“At the end of the day, I want to be sit­ting on my patio with a mar­garita in my hand watch­ing the sun dive into the ocean,” says Stu­art McGre­gor as he sur­veys his new vaca­tion home.  He’s not sur­prised to have a lux­ury vaca­tion prop­erty – after all, he worked for years in Cal­gary to be able to afford to spend his later years in the sun, with wife Bar­bara.  What sur­prises McGre­gor is that his vaca­tion villa is in Punta Mita, Mexico.

Says Bar­bara McGre­gor, “We’d looked around a lot and knew we wanted prob­a­bly a sec­ond res­i­dence. We’d spent a lot of time in South East Asia and Thai­land and we’d checked out Hawaii and, of course, we kind of knew Palm Springs and Phoenix. But then, a friend from Cal­gary said we should check out Punta Mita.  We thought – oh, Mex­ico – we just don’t know about Mexico.”It’s a com­mon ini­tial response from Cana­di­ans, given the recent spate of bad pub­lic­ity Mexico’s been receiv­ing in the Cana­dian media.  It’s rare to read a pos­i­tive review of a Mex­i­can destination.That’s what makes Punta Mita, a 500-acre devel­op­ment on a spear-shaped penin­sula pok­ing into the Pacific, such an unusual place, where every other hol­i­day prop­erty owner you bump into is a Cana­dian – mostly from Calgary.

This is a vaca­tion com­mu­nity of a type that’s very unusual for Mex­ico, one that closely resem­bles high-end devel­op­ments on upscale Caribbean islands like Nevis and Bar­ba­dos.  Built around a Jack Nick­laus Sig­na­ture Golf Course that was ranked World’s Best Golf Resort by read­ers of Condé Nast Trav­eler 2006 and one of the world’s best golf courses by Travel + Leisure Golf in 2006, and sur­rounded on three sides by white sand beaches, Punta Mita is a col­lec­tion of exclu­sive hotels and high-end, privately-owned vaca­tion homes often rented to vis­i­tors – many also Cana­dian.  Inter­est­ingly, it’s also a Mex­i­can vaca­tion des­ti­na­tion that is work­ing to pre­serve the envi­ron­ment and the flavour of the small fish­ing vil­lage next to which it has been built. 

Leave your lux­u­ri­ous villa and drive five min­utes to the wharf, where a vari­ety of sim­ple tour boats wait to take you to the island of birds.  In the har­bour, brown pel­i­cans rock on the gun­wales of small fish­ing craft while seag­ulls cir­cle and cry.  These are birds, but not the ones whose pho­tos you’re about to add to your col­lec­tion of favourites.  It’s a fas­ci­nat­ing jux­ta­po­si­tion:  an untouch­able island of wild birds just a few miles from Punta Mita, one of Mexico’s most lux­u­ri­ous new resort developments. 

It’s that com­bi­na­tion of pro­tected envi­ron­men­tal beauty and Mex­i­can cul­ture that attracted the McGre­gors,
Says Stu­art, “The cli­mate is vir­tu­ally per­fect for golf – the sun shines every day. Obvi­ously that’s a big bonus, but we love the cul­ture. The Mex­i­can peo­ple are won­der­ful. The cul­tural change from where we come from is incredible.” 

Are the McGre­gors likely to return to Cal­gary full-time?  Not likely.

“I go back occa­sion­ally for in-person meet­ings,” says Stu­art, “but beyond that I’m as com­fort­able here from a busi­ness per­spec­tive as I am in Cal­gary. I do all my busi­ness by Inter­net and phone.  So, given the dif­fer­ent cli­matic con­di­tions, why would we go home?”

Why indeed?

Own­ing a lux­u­ri­ous beach­front home sounds like a great dream, doesn’t it? Instead of fight­ing bit­ing cold winds and the end­less harsh noises of city traf­fic, you wake up every morn­ing to warm, humid weather and the sound of the surf crash­ing on the beach. You can have your cof­fee on your veranda as you gaze out over the ocean, or take a morn­ing walk along the beach.

How­ever, a dream of own­ing a beach­front home may sound like just that: a dream.

Many baby boomers and early retirees, though, are find­ing a way to make that dream a real­ity by invest­ing in beach­front prop­erty in Mexico.

Why Mex­ico? Why not the United States?

Sec­ond home own­er­ship is one of the fastest-growing sec­tors of the real estate indus­try, espe­cially con­sid­er­ing that nearly 70 mil­lion Amer­i­cans are reach­ing the age where they have the time and the finan­cial means to invest in a sec­ond home. Not only does it pro­vide for a nice vaca­tion spot, but it can also enhance net worth.

Mex­ico has been a favorite vaca­tion des­ti­na­tion for U.S. tourists for many years. Last year, 27 per­cent of Amer­i­cans trav­el­ing inter­na­tion­ally vis­ited Mex­ico, mak­ing it the num­ber one tourist destination.

How­ever, just vis­it­ing isn’t cut­ting it for many Amer­i­cans. In the past decade, there’s been a 500 per­cent increase in the num­ber of Amer­i­can ex-pats liv­ing in Mexico.

Accord­ing to the Dal­las Morn­ing News, 25 per­cent of all Amer­i­cans liv­ing abroad are liv­ing in Mex­ico at least part of the year and more than a third of those Amer­i­cans are liv­ing there year-round. And accord­ing to the National Asso­ci­a­tion of Real­tors, those Amer­i­cans have already started to invest in Mex­i­can real estate and beach front property.

But why are peo­ple choos­ing Mex­ico? Why not stay in the U.S. borders?

For one, beach­front prop­erty in the United States is con­sid­er­ably more expen­sive than beach­front prop­erty in Mex­ico, and it’s rapidly dis­ap­pear­ing. Peo­ple look­ing for that pris­tine stretch of sand for their sec­ond home in the U.S. have to turn to rentals rather than own­er­ship. Rentals present their own share of prob­lems that can make it dif­fi­cult to enjoy a vacation.

With sky­rock­et­ing prices and a lack of avail­able space, it’s no won­der that Amer­i­cans seek­ing a sec­ond beach­front home are look­ing south of the bor­der instead.
What Mex­ico offers

The weather, the views, the cul­ture and the exotic locale are obvi­ously big draws for peo­ple want­ing to build sec­ond homes in Mex­ico, but the invest­ment poten­tial also has had a huge effect on the deci­sion. Major com­pa­nies like Mer­rill Lynch and the Cal­i­for­nia Pub­lic Employ­ees Retire­ment Sys­tem, the largest retire­ment fund in the world, are invest­ing in Mex­i­can real estate.

The top three things to con­sider when invest­ing in a for­eign coun­try are the cur­rency, the cli­mate for for­eign invest­ment, and gen­eral econ­omy and polit­i­cal sta­bil­ity. Because Mex­ico has a grow­ing GDP, good polit­i­cal sta­bil­ity since NAFTA, and the high­est level of direct invest­ment in Latin Amer­ica, it makes the coun­try very attrac­tive from an invest­ment standpoint.

Down­sides of beach­front prop­erty in Mexico

The biggest chal­lenge with invest­ing in beach­front prop­erty in Mex­ico is price. Although it is more afford­able than the U.S., prices are going up about 20 per­cent to 35 per­cent each year. Many peo­ple con­sid­er­ing a Mex­i­can beach­front invest­ment are decid­ing to buy their land now in order to lock in the price.

As more and more US cit­i­zens look for a beach­front prop­erty in Mex­ico, invest­ments are likely to con­tinue to rise. With avail­able prop­erty, good invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, and afford­able prices, it may well be pos­si­ble to turn the hope of a sec­ond home into a reality.

Ger­man super­model Heidi Klum and her singer hus­band Seal renewed their mar­i­tal vows in a Hindu cer­e­mony on their third wed­ding anniver­sary.
India was the theme of the wed­ding that was held at Mexico’s Costa Careyes beach early this month. Indian priest Pan­dit Shailesh Tri­pathi was espe­cially called from Indian holy city Varanasi to con­duct the cer­e­mony.

Heidi Klum was dressed like an Indian bride in lehenga-chunni and wore exquis­ite jew­ellery. Seal wore a black sherwani.

Accord­ing to a news­pa­per report, Pan­dit Tri­pathi per­formed elab­o­rate poo­jas like Ganesh pujan and Nav­garh pujan. Heidi and Seal also did saat phere.

Heidi’s par­ents were also part of rit­u­als like Kanyadaan (giv­ing away of the bride) and Paon Pujai (wash­ing the groom’s feet).

A few sum­mers ago, our fam­ily ven­tured out to the Mari­eta Islands, a small chain of tiny islands and rock for­ma­tions near Puerta Val­larta. Our adven­ture began with a 15-minute boat ride from the sea­side vil­lage of Punta de Mita to our island des­ti­na­tion. Schools of dol­phin skimmed along next to our small motor­boat, and sea tur­tles lifted their heads and peered at us as we cut through the tran­quil morn­ing waters.

As we approached the Mari­etas, our guide slowed down and pointed to a rock for­ma­tion. “Boo­bies” he said with a laugh. Sure enough, the rock was dot­ted with colonies of blue-footed boo­bies. The sight of the ungainly birds with bright blue feet was a silly sur­prise. We laughed as we watched a male booby walk­ing along the rock with an exag­ger­ated step — lift­ing his feet high in an attempt to gain the females’ atten­tion. We shot sev­eral pic­tures, and then headed to Nopalera, one of the Mari­eta Islands.

On the beach of Nopalera were small caves with sandy floors. Above and beyond the caves were grassy patches filled with small shrubs and cacti. Gen­tle waves broke on the island’s white sandy shore. Our old­est daugh­ter, Mered­ith, spent hours snor­kel­ing in the trans­par­ent waters. She fol­lowed schools of col­or­ful fish and peeked inside large conch shells.

Our mid­dle daugh­ter, Lydia, explored the caves of Nopalera where she found her­mit crabs in every crack and crevice. She trea­sured each one, and showed each and every crab to Tim or me. Lit­tle Joseph con­tent­edly teetered in and out of a small cave, his dia­per heavy with salt water and sand.

The sun climbed high in the sky, and it was time to head back. Our day on the Mari­etas was filled with the won­der of nature that seemed to trans­form our hearts.

The U.S. credit crunch and finan­cial melt­down is push­ing a grow­ing num­ber of Amer­i­can real estate com­pa­nies and investors to look out­side the United States for opportunities.

Many fear that the deep­en­ing cri­sis will lead to more lay­offs and a sharp pull­back in demand for real estate space, caus­ing occu­pancy, rents and val­ues to tumble.

“The demand for space [in the United States] has dete­ri­o­rated, and we expect it to get worse,” said Amy Lau­ren Young, a senior ana­lyst at REITol­ogy, part of New York-based Street­Brains LLC. “I do think that rents will come down — it’s kind of inevitable in this kind of market.”

“With the U.S. suf­fer­ing from both a con­sumer and finan­cial cri­sis, we would avoid many U.S. real estate stocks,” she said.

Instead, many U.S. investors, oppor­tu­nity funds and real estate invest­ment trusts have been scout­ing for real estate bar­gains in high-growth areas of the world, where the local economies are grow­ing and demand for real estate is esca­lat­ing. The most pop­u­lar tar­gets are in India, China, the so-called Asian Tigers (South Korea, Malaysia and Sin­ga­pore), the Mid­dle East, Scan­di­navia and Brazil, Ms. Young said.

She favors “cutting-edge cities,” where gross domes­tic prod­uct growth is high and rural res­i­dents are migrat­ing to urban cen­ters in large num­bers, cre­at­ing huge demand for real estate space.

Ms. Young said the per­cent­age of the world pop­u­la­tion liv­ing in cities is expected to grow to 75% by 2025 from 50%. As a result, she thinks that the east Asian Tigers offer strong invest­ment opportunities.

Ms. Young’s top mar­ket picks are Seoul, South Korea; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Dubai, United Arab Emi­rates; and Stock­holm, Sweden.

She is also bull­ish on the res­i­den­tial mar­ket in Brazil, where she esti­mates that there is a hous­ing short­age of 8 mil­lion units.

“As peo­ple have been grow­ing their income lev­els, they’re mov­ing to urban mar­kets from the rural com­mu­ni­ties,” Ms. Young said. “So there’s a need to house these peo­ple who are mov­ing into Sao Paulo, Rio [de Janeiro] and other cities like that.”

“India, Rus­sia, Brazil, Mex­ico and China are grow­ing faster and, there­fore, the oppor­tu­ni­ties for higher returns because of appre­ci­a­tion are much stronger there,” said Ray Torto, global chief econ­o­mist for CB Richard Ellis, a Los Ange­les real estate ser­vices com­pany. He noted that GDP growth in the BRIC coun­tries — Brazil, Rus­sia, India and China — is up 6% to 8% so far this year, far sur­pass­ing the U.S. annu­al­ized GDP growth of 0.6% last quarter.

“The expected returns [on real estate in these areas] are gen­er­ally in the high-teens to 25% range,” Mr. Ellis said.

MAJOR FIRMS

Steven Licht­en­feld, co-chairman of the real estate finance/capital mar­kets divi­sion at law firm Proskauer Rose’s New York office, said that more pri­vate equity funds and REITs have been inquir­ing about global invest­ment in emerg­ing mar­kets, such as China, India, East­ern Europe, and Cen­tral and South America.

“There’s a feel­ing those mar­kets have the oppor­tu­nity to gen­er­ate returns that would exceed what they could real­is­ti­cally achieve in the U.S.,” he said. “Peo­ple are look­ing at those economies as growth areas.”

Mer­rill Lynch & Co. Inc. of New York recently acquired a 20% stake in Bel­grade, Serbia-based real estate com­pany MPC Prop­er­ties, mark­ing its first foray into the country’s real estate sec­tor. The move indi­cated its con­fi­dence in the growth prospects of an under­de­vel­oped coun­try that has a strong local economy.

Sev­eral U.S. real estate moguls have dis­closed their appetite for global real estate. Sam Zell said at a New York Uni­ver­sity REIT sym­po­sium this month that he sees lit­tle oppor­tu­nity to buy bricks and mor­tar domes­ti­cally, but plenty out­side the United States.

“We con­tinue to be major play­ers in Brazil, China, Mex­ico and var­i­ous other emerg­ing mar­kets on the pri­vate side,” he said. “We think there are sig­nif­i­cant oppor­tu­ni­ties in that arena.”

Mr. Zell is chair­man of sev­eral REITs — Equity Res­i­den­tial Prop­er­ties Trust and Equity Lifestyle Prop­er­ties Inc., both of Chicago, and Cap­i­tal Trust Inc. of New York — as well as a num­ber of pri­vate invest­ment enti­ties. He is also chair­man and chief exec­u­tive of the Tri­bune Co. of Chicago.

At the same con­fer­ence, William Mack, founder and man­ag­ing part­ner of New York-based Apollo Real Estate Advi­sors LP, said he sees oppor­tu­nity in Rus­sia, Turkey, India and South Amer­ica, while Hamid Moghadam, chair­man and chief exec­u­tive of AMB Prop­erty Corp. in San Fran­cisco, said his indus­trial REIT has been expand­ing out­side the U.S. bor­ders for years and he sees brisk demand for indus­trial space in Mex­ico and Canada.

“The over­all pic­ture out­side the U.S. is stronger than in the U.S.,” Mr. Moghadam said.

A grow­ing num­ber of REITs, includ­ing Simon Prop­erty Group Inc. of Indi­anapo­lis, Kimco Realty Corp. of New Hyde Park, N.Y. and Pro­L­o­gis of Den­ver have been buy­ing or devel­op­ing prop­er­ties in high-growth mar­kets out­side the United States.

Ms. Young cau­tions investors to avoid world finan­cial cen­ters, such as Lon­don and Tokyo. “Cap­i­tal mar­kets are inter­con­nected,” so these loca­tions face the same finan­cial mar­ket tur­moil and poten­tial falling rents and prop­erty val­ues as the United States does, she said.

Invest­ing in global mar­kets isn’t with­out risk. Investors often have a tough time get­ting data to assess indi­vid­ual prop­er­ties and many face a myr­iad of murky tax laws, gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tions and polit­i­cal insta­bil­ity in some regions.

Rus­sia is seen as the most risky for dis­clo­sure and other issues. This makes it nec­es­sary for investors to team up with local real estate part­ners to nav­i­gate through the process.

“Most look to joint-venture with a local part­ner,” Mr. Licht­en­feld said.

Some investors are snap­ping up for­eign REIT secu­ri­ties as a safer way to invest and one that doesn’t require mas­sive amounts of cap­i­tal. Indeed, more than a dozen coun­tries, includ­ing the United King­dom, Japan and France, as well as Sin­ga­pore and Hong Kong, have formed REIT struc­tures in the past five years.

“REITs have become an attrac­tive way for investors to go global,” said Keith Pauley, chief invest­ment offi­cer at LaSalle Invest­ment Man­age­ment Inc., a real estate invest­ment man­age­ment com­pany in Chicago.

The REIT assumes all risks related to dis­clo­sure and reg­u­la­tory issues.

“If you buy a secu­rity, you can buy it today and sell it tomor­row, so you have less risk,” Mr. Torto said. “There’s cer­tainly less risk — but there’s also less return.”

 Not quite equal to Dubai or Shang­hai, but nev­er­the­less the sky­line of Puerto Val­larta is dot­ted with tower cranes evi­denc­ing the explo­sive growth and progress along the Mex­i­can Riv­iera. These huge tower cranes are the mod­ern form of bal­ance cranes; not exactly what one would expect to see in a sleepy lit­tle Mex­i­can fish­ing vil­lage. Of course, Val­larta is no longer sleepy or lit­tle with a pop­u­la­tion of 350,000 res­i­dents and grow­ing daily.

Dur­ing the past few years, large shop­ping cen­ters, malls, and huge mod­ern stores includ­ing Wal­mart, Sam´s Club, Costco, Home Depot, Office Sup­ply, Liv­er­pool, Sori­ana, Mega Mart, etc. have moved into the greater Val­larta area. The Mar­itime Ter­mi­nal has tripled in size, the Inter­na­tional Air­port has quadru­pled in size, the new Uni­ver­sity of Guadala­jara branch has been con­structed, the new pub­lic Audi­to­rium and Con­fer­ence Cen­ter has been built, three new large pub­lic park­ing lots have been con­structed, and the gen­eral infra­struc­ture is con­tin­u­ously expanding.

As for the tower cranes; they give the best com­bi­na­tion of height and lift­ing capac­ity and are there­fore used in the con­struc­tion of tall build­ings such as con­do­mini­ums. There are cur­rently approx­i­mately 7,000 condo units within the greater Val­larta area under var­i­ous stages of con­struc­tion every­where from the plan­ning phase to near com­ple­tion. These do not include the addi­tional 20,000 con­do­mini­ums in Fonatur´s 15 year plan for the Nayarit Riv­iera, just north of Val­larta. The 7,000 condo units cur­rently under con­struc­tion are located in over 100 condo com­plexes; many being high rise build­ings up to 24 sto­ries tall, thus requir­ing the tower cranes.

Now, for the really inter­est­ing note; very few of the vis­i­tors to the area or even the res­i­dents liv­ing in Val­larta have noticed that these high rise build­ings are being designed and con­structed in three uniquely dif­fer­ent fashions.

The major­ity of the build­ings are of the con­ven­tional con­struc­tion as used in Mex­ico for years. They con­sist of rebar rein­forced con­crete, whereby large rein­force­ment steel bars are bun­dled together, around which wooden forms are fab­ri­cated. Con­crete is then poured inside the forms and around the rebars, cre­at­ing a steel bar rein­forced cast con­crete struc­ture. Con­crete alone has high com­pres­sive strength but very poor ten­sile strength, whereas steel has very high ten­sile strength. By rein­forc­ing the con­crete with steel bars, the result­ing struc­ture has high com­pres­sive prop­er­ties as well as high ten­sile prop­er­ties, thus allow­ing the move­ment of tall build­ings dur­ing earth­quakes and high winds with­out crack­ing and other sig­nif­i­cant damage.

A sec­ond group of high rise condo build­ings in the area con­sists of steel I beam and col­umn con­struc­tion, using con­crete only for the floors. These build­ings appear to be faster to con­struct because they can be built up two, three, or more sto­ries at a time. Also, once the pre-designed steel com­po­nents are at the con­struc­tion site, there are few other trucks (such as the con­tin­u­ous flow of cement mix­ers) arriv­ing at the con­struc­tion site. The gen­eral con­struc­tion area seems cleaner because there is no need for the wooden forms, piles of rebars, and mis­cel­la­neous con­crete related mate­ri­als. Also, the required man­power for the steel fab­ri­cated build­ings seems to be some­what less than that asso­ci­ated with the rebar rein­forced con­crete build­ings. They do require a sub­stan­tial amount of weld­ing and cut­ting, how­ever mechan­i­cal fas­ten­ers are also used for most con­nec­tions. Steel fab­ri­cated build­ings pos­sess great com­pres­sive as well as ten­sile strengths; how­ever the selec­tion of this type of con­struc­tion is most strongly influ­enced by the cost of steel rel­a­tive to that of concrete.

The third group of high rise condo build­ings in the Val­larta area is com­prised of those of a hybrid con­struc­tion. They con­sist of smaller steel beams encap­su­lated within rein­forced cast con­crete. The small I beams and columns are quite sim­ple and fast to con­struct, after which they are sur­rounded by rein­force­ment steel bars. Next, as with the con­ven­tional rein­forced con­crete struc­tures, wooden forms are con­structed and con­crete is poured around the steel columns and rebars. This com­bi­na­tion of mate­ri­als offers the advan­tages of both of the above meth­ods of construction.

All three meth­ods of con­struc­tion require sophis­ti­cated engi­neer­ing and design to assure long life and sta­bil­ity of the build­ings dur­ing the most extreme weather con­di­tions and earth­quakes. Also, all of these large con­do­minium build­ings require sub­stan­tial foot­ings, drilling below ground as much as 100 feet to hit bedrock. Because all build­ing designs are closely reviewed and must be approved by pro­fes­sional archi­tects and engi­neers in the area prior to receiv­ing build­ing per­mits, it is safe to assume that all of the new struc­tures are sound and will stand the test of time.

Regard­less of the con­struc­tion method, if the build­ings are greater than about five sto­ries tall, you can count on at least one tower crane to do the heavy lift­ing. These tele­scop­ing cranes are so ver­sa­tile that a sin­gle oper­a­tor located on the ground or near the work site can remotely manip­u­late the hor­i­zon­tal boom or jib, the trol­ley, and the cable motor that raises and low­ers the load. Upon com­ple­tion of the project, these large cranes come down piece by piece and are eas­ily trucked off to another con­struc­tion site.

Con­struc­tion pro­gresses rapidly in Val­larta because the cli­mate is ideal for build­ing year round. With aver­age daily tem­per­a­tures of 73°F and vir­tu­ally no chance of rain from Novem­ber through May, the work sched­ule is gen­er­ally at least 10 hours per day, six days per week. Dur­ing the rainy sea­son of June through Octo­ber, the rains gen­er­ally occur between 4:00PM and 8:00PM, often reduc­ing the work sched­ule to 8 hours per day, 6 days per week.

Now that we have a bet­ter under­stand­ing of what is being built in the area, those of us that live here ought to pay more atten­tion to the new build­ings and take notice as to what type of con­struc­tion is being applied. For those of you that are con­sid­er­ing a trip to Par­adise, you will have some­thing new to look at while sight­see­ing around the area; the crane inva­sion and the mag­nif­i­cent con­do­mini­ums they are building!

The tiny plane that had remained dark and quiet since depart­ing Hous­ton was sud­denly qui­eter as the pilot reduced engine power and the nose of the air­craft began to tip downwards.

With this cue, win­dow shades were lifted and the blind­ing sun of a Mex­i­can after­noon sat­u­rated the cabin. Eye­lids were forced open just in time to view the approach; our plane skim­ming across the Sierra Madre moun­tain range, reach­ing a civ­i­liza­tion made up of red-tiled roofs and white sun-washed houses, and then sud­denly the blue immen­sity of the Pacific Ocean stretched before us.

Puerto Val­larta is a small Mex­i­can city most famously known for being the place where Eliz­a­beth Tay­lor and Richard Bur­ton, pur­sued by gos­sip reporters and paparazzi, flaunted their love affair while Bur­ton was film­ing “The Night of the Iguana” in 1963. It wasn’t until we were dri­ving along the wind­ing coast of Mis­maloya, and our dri­ver shouted, “Over there is where they filmed ‘The Night of the Iguana,’” that I knew this.

I felt a hint of guilt after remem­ber­ing that I played the Han­nah Jelkes part, Deb­o­rah Kerr’s char­ac­ter in the film, in an act­ing class in college.

After eight days explor­ing, relax­ing and chat­ting with the locals, I can say that Puerto Val­larta def­i­nitely holds its own, iguana or no iguana. Puerto Val­larta, or sim­ply “Val­larta,” as it is often abridged, offers a vari­ety of extreme sport and extreme relax­ation opportunities.

This col­or­ful resort town sits on the west coast in the state of Jalisco, mak­ing beach-going at sun­set a must every night.

One night, while watch­ing the sun­set, my friend and I saw a sud­den flurry in the cor­ners of our eyes.

An army of black bats sil­hou­et­ted against an orange sky rushed out of the eaves of our hotel’s roof, fly­ing in uni­son towards the ocean. Every night at dusk, the bats made their escape into dark­ness. A small spec­ta­cle, but it had us check­ing our watches every evening to see if we missed it.

Arriv­ing after an entire win­ter hiber­nat­ing in the north, our first two days were ded­i­cated to some much-needed beach time. Be sure to bring a sun­screen with a high SPF. The sun is strong, and be care­ful what you have cov­er­ing you when you fall asleep in that beach chair. I woke up with my own hand­prints on my stom­ach, which was a great con­ver­sa­tion starter the remain­der of our trip.

The beaches in Puerto Val­larta offer some­thing for every­one. If you just want to laze around in the sun or read a book, the hotel beaches north of the city offer a serene set­ting. If you are look­ing for more ocean-front excite­ment, down­town Puerto Val­larta is the place to be. The city is nes­tled on Mexico’s west coast and the beaches here are burst­ing with restau­rants, bars, and shop­ping. There is art­work lined up along the shore on easels, adding to the vibrancy of the prom­e­nade and sand­cas­tle artists sculpt­ing giant works of art, often with reli­gious themes. My favorite was an inter­pre­ta­tion of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Sup­per.” If you take a lot of pho­tos, leave a propino(a tip).

When you are fully rested and beach bronzed (and hope­fully not burned), take a cou­ple of excur­sions. Our first adven­ture trip was cho­sen by my friend. I soon found out he was not afraid of a lit­tle dan­ger, and ner­vously agreed to accom­pany him on a canopy tour at El Eden, a park in one of the jun­gles south of the city. El Eden also hap­pens to be the set of the 1987 movie, “Preda­tor.” Scary.

After our tour leader and zip-line extra­or­di­naire, Pedro, explained the tech­ni­cal­i­ties of the har­ness, the brak­ing method and basi­cally how not to fall to our death 300 feet into the canyons below, we ascended to the first level. Piece of cake, I thought, after safely mak­ing it to the other side. The pho­to­graph taken of me as Pedro pushed me into my first flight may prove oth­er­wise. Com­plete terror.

They lost a sale there.

With 12 zip-lines total, the group hiked higher and higher into the jun­gle, until we were zigzag­ging across the canyon at 40 mph, scream­ing out of fear and pure exhil­a­ra­tion over the tops of trees and water­falls. Beau­ti­ful, an all-embracing adren­a­line rush, and some­thing I never thought I would do.

The next day, we hung up our zip-line har­nesses for a cou­ple of horse’s har­nesses. After coast­ing past the shore of Puerto Val­larta on a boat and snor­kel­ing at Los Arcos, we hopped on shore at the small fish­ing vil­lage of Quim­ixto. Before I even set foot on shore, a man met me as I was nav­i­gat­ing across the rocky floor of the bay. One look up and there it was, the local celebrity star­ing me straight in the face; the infa­mous iguana. The man dropped the leg­endary lizard in my arms and for 50 pesos ($5) I was allowed to have my photo taken with it. A bargain.

A cou­ple of mar­gar­i­tas later, we rented some horses for a ride to a water­fall. The horses were small and easy to han­dle, so effort­less in fact, the man from Alberta rid­ing in front of me held a Corona in one hand and a cam­era in the other. Mount­ing a horse with flipflops was the only chal­lenge. After rid­ing through the coun­try­side with the sun on our backs and weav­ing through nar­row for­est paths, we arrived at a scene that rivaled any post­card for sale at the hotel gift shop.

The tow­er­ing water­fall was an extra­or­di­nary sight, but per­haps even more impres­sive were the lofty heights from which peo­ple were cliff-diving into the deep pool below. I sat this por­tion of the adven­ture out, wad­ing in the refresh­ing waters and chat­ting with other señori­tas, while my friend shim­mied up the rope that aided in tack­ling the ver­ti­cal precipice.

With­out hes­i­ta­tion he swung his arms back and made the plunge amidst cheers from the crowd of bathers below; and yes, he made it.

Puerto Val­larta is a photographer’s dream. Tak­ing a short walk through down­town, I dis­cov­ered a pic­ture around every cor­ner. I even pho­tographed things that I now wish I had tried. From Sun­day mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe church — we had to stand out­side because of our shorts — to the giant whole fish or giant prawns cooked on sticks at beach­side grills. I also wish I had pur­chased just one goofy sou­venir off the street, since Puerto Val­larta may be the world cap­i­tal of plas­tic frogs, fig­urines and other fun kitsch. Instead, I set­tled for Cuban cig­ars. I sup­pose I will have to plan another trip, but until then I always have that iguana photo.

 The rapid growth in use of a new Inter­net tech­nol­ogy over the past two years by Mex­ico real estate bro­kers has resulted in a de facto Mex­i­can mul­ti­ple list­ing ser­vice (MLS). The new sys­tem bet­ter serves buy­ers and sell­ers of real estate through­out coastal and other regions of inter­est to for­eign buy­ers. This progress helps solve the key chal­lenge of shar­ing and mar­ket­ing list­ings between agents, a his­tor­i­cal chal­lenge in Mex­ico as it was in the early days of US real estate. Buy­ers and sell­ers would do well to make sure that their agent is part of this grow­ing MLS in order to ensure that they are receiv­ing the proper real estate ser­vice, par­tic­u­larly in regions of inter­est to for­eign buyers.

A com­mon mis­con­cep­tion amongst real estate buy­ers and sell­ers is that there is such a thing as the “one and only” mul­ti­ple list­ing ser­vice. This is erro­neous because there are lit­er­ally hun­dreds of mul­ti­ple list­ing ser­vices in the US and Canada, and the term is mor­ph­ing to become a descrip­tor of any quasi-public repos­i­tory of real estate list­ings (except in Canada where the term is a reg­is­tered trade­mark for real estate). Any­one may cre­ate a mul­ti­ple list­ing ser­vice with the value of the sys­tem being a func­tion of how widely and how respon­si­bly the sys­tem is used. Each mar­ket deter­mines the MLS sys­tem that best meets the need – with the occa­sional dis­rup­tion such as the law­suit by the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice with the National Asso­ci­a­tion of Realtors®.

Mex­i­can real estate has a his­tory of agents with­hold­ing list­ings from each other with the intent to get the com­mis­sion from both the sell­ing and buy­ing sides of the trans­ac­tion (i.e. “pocket list­ings”), sim­i­lar to the sit­u­a­tion in the US and Canada before the var­i­ous regional MLSs were cre­ated. This made it dif­fi­cult for a poten­tial buyer to know if they were see­ing the best prop­er­ties or get­ting a fair deal, and for sell­ers to know if their agent would give proper expo­sure to their prop­erty. (The appear­ance of orga­nized MLSs in the US in the early 1970s was a vast improve­ment over this inef­fi­cient system.)

The good news for con­sumers is that boom­ing Mex­ico mar­kets of inter­est to for­eign­ers plus the ubiq­uity of the Inter­net have dri­ven the demand for more open meth­ods of shar­ing list­ings to the ben­e­fit of buy­ers and sell­ers. No longer does the mar­ket have to sub­mit to anachro­nis­tic sales meth­ods in the Inter­net age.

One par­tic­u­lar mul­ti­ple list­ing ser­vice has grown organ­i­cally to gain a lead­ing spot for Mexico’s real estate inven­tory: Point2 NLS by Point2 Tech­nolo­gies. Mex­i­can agents from Tijuana to Rocky Point [Puerto Peñasco] to Puerto Val­larta to the Mayan Riv­iera have dis­cov­ered that this com­mer­cial plat­form is an effec­tive way of shar­ing and mar­ket­ing nearly 7,000 Mex­ico prop­erty list­ings amongst over 1,000 fel­low agents through­out Mex­ico. Quite sim­ply, it is the largest data­base of Mex­ico real estate list­ings shared between agents in the world – and it is grow­ing daily.

“Point2 is a vehi­cle to pro­vide, in Mex­ico, the tech­nol­ogy that a full-blown MLS pro­vides,” com­mented Saul Klein, CEO of Point2 Tech­nolo­gies in an inter­view. “Orga­ni­za­tions of real estate pro­fes­sion­als can add value around the plat­form. The key func­tion of shar­ing and mar­ket­ing list­ings between agents is intrin­sic to Point2. Indi­vid­ual agents con­trol their busi­ness rela­tion­ships in a way that best serves their clients.” Klein noted that Mex­ico real estate agents are Point2 Tech­nolo­gies’ third largest group of Point2 adopters in the 85 coun­tries that the com­pany ser­vices, pre­ceded only by the USA and Canada.

Why should real estate buy­ers and sell­ers in Mex­ico care about an Inter­net technology?

The answer is that if their agent uses Point2, that client’s agent has access to the most pro­lific MLS through­out Mex­i­can regions of inter­est to for­eign­ers. Buy­ers and sell­ers would be wise to ensure that their agent is using Point2. Sell­ers will want to seek out list­ing agents that gen­er­ously share the prop­er­ties with other agents’ Web sites in order to max­i­mize expo­sure of those list­ings. Buy­ers in turn will want to under­stand how their pre­ferred agent fil­ters list­ing results that appear on their agent’s website.

Until an improved shar­ing and mar­ket­ing solu­tion is offered nation­ally to Mex­ico, the Point2 sys­tem is lead­ing the way towards address­ing buyer and seller require­ments for an MLS in the United Mex­i­can States, one real estate list­ing and one real estate agent at a time.

So on a recent week­day after­noon — at the 2 p.m. start of the day’s five-hour shift — Lutz effi­ciently popped a bot­tle of Leclerc Bri­ant on the pool­side deck of her expan­sive home. Imme­di­ately from around the cor­ner came Smith’s hearty “Woo!” as Lutz filled opaque red flutes. Before long, Smith’s legal pad was in hand as she paced, jot­ted notes and acted out poten­tial dia­logue, while Lutz laid serenely still on a raft mid­pool as she worked out the movie in her head.

A trip to Lutz’s Puerto Val­larta time share early in their part­ner­ship in the mid-‘90s sea­soned the habit. “We out­lined ’10 Things’ with a bucket of Corona between our legs on the beach,” says Lutz. “So we decided … to go with that.”

Right now, two of their rewrite jobs, “Bride Wars” and “The Ugly Truth,” are film­ing, and their orig­i­nal com­edy, “The House Bunny,” will be released in August. Lutz also has a solo drama script called “Long Time Gone” shoot­ing this sum­mer, and Smith is pro­duc­ing “Whip It!,” writ­ten by Shauna Cross, for direc­tor Drew Bar­ry­more this year.

Mean­while, they both pub­lish fic­tion — Smith writes young adult nov­els and Lutz “raunchy chick lit” — and they’re putting together a female buddy com­edy pitch for “Bunny” star Anna Faris.

“She’s the sexy, horny one, and I’m the stunted ado­les­cent,” jokes Smith of a part­ner­ship that has even endured a stint in cou­ples ther­apy (no, they’re not actu­ally a cou­ple). “We’re like a walk­ing female buddy comedy!”

Lutz chuck­les and unleashes the cork on a bot­tle of Moët, its golden con­tents cas­cad­ing over the rim.

“Woo!” go the ladies.

While U.S. air­lines have been drop­ping like flies (or at least ground­ing their planes and fil­ing for bank­ruptcy), Mexico’s dis­count air­lines have been steadily adding new des­ti­na­tions. Rather than suf­fer­ing an inter­minable bus ride, now you can start your vaca­tion in Guadala­jara and zip over to Can­cún to end it on the beach for about $120.

These new air­lines criss­cross Mex­ico, land­ing and tak­ing off from more than 50 cities. Some of these des­ti­na­tions are bor­der cities and indus­trial cen­ters of no inter­est to most U.S. trav­el­ers; oth­ers are pop­u­lar tourist spots already served by U.S. air­lines. It’s the mid­dle ground that’s really worth a look — intrigu­ing des­ti­na­tions that used to be hard to reach with­out putting in some seri­ous road time, as well as some lik­able cities that offer rea­son­able alter­na­tives to busier airports.

Here’s a look at Mexico’s bud­get air­lines and where they’ll take you, fol­lowed by descrip­tions of less-known des­ti­na­tions that are worth a look. (The Which­Bud­get stu­dent travel Web site also has a nifty tool that lists 40 pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tions and pro­vides links to the air­lines that serve them.)

AIRLINES

Aero Cal­i­for­nia (21 destinations)

• Founded: 1960 (as char­ter company)
• Hub: Mex­ico City Inter­na­tional Airport
• Pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tions: Aca­pulco, Can­cún, Guadala­jara, Mérida, Mex­ico City, Morélia, Oax­aca, Puerto Val­larta (“com­ing soon”), Tijuana
• Other des­ti­na­tions worth a look: Chetu­mal, Chi­huahua, Her­mosillo, León/Bajío
• U.S. des­ti­na­tions: None

Ala­dia (6 destinations)

• Founded: 2006
• Hub: Mon­ter­rey (Gen­eral Mar­i­ano Escobedo Inter­na­tional Airport)
• Pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tions: Can­cún, Guadala­jara, Los Cabos, Oax­aca, Puebla
• Other des­ti­na­tions worth a look: None
• U.S. des­ti­na­tions: None

Alma de Mex­ico (30 destinations)

• Founded: 2006 (by a for­mer direc­tor of Aeromexico)
• Hub: Guadala­jara (Miguel Hidalgo y Cos­tilla Inter­na­tional Airport)
• Pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tions: Can­cún, Chi­huahua, Guadala­jara, Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, Los Cabos, Mazatlán, Mérida, Oax­aca, Puebla, Puerto Val­larta, Queré­taro, Tijuana
• Other des­ti­na­tions worth a look: Aguas­calientes, Chetu­mal, Ciu­dad del Car­men (Campeche), Ciu­dad Obregón (Sonora), La Paz, Los Mochis, Torreón
• U.S. des­ti­na­tions: None

Avi­acsa (20 destinations)

• Founded: 1990 (by State of Chiapas)
• Hubs: Mex­ico City Inter­na­tional Air­port; Mon­ter­rey (Gen. Mar­i­ano Escobedo Inter­na­tional Airport)
• Pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tions: Aca­pulco, Can­cún, Guadala­jara, Mérida, Mex­ico City, Morélia, Oax­aca, Puerto Val­larta, Tijuana
• Other des­ti­na­tions worth a look: Chetu­mal, Her­mosillo, León/Bajío
• U.S. des­ti­na­tions: Las Vegas (to Mon­ter­rey, Mex­ico City)

Avolar (19 destinations)

• Founded: 2005
• Hub: Tijuana (Gen. Abelardo L. Rodriguez Inter­na­tional Airport)
• Pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tions: Aca­pulco, Cuer­navaca, Guadala­jara, Morélia, Oax­aca, Puebla, Queré­taro, Tijuana, Zacatecas
• Other des­ti­na­tions worth a look: Aguas­calientes, Col­ima, Durango, Her­mosillo, León/Bajío, Tepic, Uruapán
• U.S. des­ti­na­tions: None

Click Mex­i­cana (25 destinations)

• Founded: 2005 (sub­sidiary of Mex­i­cana, incor­po­rat­ing Aero­caribe Airlines)
• Hub: Mex­ico City Inter­na­tional Airport
• Pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tions: Cozumel, Guadala­jara, Ixtapa-Zijuatanejo, Man­zanillo, Mérida, Mex­ico City, Oax­aca, Puerto Vallarta
• Other des­ti­na­tions worth a look: Aguas­calientes, Chetu­mal, Ciu­dad del Car­men, Col­ima, Huat­ulco, León/Bajío, Puerto Escon­dido, San Luis Potosí, Torreon
• U.S. des­ti­na­tions: None

Inter­jet (13 destinations)

• Founded: 2005
• Hub: Toluca (Lic. Adolfo López Mateos Inter­na­tional Airport)
• Pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tions: Aca­pulco, Can­cún, Guadala­jara, Ixtapa-Zijuatanejo, Los Cabos, Mérida, Puerto Vallarta
• Other des­ti­na­tions worth a look: Chi­huahua, Ciu­dad del Carmen
• U.S. des­ti­na­tions: None

Viva Aer­obus (23 destinations)

• Founded: 2006 (co-owned by fam­ily that founded Ryanair)
• Hub: Mon­ter­rey (Gen­eral Mar­i­ano Escobedo Inter­na­tional Airport)
• Pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tions: Aca­pulco, Can­cún, Cozumel, Cuer­navaca, Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, Los Cabos, Mazatlán, Mérida, Morélia, Oax­aca, Puerto Val­larta, Queré­taro, Tijuana
• Other des­ti­na­tions worth a look: Chi­huahua, Her­mosillo, Huat­ulco, La Paz, León/Bajío
• U.S. des­ti­na­tions: Austin, Texas (to Can­cún, Monterrey)

Volaris (21 destinations)

• Founded: 2005 (co-owned by El Sal­vador national air­line Grupo TACA)
• Hub: Toluca (Lic. Adolfo López Mateos Inter­na­tional Airport)
• Pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tions: Aca­pulco, Can­cún, Guadala­jara, Los Cabos, Mazatlán, Mérida, Morélia, Oax­aca, Puebla, Puerto Val­larta, Tijuana
• Other des­ti­na­tions worth a look: Aguas­calientes, Campeche (sum­mer 2008), Her­mosillo, León/Bajío
• U.S. des­ti­na­tions: Approved to fly to Los Ange­les; air­port not yet assigned.

DESTINATIONS

Aguas­calientes — This pros­per­ous state cap­i­tal boasts his­toric hot springs and some hand­some colo­nial build­ings; it’s one alter­na­tive for tour­ing the colo­nial region that includes San Luis Potosí and the fabled sil­ver city of Zacatecas.

Campeche — Mexico’s most beau­ti­ful yet least-discovered colo­nial city is full of pirate lore and pro­vides a gate­way to his­toric hacien­das and largely unex­plored Maya ruins deep in the Yucatán.

Chetu­mal (Quin­tana Roo) — This state cap­i­tal has the Caribbean’s finest museum on Maya cul­ture and offers access to the unspoiled Costa Maya (think Riv­iera Maya 20 years ago) and Belize to the south, as well as Calak­mul and the pris­tine Río Bec ruins to the west.

Chi­huahua — The cap­i­tal of Mexico’s largest state is the east­ern ter­mi­nus of the Cop­per Canyon rail­road and has a fine colo­nial core with beau­ti­ful parks and plazas.

Ciu­dad del Car­men (Campeche) — Pre­vi­ously known pri­mar­ily as the hub of Campeche state’s petro­leum indus­try, this island city 140 miles south of the state cap­i­tal is being trans­formed by lux­ury resort development.

Ciu­dad Obregón (Sonora) — Sonora’s second-largest city is an option for coastal explo­rations; it’s more con­ve­nient than Her­mosillo if you’re bound for the port city of Guay­mas and its ferry across the Sea of Cortés.

Col­ima — The pleas­ant state cap­i­tal is just about 25 miles inland from the Pacific resort of Man­zanillo and is the gate­way to two spec­tac­u­lar vol­ca­noes: the steam­ing Vol­cán de Fuego and the extinct Vol­cán Nevado de Colima.

Durango — The laid-back cow­boy town, for­mer home of Pan­cho Villa and Dolores Del Río, boasts one of Mexico’s most delight­ful plazas and has been a favorite film­ing site for U.S. Westerns.

Her­mosillo (Sonora) — The state cap­i­tal is a bustling agri­cul­tural cen­ter with lit­tle to hold the tourist, but it’s only about 45 miles from the coast, pre­sent­ing one alter­na­tive for reach­ing the increas­ingly pop­u­lar resorts of Puerto Peñasco.

Huat­ulco, Oax­aca — The Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment has trod­den more gen­tly at its newest big resort, lying along a series of beau­ti­ful sandy bays, than at its other tourist creations.

La Paz (Baja Cal­i­for­nia Sur) — Long before there was Los Cabos, this trop­i­cal cap­i­tal city drew sun-seekers and sports fish­er­men; its appeal only increases by con­trast with the com­mer­cial­ized tip of the peninsula.

León/Bajío (Gua­na­ju­ato) — León, a lik­able enough place to spend the night, is a major bus hub, and its air­port serves the enchant­ing colo­nial cities of Gua­na­ju­ato, San Miguel de Allende and Dolores Hidalgo.

Los Mochis (Sinaloa) — The west­ern ter­mi­nus of the Cop­per Canyon rail­road is an agree­able mod­ern city with a good selec­tion of inns and restaurants.

Puerto Escon­dido (Oax­aca) — The tra­di­tional fish­ing vil­lage on the remote Oax­aca coast is a long­time surfers’ hang­out that is becom­ing more pop­u­lar with tourists seek­ing a relaxed and inex­pen­sive beach destination.

Queré­taro — A fine colo­nial city, steeped in rev­o­lu­tion­ary his­tory, with a sophis­ti­cated mod­ern side, Queré­taro sits at the cross­roads where north­east­ern, west­ern and cen­tral Mex­ico meet.

San Luis Potosí — This state cap­i­tal is a uni­ver­sity town with an active nightlife and cul­ture, exquis­ite colo­nial build­ings and prox­im­ity to the better-known colo­nial cities of Gua­na­ju­ato and Zacate­cas — as well as the newly trendy sil­ver min­ing ghost town of Real de Catorce.

Tepic (Nayarit) — This pleas­ant state cap­i­tal, founded by the nephew of Hernán Cortés in 1524, has an active tra­di­tional Hui­chol cul­ture and offers an alter­na­tive to fly­ing to Puerto Val­larta or Mazatlán for Pacific Coast explorations.

Tor­reón (Coahuila) — His­tory buffs might con­sider start­ing their trav­els here, at the site of Pan­cho Villa’s first big vic­tory in the Mex­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion, and then tak­ing in the more cos­mopoli­tan cities of Durango or Chihuahua.

Uru­apán (Michoacán) — This very tra­di­tional Mex­i­can city has the only national park within city bound­aries and is close to Michoacán state’s high­land craft towns, the Par­i­cutín vol­cano and the moun­tain monarch but­ter­fly reserves.

A long swell moved from the open Pacific and approached the top of the rock-studded point. The gath­er­ing green wave sparkled under the high sun and blue sky as it pushed across the shelv­ing bottom.

It lifted against the off­shore breeze, and the crest pitched amid a crackle of spray. The head-high wave broke in a cas­cade of daz­zling white across the out­side cor­ner of the reef.

Then, fol­low­ing the beckon of time and tide, it peeled for 200 yards with­out flaw or sec­tion. The pas­sage down the rocky shore­line and into the placid cove left a white tri­an­gle of hiss­ing and bub­bling foam the sig­na­ture of per­fect point surf. I stopped while pad­dling through the cove to watch the unrav­el­ing wall of water.

Jeff Duc­los and Rickey Mor­ris pulled along­side. We sat on our long­boards and stared as the sec­ond wave of the set began to peel along the track of the first. We were mes­mer­ized by the pre­ci­sion and beauty. It was, at last, the Mex­i­can Malibu.

The “Mex­i­can Mal­ibu” is the echo of leg­end and a wave of fact. It rep­re­sents the search for unspoiled per­fec­tion that was started by vagabond Cal­i­for­nia surfers more than 50 years ago. First Point at Surfrider Beach, Mal­ibu, Calif., was the stan­dard of qual­ity dur­ing the long­board era of the 1960s, the wave by which all oth­ers were mea­sured. Mal­ibu is a small wave, sel­dom over six feet, but ideal for the long trims and upright lever­ages of 9– to 10-foot boards.

Descrip­tions such as “ruler-edged walls” and “paper-thin lips” attempted to do jus­tice to the machined pre­ci­sion of First Point dur­ing a strong south swell. The fact that long­boards are back in huge num­bers legit­imizes that school.

Not too much adventure

Despite the oft-hyped images of hor­rific “bar­rels” in Tahiti and Fiji, and the tow-in hero­ics of Mav­er­icks and Jaws, the truth remains that the aver­age surfer does not embrace the idea of falling out of the sky onto bare reef. The idea of an uncrowded Mal­ibu sounds pretty good.

Bill Cleary, the late surf jour­nal­ist, revealed the Mex­i­can Mal­ibu in the lead arti­cle of the Sep­tem­ber 1965 issue of Surfer mag­a­zine. He was 27 years old a gray­beard elder of the fledg­ling tribe. Cleary located the Mex­i­can Mal­ibu by track­ing down and inter­view­ing nov­el­ist and screen­writer Peter Vier­tel, the first surfer to find the place.

Vier­tel was on loca­tion in Puerto Val­larta for the film­ing of the 1964 movie, Night of the Iguana, at the nearby scenic vil­lage of Mis­maloya. He was mar­ried to actress Deb­o­rah Kerr. While Kerr was mix­ing it up on the set with Richard Bur­ton and Ava Gard­ner, Vier­tel grabbed his 10-foot Mal­ibu shooter and went look­ing for waves along the des­o­late coast­lines of the Bay of Banderas.

With for­tune per­haps rivaled only by slip­ping a ring on Kerr’s left hand, he found the Mex­i­can Mal­ibu in a remote cove a dia­mond in the rough, so to speak. Cleary made his sub­se­quent pitch over drinks in the Bel Air Hotel in Bev­erly Hills, and Vier­tel drew a rough map detail­ing the head­land and the cove and the reef. If that tat­tered parch­ment remains, it surely would rank along­side any­thing penned by Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Dis­cov­ery. At least it would among the tra­di­tional wave-riding devo­tees who cher­ish the con­cept of casual for­ward trim on a clean wall.

Cleary and his wife, Mary, struck out in dusty Jeeps and leak­ing pan­gas and, fol­low­ing repeated hard­ships and set­backs, found the per­fect point tucked amid the end­less rub­ble of second-class beach breaks and cut-rate close­outs. While Cleary rode flaw­less shoulder-high peel­ers groomed by light off­shore spray, Mary shot grainy black-and-white photos.

Mag­a­zine edi­tor John Sev­er­son was stoked and the result­ing nine-page fea­ture led off with the blaz­ing head­line: “Through arid desert and steam­ing jun­gle, on the trail of a Mex­i­can Malibu.”

The impact among the surf com­mu­nity was con­sid­er­able. I was one of the teenage surfers cap­ti­vated by the quest. Never mind that the 27-year-old author was tee­ter­ing on the edge of senil­ity. (Don’t trust any­one over 30). The old man was a good surfer, and the arti­cle defined the lush trop­ics and flaw­less waves that were the essence of surf adven­ture. Cleary did not detail the spe­cific coor­di­nates on Viertel’s trea­sure map. This, no doubt, was intentional.

But the Mex­i­can Mal­ibu was there. And, with a bit of luck, it was within reach. It was not on the other side of the world, like Bruce Brown’s 1966 End­less Sum­mer dis­cov­ery of Cape St. Fran­cis in South Africa. I saved the mag­a­zine, deter­mined to one day find and ride the Mex­i­can Malibu.

The first attempt was in Sep­tem­ber of 1967. On fire with the surf fever, I flew via prop plane to Mazat­lan, but the waves at Lupe’s and Cannon’s were so good that I never got far­ther south than the old Shrimp Bucket bar and restaurant.

The sec­ond attempt was in June of 1976. My cousin, Ver­non McGaw, and I flew via jet to Mazat­lan and secured a rental car. We each had a board and girl­friend; the for­mer being a great idea, but the lat­ter prov­ing to be a big mistake.

Uncom­fort­able conditions

Our com­pan­ions had no inter­est in waves, espe­cially those involv­ing explo­ration on the far side of dusty ruts, irri­ta­ble igua­nas and buzzing “no-see-ums.”

We drove south, retrac­ing Cleary’s route, and just missed a drop­ping south swell at Matanchen Bay near San Blas. When we reached Puerto Val­larta, the party was rapidly deteriorating.

Back then, even in a semi-decent can­tina, claim­ing a din­ner plate or glass of ice cubes was like spin­ning the cylin­der dur­ing a game of Russ­ian roulette; we all were suf­fer­ing from var­i­ous stages of Montezuma’s Revenge.

McGaw and I made a half-hearted effort to rack the boards and launch an expe­di­tionary strike force up the mysto-coast, but the effort was vetoed amid a heated argu­ment on the quaint cob­ble­stones of old Vallarta.

“There’ no Mex­i­can Mal­ibu; you guys are just too cheap to take us to Mismaloya.”

Numer­ous fish­ing and surf­ing trips south of the bor­der dur­ing the ¹80s and ¹90s failed to pro­duce a legit­i­mate shot. The Mex­i­can Mal­ibu remained a teas­ing image. I kept the mag­a­zine, but the urgency of the quest faded. Then, nine years ago, a group of my surf­ing friends, led by Duc­los, of Her­mosa Beach, Calif., and Mor­ris, of Hous­ton, began rent­ing a villa north of Puerto Vallarta.

We go for a week each year. It’s easy to reach now — black­tops, road signs and every­thing. And the toma­toes are clean. I pulled the tat­tered copy of the 1965 Surfer from my files and began retrac­ing Cleary’s arti­cle. We were close — really close. Com­par­ing images of the mid-tide reef and the dis­tant head­lands, we agreed on the location.

The prob­lem was, the darned place didn’t break for seven con­sec­u­tive years dur­ing our vis­its. We made dozens of faith­ful checks and never saw a sur­fa­ble wave.

Other spots were excel­lent, but the Mex­i­can Mal­ibu was a no-show not enough swell, wrong angle, wrong tide, wrong week, wrong sea­son, on and on over dispir­ited bot­tles of Paci­fico beer at the can­tina over­look­ing the beach.

Nir­vana, at last

Then, as if in a dream, it was there. Last year, we pulled the board-racked vehi­cle to a stop and watched in dis­be­lief as ruler-edged powder-green walls brushed by straight off­shore wind peeled into the cove. We caught the Mex­i­can Mal­ibu for six con­sec­u­tive days, with the swell peak­ing at 2 to 3 feet over­head. This spring, our trip was high­lighted by three days of Mex­i­can Mal­ibu, with shoul­der– to head-high sets each ses­sion. This lit­eral groundswell of riches only can sup­port the virtues of patience and confidence.

Cer­tainly, bet­ter surf spots have been found, but the Mex­i­can Mal­ibu is a won­der­ful long­board wave. More than that, it is a sym­bol; it rep­re­sents the ongo­ing quest to look around the next cove and beyond the far head­land. And it inspires an improb­a­ble fire that can last a lifetime.

The area sur­round­ing the Mex­i­can Mal­ibu has changed. Cleary would be utterly aghast at the devel­op­ment of the once-remote region, and he would be mor­ti­fied to know that future expan­sion might threaten the wave. But, for now, the Mex­i­can Mal­ibu remains real. It is read­ily acces­si­ble and, no doubt, many surfers have rid­den the waves with­out know­ing the his­tory. But you still have to find it. And, as was the case 43 years ago, I¹m not print­ing a map.

More on surf­ing: Beware the dangers

The world of surf­ing has expanded dra­mat­i­cally as wave rid­ers con­tinue to seek out new venues. This espe­cially is true in Mex­ico and Cen­tral America.

Mex­ico is acces­si­ble by vehi­cle from the surf­ing strong­holds of Cal­i­for­nia and Texas, and daily flights from var­i­ous U.S. cities are avail­able to most of the major Pacific ports. The com­bi­na­tion makes that coun­try espe­cially pop­u­lar for prospecting.

The first surf des­ti­na­tion on main­land Mex­ico (opposed to Baja) was Mazat­lan. The waves of Can­non’ Point and Lupe’ Point were dis­cov­ered and rid­den by surfers from South­ern Cal­i­for­nia as early as the late 1950s, and word rapidly spread of the warm blue water and con­sis­tent surf south of the bor­der. Other early main­land des­ti­na­tions dur­ing the 1960s were Matanchen Bay and Santa Cruz near San Blas, sev­eral hours by road south of Mazat­lan, and Punta de Mita, near Puerto Vallarta.

These early des­ti­na­tions were fol­lowed by dis­cov­er­ies far­ther south dur­ing the ‘70s. Among the stand­outs were Rio Nexpa, Peta­calco and Puerto Escon­dido. Numer­ous other sites were mapped. Few, if any, sig­nif­i­cant points or reefs with well-defined waves are left uncharted.

No “secret spots” remain on main­land Mex­ico, but many remote sites known for years are jeal­ously guarded. The new­comer on a quest for uncrowded waves is advised to pro­ceed with cau­tion and act with respect.

And dan­gers beyond local­ism in the lineup exist. Med­ical help often is beyond easy reach on remote roads and beaches; sev­eral weeks ago, an Amer­i­can surfer was bit­ten on the leg by a shark and died before he could be trans­ported to a hos­pi­tal. The attack occurred at Tron­cones, a small beach north of Ixtapa.

Attacks by marine life are rare, but col­li­sions with rock reefs, sea urchins and shal­low sand bot­toms can be a risk at some breaks. Some regions are known to har­bor criminals.

Most of the trou­ble in Mex­ico occurs near the U.S. bor­der, but pock­ets of dan­ger­ous activ­ity exist far­ther south.

Some of the bad guys are run­ning drugs; oth­ers are high­way­men prey­ing on tourists in secluded areas.

When advanc­ing into a trou­bled area, remem­ber safety in numbers.

Bet­ter yet, stay away.

But most des­ti­na­tions report few prob­lems, and most locals are friendly. This espe­cially is true on the major roads and around the better-known beaches. The biggest risk on most surf trips to Mex­ico is too much sun. And maybe the occa­sional bad tomato.

Mexico-our new win­ner 2007

Mov­ing up four places to take our top spot as the world’s top retire­ment haven this year is Mex­ico. Mex­ico offers the per­fect mix of centuries-old tra­di­tions and con­tem­po­rary lifestyles. Mov­ing to Mex­ico means you can still have all of the ameni­ties you grew accus­tomed to north of the bor­der: cable TV, high-speed Inter­net, and mod­ern home appli­ances. When you move to Mex­ico you can even bring all of stuff with­out pay­ing import taxes.

Photo Adam Finner surfer Diego at Sayulita

Goods and ser­vices cost less, so you can afford the kinds of lux­u­ries only the very wealthy enjoy up north: a maid, a cook, and a gar­dener for exam­ple. In your retire­ment here, you’ll have time to vol­un­teer at the local school, time to golf in the morn­ings, time to relax on the beach… time to live the life.

Whether your vision of the ideal retire­ment involves shop­ping, fish­ing, sun­bathing, div­ing, bik­ing, moun­tain climb­ing, para­sail­ing, col­lect­ing crafts, vis­it­ing arche­o­log­i­cal sites, par­ty­ing, going to con­certs, attend­ing the the­ater, or fine din­ing, in Mex­ico you can engage in all of these activ­i­ties, and many more.

Mex­ico is such a diverse nation that every­body can find exactly what they want. You don’t have to choose between water or moun­tains; here you can have both. And because of geo­graphic diver­sity, you can also choose the cli­mate to enjoy dur­ing your Mex­i­can retire­ment: from hot and dry in the north, to hot and humid in the south, to spring-like tem­per­a­tures all year round in the Colo­nial Highlands.

You can also own the home of your dreams in Mexico-for much less than it would cost you most any­where in the U.S. or Canada. The real estate mar­ket offers end­less pos­si­bil­i­ties for your retire­ment. Mex­ico receives a high score of 84 in our Real Estate cat­e­gory. Despite what you may have heard, it’s not too late to buy real estate here.

Once you decide to move to Mex­ico, it’s dif­fi­cult to know where to go-it’s a big coun­try. Below are the 10 places we think make the most sense for expa­tri­ate liv­ing in this coun­try, based on cri­te­ria such as health care, cli­mate, infra­struc­ture, and hous­ing costs. These are places our husband-and-wife team in Mex­ico, Dan Prescher and Suzan Hask­ins, have per­son­ally scouted and per­son­ally rec­om­mend above other options in this great big coun­try. They are: Rosar­ito Beach, Puerto Val­larta, Queré­taro, Mazat­lan, Mérida, La Paz, Campeche, Playa del Carmen/Riviera Maya, Ajijic/Chapala, and Sayulita/San Pan­cho (San Fran­cisco). Of course, we’re not for­get­ting San Miguel de Allende, one of Dan and Suzan’s favorite places in Mex­ico. Suzan recently reported of this town: “San Miguel is one of the pret­ti­est towns in all of Mex­ico. Step­ping into San Miguel’s Cen­tro is like step­ping back in time…but with all of today’s mod­ern conveniences.”

From Alberta lakes to exotic over­seas des­ti­na­tions, recre­ation prop­erty con­tin­ues to be a sta­tus sym­bol, an invest­ment choice, and — per­haps most impor­tant — an escape.

These prop­er­ties take on many forms: lake­side cab­ins, lux­ury con­dos in resort devel­op­ments, and even single-family homes.

And depend­ing on where they buy, own­ers might be able to pur­chase the prop­erty out­right, or take part in less-expensive options such as frac­tional ownership.

“There’s the guy that likes his ski-boarding and needs a lake and activ­i­ties — activity-oriented peo­ple who aren’t nec­es­sar­ily inter­ested in rough­ing it,” he says.

“The sec­ond is the rat-race escapee, who says, ‘I won­der what else is out there? I want to see the cows but I don’t want to smell them.’

“These peo­ple might go to a uni­ver­sity town, or move to Van­cou­ver Island or a small Alberta town with charm … some­place to find that Nirvana.”

Increas­ingly, how­ever, aging baby boomers are also look­ing at recre­ation prop­erty as a poten­tial retire­ment res­i­dence down the line; buy it now, enjoy it sea­son­ally and (where applic­a­ble) gen­er­ate rental rev­enue the rest of the year, and move in full-time when the time is right.

“Many baby boomers as they reach retire­ment or the empty nest stage look at recre­ation prop­erty,” says Elton Ash, regional exec­u­tive vice-president for Re/Max West­ern Canada. “It’s for a get­away and in a lot of cases they also look at it as a legacy oppor­tu­nity. The thought is the prop­erty will stay in the family.”

And where are these peo­ple buy­ing? It depends on their needs (and afford­abil­ity level).

Those want­ing a quick week­end get­away might look at some­thing within a few hours’ drive of Cal­gary — places like Syl­van Lake, Can­more, Crowsnest Pass, Mon­tana, or the Kootenays/Columbia Val­ley. Those not mind­ing a longer drive or a short flight might look at the Okana­gan or West Coast.

And some invest far­ther out, in places like Phoenix, Hawaii, and even exotic locales like Belize.

B.C. remains one of Alberta’s top choices for recre­ation prop­erty, says Rudy Nielsen, pres­i­dent of Land­cor Data Corp.

Land­cor col­lects sta­tis­tics on real estate sales in B.C. and found Alber­tans accounted for 67 per cent of out-of-province “sec­ondary prop­erty buy­ers” in B.C. in 2007, gen­er­at­ing nearly $2.2 bil­lion in sales.

“Alber­tans love B.C. because we have so many recre­ational uses, with good golf courses, good fish­ing — you can still go to the Queen Char­lottes and catch a 30-pound salmon, and we have the ski hills,” says Nielsen.

“And of course, there’s the beauty.”

Even dur­ing eco­nomic down­turns, inter­est from Alberta remains strong in B.C.

“We’ve had no indi­ca­tion of any slow­down of Alber­tans buy­ing in B.C.,” says Nielsen, who is also pres­i­dent of NIHO Land & Cat­tle Co.

Inter­est from the Edmon­ton mar­ket is start­ing to gain ground on long­time leader Cal­gary, Nielsen adds.

Landcor’s 2007 stats show the Okana­gan is still Alberta’s top choice for buy­ing prop­erty, though the Koote­nays region remains a very pop­u­lar choice, as it’s vir­tu­ally Calgary’s back­yard, adds Jurock.

Far­ther away, “Mex­ico has become much more pop­u­lar, and part of that is the loos­en­ing of the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment on land own­er­ship,” says Ash. “Five years ago, for­eign­ers couldn’t own prop­erty that was oceanside.

“The (con­struc­tion) exper­tise has also improved, with more Cana­dian home­builders going down there … and that also extends to Belize and else­where in Cen­tral Amer­ica. In the last year-and-a-half, that inter­est has increased dramatically.”

With prices ris­ing in some of the tra­di­tional recre­ation prop­erty hotspots like Can­more, the Okana­gan, and Radium/Invermere, some buy­ers are look­ing for new places to plant their cabins.

Nielsen says the north­ern inte­rior of B.C., par­tic­u­larly along the Yel­low­head High­way and around Prince George, is start­ing to be discovered.

“We’re start­ing to see more Alberta (licence) plates up there,” he says.

“Peo­ple are dis­cov­er­ing places like Burns Lake and Smithers, these lit­tle towns of 3,000 to 4,000 peo­ple. Places like Fran­cois Lake … with water-view and water­front lots for $95,000. Land costs are still very afford­able up there.”

Buy­ers are also look­ing east, notes Ash.

“Peo­ple are trav­el­ling fur­ther because of afford­abil­ity and the desire to own recre­ation prop­erty,” he says. “North­ern Saskatchewan has seen a big ben­e­fit … prices are cheaper and going west isn’t always the most afford­able alternative.”

Although eco­nomic uncer­tainty is on the rise, Ash says Alber­tans are still lin­ing up to buy recre­ation properties.

“This year, inter­est lev­els are as high as they’ve been in past years, so you can say we’re insu­lated rel­a­tive to what you’re see­ing in the over­all real estate mar­ket, espe­cially in the U.S.,” he says. “Where the dif­fer­ence is this year is a lot of Cana­di­ans and Alber­tans are look­ing to take advan­tage of the soft U.S. mar­ket in the Sun­belt states like Ari­zona and California.

“In some instances, they’re look­ing at ‘recre­ation prop­er­ties,’ but the term may not accu­rately describe it locally … it could be a condo or a gated com­mu­nity that is con­sid­ered ‘res­i­den­tial’ locally, but viewed as recre­ational from an Alber­tan standpoint.”

There are risks to this, Jurock cau­tions, advis­ing prospec­tive buy­ers do their research and not invest sight-unseen.

“Some of the best deals come up in bad mar­kets and you can get bad deals in good mar­kets,” he says.

“It’s amaz­ing to me (how) peo­ple will plunk down money with a lim­ited part­ner­ship with peo­ple they don’t know … and they won’t go and see the prop­erty, so they don’t know where it’s located.”

Jurock says poten­tial buy­ers — and espe­cially those look­ing at U.S. recre­ation prop­er­ties as an invest­ment — need to become famil­iar with the rules of for­eign prop­erty own­er­ship in the U.S., which can vary from state to state.

Back in Canada, Jurock says it’s hard to go wrong if you can find your­self a lit­tle place by the water.

“We tell our sub­scribers, always buy water­front,” he says. “It’s always had value.”

Hi from Sayulita, Mex­ico. I am writ­ing to you from our open ended beach­front Villa Amor. We are about an hour’s drive from Puerto Val­larta. The resort is sit­u­ated in a small horse­shoe bay. You can throw rocks into the ocean water from our apart­ment. Every­thing is so handy; plenty of cafes and stores at our doorstep.

On the plane from Cal­gary to Puerto Val­larta, what a sur­prise, three of the flight atten­dants used to fly in the NWT: Alice Car­di­nal, Diane Knu­teon and Michelle Iredale! They were on duty, so we had a good visit and my fam­ily and I got spe­cial ser­vice. By the way, one of them asked about Knut Han­son. I told them he was the mayor of Aklavik. Don’t worry Knut, I won’t tell …

We are here for the wed­ding of my grand­son. I think it was bril­liant to send out invi­ta­tions a year in advance to give every­one a chance to plan their hol­i­days. About 60 peo­ple came, mostly from Van­cou­ver, all stay­ing in var­i­ous villas.

It is so nice to see all that cama­raderie and fun among friends who grew up and went to school and played sports together, all in the prime of life. Yes­ter­day, all the men went fish­ing in a huge boat, with lots of refresh­ments. You know the kind? They did not catch much, but had a great time. The women all went to an island off of Puerto Val­larta, more than 12 hours of fun. I can’t fig­ure out what. I stayed home.

Later on, I walked down the beach to the town square, shopped a lit­tle and then decided to taste their catch of the day: fish bar­be­cued with gar­lic and but­ter. Per­fecto! I decided to have a mar­garita with tequila. The wait­ress no com­prende my Eng­lish. I called a guy over to explain and then my drink came in a huge fancy glass. At the table next to me four peo­ple were sip­ping on the same cock­tail with four straws. I am sure many eyes were on me. Finally, after sit­ting for almost two hours in this open-air restau­rant on the beach I asked for a con­tainer, took off my shoes and walked home along the sandy beach car­ry­ing my half-gallon of mar­garita. It took me all night to drink it.

It is so peace­ful, with pleas­ant and polite peo­ple. The place livens up about noon. The beaches are very crowded and in the evenings a lot of music. I can hear it from the villa till the wee hours. Nice. The coun­try­side is very hilly and lush with palm trees and vil­las perched on sides of hills. We can eat right by the beach. Great food. This morn­ing, as the fish­er­men came in they had crabs, a stingray and some octo­pus, as well as so many dif­fer­ent kinds of fish of all sizes. I sit dur­ing most of my spare time, watch­ing surfers from our villa.

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.

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.