Tag Archives: mexico

Using a real estate IRA to acquire property in Mexico

May 7, 2010

By TOM KELLY, INVESTMENT columnist

Using a real estate IRA to acquire property in Mexico

Using a real estate IRA to acquire property in Mexico

Like second-home sales in the U.S., the sales of Mexican homes have been limping along. They are a luxury that buyers have been unwilling to revisit until the economy improves. While anecdotal evidence is beginning to reveal increased activity in some of the more popular resort areas, very few developer projects are thriving because of a lack of bank funding or sales.

“We have some buyers who have returned to look and buy,” says Max Katz, who operates Baja Real Estate Group in Rosarito Beach, about 70 minutes south of the California border. “But it doesn’t help when U.S. television repeats the same shows on crime in Mexico that they were showing 18 months ago.”

Much has been written about the kidnappings, roadside hijackings, crooked cops, and the infamous bandidos in some of the regions of Mexico. Most of the violence south of the border, however, is directly related to the drug cartels and the authorities who are trying to eradicate them. There is absolutely no pattern of any innocent U.S. citizens being randomly murdered in drug violence.

Unfortunately, the negativity surrounding the country comes at a time when more and more Americans could use a less expensive place to live. According to a new report by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), baby boomers have not saved for retirement and they will be forced to work longer and/or move to less expensive places than they anticipated. Property taxes, health care, and cost of living will force boomers to consider moving to other countries, especially if they plan on living at the same level of comfort as they do now.

John Youden, the Vancouver, British Columbia native who founded a multiple listing association in Puerto Vallarta in 1988 (www.mlsvallarta.com) and also publishes a highly respected real estate magazine, believes developers will have to offer potential buyers a creative proposition to sustain sales.

A Puerto Vallarta-based group headed by a Harvard MBA graduate took Youden’s message to heart. It is seeking buyers/investors looking for a guaranteed rate of return and has found the offering to be an ideal alternative to conventional Individual Retirement Account investments. One hour south of Cancun on the Caribbean Sea’s Riviera Maya, the company is building a condotel adjacent to Madrid-based Bahia Principe Group’s mega resort. Called Sian Ka’an (www.bahiaprincipecondohotel.com), the development is on its own golf course.

The condo hotel is a gated community with 24-hour security, and it has access via a private bridge to the adjacent resort and its pools, spa, restaurants, tennis courts, and boutiques.

Because Bahia Principe needs additional rooms during much of the year, the corporation is guaranteeing an 8% annual return to investors on their rental unit for seven years, even if the unit is not occupied. Personal use by the owner is allowed, yet owners-investors can also enter their unit in the guaranteed rental pool. After that period, owners-investors can renew the contract or take sole possession of their unit.

To prepare for your real estate IRA, designate the amount of your retirement funds that you wish to use in the property deal and open a new IRA account with an independent administrator.

The guidelines covering real estate IRAs are stringent. If you break one of these rules, you could jeopardize your tax-free status on your account.

  • The land or house must be treated like any other investment.
  • All rental profits must be returned to the trustee.
  • You cannot manage the property. But your trustee can hire a third party – a real estate broker, or local manager – to collect rents and maintain or improve the property.
  • The house or property (or proceeds from its sale) must remain in the trust until distribution at retirement. If a trustee is instructed to sell the property, funds can be transferred to another account for reinvestment.

You cannot use IRA money to buy your own residence or any other property in which you live. It has to be investment property. But when you retire, you can direct your IRA to turn it over to you as a distribution at the current market value.

It’s a creative way to get in the door if you are considering an investment purchase.

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Browse for Rosarito Homes for Sale.

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Mexican Real Estate: Escape From U.S. Housing Woes

May 1, 2010

By Harmon Leon

Mexican Real Estate: Escape From U.S. Housing Woes

Mexican Real Estate: Escape From U.S. Housing Woes

You can thank the swine flu for one thing: It dramatically brought down the housing prices in Mexico. Throw in the recession and a dose of drug-war crime waves, and the sales volume of Americans buying homes in Mexico has dropped a dramatic 70 percent for Coldwell Banker and 40 percent for some residential resort developments in Baja in the past 12 months.

These are crazy figures.

So why not take advantage of the crunch in the Mexican housing market and consider buying that retirement dream home in Mexico?

Some U.S. buyers imagine that buying property in Mexico means constantly facing off with drug lords, in the same way that opening letters a few years back would result in contracting anthrax. Fat chance: In reality, the likelihood of a narco-war happening in your front yard is about the same as experiencing a shootout between the Bloods and the Crips in California. High-crime areas generally are closer to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Indeed, today’s reality is quite different from long-held American perceptions. Since 2002, the number of border patrol agents has been doubled to 20,000. These days, even turf wars in border cities have little impact on American residents. Meanwhile, drug-related arrests have gone up dramatically in Phoenix, where smugglers hole up in safe houses.
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Culinary Tour of Baja, Mexico

April 25, 2010

Lured by spicy quail, tuna ceviche, and Mexico’s best fish tacos, T+L lights out for Ensenada—and from there, things just go south.
From May 2010 By Peter Jon Lindberg

Culinary Tour of Baja, Mexico

Culinary Tour of Baja, Mexico

Ensenada and the nearby Valle de Guadalupe, in northern Baja, are known outside Mexico for three things: the burgeoning local wine scene, which has been hyped ad infinitum; the food, which hasn’t been hyped enough; and the spectacularly bad roads, which everyone warns you about, though you never fully believe them. Really, you think, how bad could they be? And then one night in the gathering dark you take an innocent shortcut across the valley and drive your rented Hyundai into a riverbed. A dry riverbed, but a riverbed all the same. You and your equally baffled companion spend 40 minutes spinning the car’s wheels in what might as well be quicksand, then digging frantically, then panicking, then digging and spinning some more, until finally you resolve to abandon the car and hike the two miles back to the highway—suitcases sinking in gravel, sand filling your socks. And as the coyotes wail in the ink-black hills you decide that you probably should have paid more attention to that part about the roads.

“Ah, the Baja shortcut!” said our innkeeper, Phil Gregory, when, at the conclusion of said ordeal, he collected us and our dusty belongings from the side of Highway 3. “Never a good idea!” Severe rains the previous week, our host explained, had caused the river to flood, washing away a whole chunk of the road we were on. Those tire tracks I’d followed across the sandy riverbed—believing we were still on course—had been left by a backhoe, dispatched to repair the road. No one had bothered to post a sign, let alone erect a fence. “Honestly, this happens all the time,” Gregory said as we rattled down the inn’s rutted dirt driveway. He meant this to be reassuring. “But let’s get you settled, pour you some wine, and we’ll retrieve your car in the morning!”

Gregory’s tone was oddly chipper—maybe this did happen all the time? After showering off the dust, we sampled the inn’s own Tempranillo beside a crackling mesquite fire in the lounge. Not the smoothest specimen, but it worked: two glasses later I gave up worrying about the Hyundai. read more »

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For some East Bay retirees, Mexico an affordable alternative

April 7, 2010

By Kathleen Kirkwood

Brad Billingsley and his Wife

Brad Billingsley and his wife Linda

Brad Billingsley could have been waiting for his tee time at an Arizona golf course.

Instead, the former Lafayette resident and his wife Linda were in a lagoon off Cabo San Lucas, snapping photos of gray whales bobbing next to their small charter boat.

“Every day, it’s an adventure here,” Brad Billingsley said. “It’s added 20 years to my life.”

Brad, 62, and Linda Billingsley, 61, are among the “silver surge” of baby boomers seeking alternative retirement nests in Mexico, according to a recent report by the International Community Foundation.

It’s not certain how many U.S. retirees are living in Mexico — a 2004 study puts it between 500,000 and 600,000 — but the foundation and other researchers say the number is bound to increase as more boomers settle into their golden years and find Mexico an affordable alternative. Almost half the retirees living in coastal areas are getting by comfortably on less than $1,000 per month, said the report, which cites the growth of real estate projects targeted at retirees as proof that expatriates are flocking south of the border.

The Billingsleys had seriously considered a retirement community with a golf course in central Arizona. But they lacked the enthusiasm for fairway living that seemed to consume retirees there. “Their entire lives were involved with golf,” Brad Billingsley said.

In 2007, the couple became expatriates and settled into a $300,000, two-bedroom beachfront condominium in Rosarito Beach, in Baja California.

They’ve made the most out of their retirement dollars, Brad Billingsley said. The cost of living — from groceries to health care — is low in their beachfront town and there’s plenty to do, such as driving down the coast to Cabo, walking on the beach and shopping at the local mercado. read more »

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Major Binational Mayor’s Summit In Rosarito Seeks to Unite The Californias

March 26, 2010

Major Binational Mayor’s Summit In Rosarito Seeks to Unite The Californias

Major Binational Mayor’s Summit In Rosarito Seeks to Unite The Californias

SAN DIEGO—A major binational summit for mayors and other leaders from Southern and Baja California on issues ranging from the border crossing to desalination to public safety was announced today at the Mexican Consulate here.

The Fifth Binational Mayors’ Summit will be May 6 and 7 in Rosarito Beach. Universities and business groups from both sides of the border also will be represented to discuss mutual interests and actions.

The summit’s theme is “Uniting the Californias.”

“We live in a region that is closely linked by economy, environment, geography, friends and family,” said Mayor Hugo Torres of host city Rosarito Beach. “It is important that we all work together to achieve maximum benefit from those relationships.”

For the first time, the summit is being expanded to include six Southern California counties as well as the five cities of northern Baja. Southern California Mayors or their representatives from 70 cities are being invited.

May’s expanded summit is co-hosted by the cities of Rosarito Beach and Redondo Beach. The Mexico Business Center/San Diego Chamber of Commerce, Project Smart Border 2010 and Rancho Santiago Community College are among groups assisting. read more »

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U.S. retirees find home in coastal Mexico

March 16, 2010

First of five studies reveals price and proximity to U.S. are big draws

By Sandra Dibble, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Monday, March 15, 2010 at 12:04 a.m.

Jamie Reynolds, a 63-year-old retiree who lives in the El Pescador area, watched the sun set. Reynolds, like four out of five of the retiree-study respondents, owns his home in Mexico.

Jamie Reynolds, a 63-year-old retiree who lives in the El Pescador area, watched the sun set. Reynolds, like four out of five of the retiree-study respondents, owns his home in Mexico.

ROSARITO BEACH — Favorite activity: strolls on the beach. Biggest gripe: litter. Primary reasons for retiring in Mexico: the lower cost of living and proximity to the United States.

A newly released study on U.S. retirement trends in Mexico’s coastal communities takes an updated snapshot of Rosarito Beach, Rocky Point, Puerto Vallarta, Cancun and other areas where many Americans go to retire. The study’s authors say their survey marks an important first step in meeting the needs of a group that is likely to grow in size as U.S. baby boomers reach retirement age.

“We felt it was important to understand the dynamics of what is going on,” said Richard Kiy, president and CEO of the International Community Foundation, which conducted the 88-question survey. While research has been done in San Miguel Allende and Ajijic, both well-established expatriate communities in central Mexico, coastal communities “are some of the areas that have been least studied among U.S. retirees,” Kiy said.

The International Community Foundation, based in National City, supports nonprofits and projects in Baja California and other parts of Mexico. Close to half of its donors live in Mexico full time or part time, and that was the initial impetus for conducting the study, Kiy said. read more »

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Baja For Beginners

March 10, 2010

Baja For Beginners

Baja For Beginners

“Looking after children can be a subtle way of giving up,” the novelist Edward St. Aubyn once wrote. If a vacation is thus a defining microcosm of family life at its presumed artificial best, then it will forever encapsulate your attitude of giving up, or giving in, or putting up a fight, usually at great cost to your nerves and sleeping schedules. It is the family vacations about which your children will brag or complain (or fake-complain) to their friends and future spouses and their own children, as in, “My parents dragged me to Epcot,” or, “My parents made me do the midnight watch on a month-long sailboat trip to Labrador.” In short, this is how you will be remembered.

And so, when we were invited to join two other families on a vacation to Todos Santos on the Baja Peninsula in Mexico, we eagerly hitched along. We’d been to Todos twice before with these same friends, but had since collectively amassed three kids, ages 2 and under. What better place, we reasoned, for preconscious children than a town where the coastline is so dangerous and unswimmable that one stretch is referred to locally as Killer Beach? This would be the perfect spot to spend two weeks pretending to relax as our toddlers charged heedlessly and relentlessly toward the 25-foot surf while we — not giving up, mind you — constantly looked after them.

Todos Santos is on the Tropic of Cancer, one hour north of Cabo San Lucas along a cow-frequented stretch of otherwise desolate coastal road. This is the edge of the continent; the entire weight of the ocean rears vertically upward at this precipice and smacks down on the sand so forcefully that at night, even a quarter mile from the beach, the windowpanes rattle in their casements.

According to my co-vacationing friend, the longtime surfer Chris James, Todos first became known among surfing circles for its legendary waves, which were in fact less legendary than the exertions required to enjoy them. As surfers claim, until the mid-70′s, there were no paved roads south of Tijuana (the stretch from La Paz to Cabo via Todos seemed to have stayed unpaved until the mid-80′s), which made the thousand-mile trip from the border arduously slow and surmountable only by four-wheel drives. Adding to the outlaw thrill was the risk that you’d flip your truck on the bad roads or have a gun pulled on you by a Federale. “Basically,” James admits, “Todos was a mildly scenic town with a great fish-taco stand.”

Pilar’s Fish Tacos is, in the opinion of some locals, the indirect reason for the town’s gradual evolution from a mildly scenic town with a great fish-taco stand into a cultlike destination for an incongruous amalgam of gringos. As local myth would have it, the rancher who owned the land around Pescadero, a nearby village, decided, after the asphalt arrived, to open the San Pedrito RV Park. At about the same time — the late 80′s — the artists showed up, as did the first cafe with the first good cappuccino (still available at Caffé Todos Santos). The increasingly artsy vibe attracted the New Agers and the seekers, and soon after, the healers pulled into town. As Charlie Deal, the structural-integration specialist (i.e., nice Rolfer), said of his reasons for living in Todos, “The opportunities for personal growth here are just too great.” (Counters James, “I come here for the personal regression.”)
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The Baja Blondes A Lifestyle Reality Show

February 2, 2010

The Baja Blondes - A Lifestyle Realty Show

The Baja Blondes - A Lifestyle Reality Show

Written By Melinda Bates

To the eternal questions, “Why are we here?  What is the meaning of life?” and, “Do these pants make my butt look fat?” we can add the perennial, “Do blondes really have more fun?”

The answer is clear to all those privileged to be invited to last week’s screening of the pilot of The Baja Blondes, a Lifestyle Reality Show, and it is an unqualified “YES!”

Blondes was created by Susanne Stehr and Debbie Shine, permanent residents of Baja, Mexico, and directed and produced by Robin Mackenzie, a part time resident of Baja, through her company, Tatblue Productions, LLC .  These are women of a certain age who have designed a life here they could never have back in the USA. Lives of freedom, beauty, creativity and friendship.  Lives open to the positive and unexpected adventures of Mexico, a country they adopted and deeply love.  Their goal is to promote Baja to an American audience in a positive light, by showing American women living and working in their communities up and down the gorgeous coast.

The pilot introduces our three protagonists in their lives and careers in the Rosarito to Ensenada area, while making clear that in Mexico, life is NEVER all about work.  In fact, they show us the Mexican dream:  affordable luxury, easy living, accessible health care, an ancient culture, fabulous food, award-winning wine and the excitement of living in a foreign country.

The screening took place at Northern Baja’s premier community, Palacio del Mar.  Guests marveled at the elegant reception areas, lounges and gorgeous landscaping that draws the eye straight to the only indoor pool on the coast, with the infinity pool and ocean beyond.  All the outdoor surfaces are clad in simple and dramatic gray granite. The look is both Mexican and modern.  Indoors, ceilings disappear in the distance above and the sense of space conveys the height of luxury.  The private theater with its comfortable seating and huge screen was the perfect venue for this beautiful event.  Surely residents will equally enjoy hosting their own Super Bowl party there!

Many prominent members of Tijuana and Rosarito’s business and social communities attended, including Raul Aragon, Director of Tourism for Playas de Rosarito, Laura Wong, editor of the Baja Times, Dr. Alejandro Quiroz, one of the area’s top plastic surgeons, Melinda Bates, speaker and author of White House Story, a Democratic Memoir, and Michael and Nancy Rosenberg, who together owned and operated “MARCO Entertainment” for 25 Years, managing the careers of over 100 Olympic and world champion athletes and international stars including Dorothy Hamill, Peggy Lee, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Tai & Randy, David Brenner, Quincy Jones, and Oksana Baiul.

Sponsors for the evening’s cocktail party and screening included one of the area’s largest real estate brokerages:The Baja Real Estate Group, Click-On, an internet café and mail service for American residents of Baja, The William Hitt Center of Tijuana, offering specialized diagnosis and treatment medical services, Serena Senior Care, providing a wide variety of services, from nursing care to plumbing, for the American community along the coast, and the Rosarito Inn, generous hosts of the production crew for the Baja Blondes.  Their amazing hospitality convinced everyone to return to Baja every chance they get!

The Baja Blondes reality show will travel to Cabo San Lucas, Tijuana, the Valle de Guadalupe Wine Country, Loreto, San Felipe, and all over the Baja peninsula, all the while highlighting American women who live and work in this part of heaven, where their creativity can flourish in a safe and welcoming place.

In addition to producing further episodes, The Baja Blondes plan to establish a retail store and advisory travel arm to assist women traveling in Baja.

*The Baja Blondes is a non-profit Mexican corporation solely owned by Susanne Stehr, Debbie Shine and Robin Mackenzie.

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Browse for Real Estate for Sale in Baja California and Real Estate in Mexico.

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One man’s war zone is another’s paradise

December 16, 2009

Originally Posted on the L.A. Times.

By Richard Marosi
December 14, 2009

From the insulated safety of Baja’s luxurious seaside gated communities, American expatriates say reports of kidnappings and violent drug cartels seem a world away.

Beach in Rosarito

Beach in Rosarito

Reporting from Rosarito Beach, Mexico – Bob and Carol Dawson love living in Baja California, but the region’s violent reputation has put them on the defensive. They have been called delusional and reckless — all because they choose to live in an oceanfront gated community about 30 or 40 miles and a world away from the U.S. border.

Americans living in this part of Mexico are often grilled, half-jokingly, about their sanity. They get asked whether they’ve seen decapitated heads rolling down the street. Friends wonder whether they wear bulletproof vests or drive around in armored cars.

When the Dawsons moved here in 1999 to retire, they were enticed by the area’s charm and peacefulness. They bought an expansive home with ocean views for $175,000. “Live like a millionaire without a million bucks” is the local real estate mantra.

In recent years, the tranquility has been eclipsed by the mayhem of battles between the Mexican government and organized crime. Military trucks brimming with heavily armed soldiers have rumbled through the manicured grounds of luxury developments; gunmen pepper local police stations with automatic-weapon fire; and Baja California’s most notorious crime boss once eluded authorities by running through a beach popular among American retirees. read more »

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En route to security summit, Rosarito mayor is crime victim

December 8, 2009

Rosarito Beach Mayor Hugo Torres, 73, says he became a crime victim for the first time last Thursday.

En route to security summit, Rosarito mayor is crime victim

En route to security summit, Rosarito mayor is crime victim

And the crime wasn’t in Mexico. Torres parked his 2008 GMC sport utility vehicle at San Diego’s Fashion Valley mall to do some shopping. He was on his way to the second Binational Mayors of the Californias Summit in Santa Ana.

His SUV, parked in a covered lot near Macy’s, was locked and the alarm was activated, but a thief still was able to get in and steal the mayor’s traveling bag, briefcase and two cell phones. Also missing was Torres’ portfolio and papers for the meeting he was about to attend.

One of the topics on the summit agenda was binational security — though security at U.S. shopping malls during the holiday season was not among the items scheduled for discussion. read more »

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