Posted on 10/15/2006 4:55:15 PM PDT by goldstategop
LA MISION, Mexico -- Every weekend, Carmen Tetelboin joins the Baja boom.
After work on Fridays, the Los Angeles resident drives four hours across the border to Baja California, where life is so good and living so cheap, it beats the other California, she contends.
Owning a condo on the coast, she and her husband are part of an American colony exploding during the past five years along 75 miles of pristine beaches, cliffs and towns south of Tijuana. What's drawing them are oceanfront homes at a fraction of the multimillion-dollar prices on the U.S. side.
A native of Chile who is bilingual and a U.S. citizen, Tetelboin jokingly calls this swath of Americans "gringolandia."
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Plenty of crime going on south of TJ.
It is all Mexico, corrupt and left wing.
Plenty of beautiful beaches here in San Diego.
There are actually ways to own without being a citizen but you have to know the ins and outs, and I don't. My niece has dual citizenship Mexican-US. Her dad is a lawyer and wanted Mexican property so he made sure she was born in Mexico.
Note that the people in this article are comparing California real estate to Mexican real estate. No wonder things look cheap.
How much is the average price for San Diego beachfront property?
My guess is it's $3 million or more, just like Newport Beach :-(.
Either get your beachfront in another country, or dream about it and never afford it.
I'm thinking of the Philippines myself, but it's the same principle ...
D
This story got a lot of attention a few years ago:
- Americans Face Eviction From Baja Resort Homes; 150 homeowners, many of them California retirees, are caught up in a complex land grant dispute -
September 3, 1999 - "In a hard-luck case that illustrates the perils of owning Mexican real estate, about 150 Baja California homeowners, most of them U.S. citizens from Southern California, face mass eviction on Oct. 11 from a picturesque beachfront development just south of here, homes in which many have invested their life savings.
The looming evictions at the surf-side community known as Punta Banda, 85 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border, provide a wrenching example of how life in Mexico can turn risky or even tragic. U.S. tourists are increasingly caught up in a wave of carjackings and kidnappings sweeping Mexico, and just last month three U.S. residents in Baja California were slain in separate robbery incidents.
The pending loss of the Punta Banda homes, ranging in value from $50,000 to upward of $1 million each, is a cautionary tale for Americans who are thinking about buying permanent or vacation residences in Mexico.
It should also cause the estimated 63,000 Americans who already own property in Baja California to reflect on how ownership can be like the shifting white sands of the beaches here, and how powerless U.S. authorities are to intervene when disputes arise.
So, if the 150 Punta Banda homeowners are evicted from their homes next month, they would not be the first Americans to lose their shirts in Mexico.
But the scheduled action could rank as Mexico's largest single eviction of U.S. homeowners on record, with about $25 million worth of property involved.
It certainly would stand as one of the most heart-rending, since many of those facing eviction are elderly retirees with no other place to call home.
"We wouldn't have enough to buy another house if we lose this," said Alejandro Sanchez, 67, a retired Yuma, Ariz., bank executive who lives at Punta Banda full time. He was one of 40 homeowners who attended a meeting with an attorney at the development Wednesday to discuss their options. "We put most of our money into this."
"To have us sitting here with our stomachs in a knot, not knowing what will happen next, it's so mentally confusing that people, myself included, are walking around in a daze," said Grant Hoel, 78, a San Juan Capistrano retiree who has owned a house here since 1996.
"I feel terrible, haven't slept for weeks now, worried about this whole situation," said Marcel Boussala, 72, a retired real estate developer from Los Angeles who stands to lose the $600,000 he has invested in a home and three lots. "There are so many people who have nothing except these homes."
Like many of Punta Banda's residents, Joe Maruca, superintendent of the Imperial Unified School District in El Centro, never thought it would come to this.
He will retire from his post this month and was planning to spend his golden years at the Mexican beach house, for which he paid $80,000 cash in 1996. Now, he says, he's "sitting here holding the bag."
I guess it is how much you respect yourself.
Since I am near some of the best beaches in the U.S.
that is good enough for me.
If the property was free in Baja, I wouldn't touch it.
Well south of TJ, plenty is going on and not good.
Enjoy the Philippines, Al-Qaida and Marxist groups doing the same there as in the Middle East.
Until they come to take over your property.
you are exactly right. I have clients who occasionally mention Costa Rica, Mexico and other dictator run countries for investments. My two questions are: 1. How much are you going to use the property yourself? 2. How much are you willing to lose when the dictator du jour decides to use foreignors as the new place to get taxes from and levies a huge tax against property ownership and makes your property unsellable?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II
It's obvious you know nothing about Costa Rica.
Mexico does not allow foreigners to own land. There is something wrong here.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II
Same as if X steals my car, changes the title and leases it to Y. Y may have fixed the car, but it's my car, still and I can get it back under the law.
I'd rather live in Belize...or Costa Rica. I'll be damned if I'll support anything or anyone from Messssico.
As I understand it, only citizens of Mexico can OWN land in Mexico?
I saw pictures of Baja California. The place is flat-out beautiful. It's like paradise. President Polk should have annexed the land in addition to the Southwest.
CR is another treasure.
I'd prefer the Dominican Republic or the Corn Islands (Nicaragua) for beachfront property, Costa Rica and Panama (Boquete) for my ranch. In all of the above, I can own the land outright.
Oh, and it is perfectly legal for noncitizens to own firearms and get a concealed weapons permit!
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