Hello Everyone,
We are half way through the summer season and Ensenada is as beautiful as ever, its not hard to get use to the consistent 76 degree days and ocean breezes. The Costa Baja is coming along very well, some of our renovated areas will be opening soon including the lounge, terrace, and additional condo models.
I wanted to pass along an article from USA TODAY about the Baja real estate market. Everyday I find these types of articles in major publications from around the country, it seems the "Baja Boom" is now wide spread knowledge. We can't wait to present Baja's finest resort and condo hotel to all of you in early 2007.
Take care for now and be on the look-out for new Updates, Articles, and Images
Andrew Rowland
V.P. - Project Development
Yacht Path Resorts International
Costa Baja Condo Hotel
702.968.2966
arowland@costabajacondohotel.com
More Americans boost Baja real estate boom
By Danna Harman, USA TODAY
BAJA CALIFORNIA Mexico
When David Butterfield and his wife, Norma, turned 50 a few years back, they started thinking about retirement. Florida: not their style. Southern California: too much of a car town. Hawaii: too far from family.
Then they stumbled on Loreto, a small Mexican village cradled between craggy mountain ridges that tumble into the Sea of Cortes, also known as the Gulf of California.
The Butterfields, Canadian-Americans who live in Scottsdale, Ariz., are in many ways typical of thousands of Americans who have, in the last decade, chosen to buy or build homes south of the border. In one way, though, the Butterfields are different. David Butterfield, a multimillionaire developer, got so excited about the possibilities that he decided to build not only his dream home, but also a $3 billion, 6,000-home resort.
Within two years, 524 other buyers had signed up to be his neighbors and had put down a combined $200 million. Sales are still going strong. "It's coming together beautifully," Butterfield says.
If all goes according to plan, within 12-15 years the development will include two 18-hole championship golf courses, a 5,000-acre nature preserve, a beach club, tennis center, marina, restaurants, boutiques and galleries for the mainly American and Canadian homeowners. Loreto's population is likely to grow from about 15,000 today to 120,000 by 2020, says Victor Manuel Castorena Davis, a member of Loreto's urban development commission.
The housing boom outside the two towns started about five years ago. Development was spurred by skyrocketing real estate prices in the USA and changes to Mexican laws in the wake of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that encourage foreign investment and make purchasing beachfront land easier.
Baja's proximity ? the slim, 800-mile-long finger of land extends south from the California-Mexico border ?
ReMax, sells 10-20 properties a week. "Sales here have quadrupled in the last two years" [says local agent]. Prices have risen 15%-20% a year. About one-quarter of the 55,000 residents in Rosarito [30 min. south of San Diego] today are Americans. The next hot area will be Ensenada, an hour's drive south down the coast. Loreto, about halfway down the peninsula, "is what the future is all about."
Prices are not the only thing changing in Baja. When Tijuana-based real estate agent Nicolas Renard started selling property in Baja 15 years ago, "it was rare to see someone in their 30s." But today, he sees younger and wealthier buyers. "They are looking to make a profit," Renard says. The average age of buyers [in Baja] is 45, says Darlene Tait, the director of marketing [of a Baja real estate project].
Anne Thanhouser, 52, an assets manager from Portland, Ore., visited Loreto on a whim last year. Like the Butterfields, she was looking for a dream home. She is now building it on Lot 103. Thanhouser put down $555,000 for a 2,000-square-foot, three-bedroom house that is three blocks from the ocean.
It will be ready; she is told, in two years. Meanwhile, she has been here two times to get to know the beach and review the floor plans. "It's perfect," she says. "It's hard to believe what's happening here."
Harman is the Latin America bureau chief for USA TODAY and The Christian Science Monitor.
www.CostaBajaCondoHotel.com
|
