desire to receive com­mis­sions sooner and eas­ier. An unscrupu­lous agent may rally against escrow in order

to hide com­mis­sions that exceed the cus­tom­ary fee, or to gain quicker access to buyer deposits. Buy­ers should be excep­tion­ally cau­tious about an agent that advises against the use of

escrow with a trusted, third-party com­pany that is not involved oth­er­wise in the transaction.

I strongly encour­age buy­ers to use escrow for real estate trans­ac­tions in Mex­ico when­ever fea­si­ble. They should not under­es­ti­mate the value of their own peace-of-mind. Have a

knowl­edge­able real estate agent or title ser­vices agent guide you on the method of nego­ti­at­ing bal­anced escrow terms that are fair to both parties.

The up-and-coming Riv­iera Nayarit region, along Mex­ico’s Pacific coast north of Puerto Val­larta, has a new lux­ury resort. The Hotel des Artistes (www.hoteldesartistesdelmar.com) in the Punta de Mita Beach Club and Spa, in the town of Punta de Mita, fea­tures two– and three-bedroom ocean­front suites with orig­i­nal Mex­i­can art (avail­able for pur­chase) and kitchens out­fit­ted with Viking appliances.

The prop­erty has a beach­side pool plus a rooftop deck with an infin­ity pool (above) and hot tub. A fit­ness club and spa offer a state-of-the-art car­dio train­ing room, three treat­ment rooms and steam, sauna and whirlpools in each locker room. The resort’s restau­rant — Café des Artistes del Mar — has a piano bar and an out­door terrace.

Guests may be inter­ested in vis­it­ing Mari­etas Islands National Park, a 15-minute boat ride from the prop­erty, where they can snorkel or scuba dive.

Start­ing nightly rates range between $325 and $850, depend­ing on the season.