Sunday, November 25, 2007

Rocky Point Real Estate, Safe Investment?

With the real estate boom came the Mexican real estate boom. I know many people who successfully bought property in Mexico and enjoy it today. However, I always looked at the investment through a different eye, always concerned about the risk. Personally I have not heard of any of the problems I read about today. But the article I read at AZCentral.com helped me understand where that "eye" came from.

"PUERTO PEÑASCO, Sonora - U.S. investors, mostly from Arizona, have poured more than $100 million into beachfront homes, motels and land in the Sonoran vacation retreat known as Rocky Point, only to see their cash swallowed up by Mexican and U.S. developers who failed to build the projects."

read the entire article at the link below:
http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/1125rockypoint1125.html

2 comments:

Unknown said...

It's a pretty unfortunate situation in North Beach with several lawsuits that are still being worked out in court. The story is only partially complete because the cases have not been settled (i.e., money isn't necessarily lost yet). So hopefully the story shines a light on the problem and forces the litigating parties to recognize that the case needs to be settled and the government needs to help mediate a solution.

The article is a little alarmist in that it groups all of Rocky Point into this category - when in fact most of the land in Rocky Point has clear title and Americans shouldn't worry about purchasing condos or other property there. Mexico knows its lifeblood is American tourism and it generally does a great job of protecting this. The writer should have done a better job explaining this key difference - but I am assuming he was trying to sell some papers by making some alarmist statements about ALL of Rocky Point, when in fact it is an isolated incident (but admittedly still a problem for the people involved).

Needless to say, Americans should do their homework before buying property in a country in which they don't speak the language and don't understand the legal/real estate environment. Hire cross-border legal counsel and experienced realtors and only buy from developers who have their finances together. This is common sense but as the article explains, some Americans forget their common sense at the border (or they don't even visit town before buying like some people in the article).

For more info, check out my business, real estate and tourism blog about Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point) at http://www.puertopenascopost.com.
-Paul

Parrot_Steve said...

Just like in the U.S. if you aren't smart about your investements and do your homework you can get burned anywhere. This article doesn't talk about the thousands of investors in Rocky Point who have made money from good investments. If you want to see how many people have invested and won in Rocky Point just look at all the condos and homes for rent on websites like www.seasidemexico.com There are literally thousands of investors represented on that website that nobody mentions.