More Americans Finding Cheaper Second Homes South of Border
 Pat Broderick - San Diego Business Journal
| | Property south of the border is luring prospective buyers. Shown here is the view from a private villa at Four Seasons Resort in Punta Mita. (more info »»») |
Yes, you can drink the water.
That worry usually weighs heavily on the minds of prospective U.S. buyers of vacation property in Mexico. But there also is another matter to consider.
“It’s not so much, ‘Don’t drink the water,’ but the quantity of the water,” said John B. McNeece, a partner at the San Diego law office of Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps LLC’s business practice group, and a specialist on international transactions. “There is no guarantee the water will be there.”
But McNeece said he has observed growing attention being paid to upgrading the infrastructure in Mexican developments.
“We’re starting to see increased focus on private utilities, where companies will come in, for coastal properties in particular, and put in private seawater desalination and water treatment and power, so units on the coast have better assurance of water and sewage and power.”
Indeed, utilities are a major issue in Mexico, said McNeece.
“It’s essential,” he said. “A lot of people who put in projects, put wells in the ground and hope it’s enough. But the studies of water are quite old. It’s important to have utilities in place. Home buyers need to look carefully on the availability of utilities and the cost.”
McNeece also has observed more master-planned developments, using American techniques.
“For the foreign market, some high-end developers are really upgrading their product, doing very nice architecture, high-end planning for communities, the kind you would see up here, largely on the ocean,” he added.
Comforts Of Home
One of the developments that is investing heavily in such infrastructure is Punta Mita, a master-planned resort and residential community covering more than 1,500 acres on the Pacific coast of Mexico in the state of Nayarit, Puerto Vallarta.
Owner/developer Dine is investing about $160 million in new or improved infrastructure in the community, including water piped from deep wells in the Sierra Madre Mountains, and treated at an on-site purification plant; phone lines, Internet access, road improvements, electricity generated from a nearby power plant, with enough capacity to supply power to the development through build-out; natural gas, and sewer systems.
While these services usually are taken for granted north of the border, they are a major marketing tool in Mexico, which still can carry a Third World stigma even in posher areas. |
Vallarta Weddings
Puerto Vallarta Real Estate | August 2006 
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