Vail gains favor with Mexican buyers
Seeking havens for money and family, wealthy Mexicans are buying multimillion-dollar homes and businesses in Colorado ski country.
Foreign investors have long been an important part of the U.S. real-estate market, especially in cities such as Miami, Dallas and Los Angeles.
But as they look for safe investments, international investors are also looking elsewhere for deals. Wealthy Mexicans, for example, are picking up ski properties in Vail, Colo., and environs, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Two of the past three sales at a new Vail Village development called the Solaris were to Mexican families, who paid about $6 million for their new homes. Latin Americans, the majority of them Mexican, have bought 60% of the units there in the $12 million-plus price range.
The Mexican investors are attracted to the safety that the area represents to themselves and their families. While some are buying vacation and investment homes, others are moving to Colorado full-time.
"Safety is a huge issue for many of these families," Julie Bergsten, vice president of Slifer Smith & Frampton, told The WSJ. Seeking more Mexican buyers, the Colorado brokerage has created a Latin American division, traveling to Mexico and publishing a buying guide in Spanish for the first time.
Most of the cities that draw the largest percentage of international buyers are in Florida, but New York, Honolulu, Phoenix and Las Vegas are all in the top 10, according to a report by Inman News. A study released last year by the National Association of Realtors founds that 58% of international sales were in just four states: Florida, California, Texas and Arizona.
According to that study, Mexico was one of the top countries of origin of international buyers. Canadians buy the most U.S. real estate (23% of international transactions), followed by China (9%), then Mexico, the United Kingdom and India (7% each). Those five countries are responsible for 53% of U.S. sales to international buyers.
As has been traditional, both with immigration patterns and real-estate investment, Mexicans have followed relatives, friends and acquaintances to Vail.
Mexican entrepreneur Alejandro Marti moved his family to Vail and bought a bankrupt hotel that he turned into an upscale hotel-condo development that is a hub for Mexican culture and art. Since the Sebastian opened in 2011, about 40% of the condo units have been purchased by buyers from Mexico.
Mexico City lawyer Alex Martinez bought a $390,000 fractional ownership at the development after he heard that Marti was the developer. "He's a very well-known businessman, and whatever he does he puts his heart into it," Martinez told The WSJ.
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At any rate, that town is set to benefit from all those Mexican investors taking the risk and spending their money in Colorado. If some of them made their money on illegal activities, say drug dealing, the USA will make sure to rake them to the cleaners just as soon as some evidence surfaces.
So become accostummed to see some brown faces bankrolling themselves around.
Those of us still thinking of Mexicans as always being at the bottom of the social scale must change our narrow biases. Those biases stopped being current decades ago. But there is always that inner desire to see others lesser than us when in fact, we are the low-class humans.
HARSH, YOU SAY?
1. There will be no special bilingual programs in the schools, no special ballots for elections, and all government business will be conducted in our language.
2. Foreigners will NOT have the right to vote, no matter how long they are here.
3. Foreigners will NEVER be able to hold political office.
4. Foreigners will not be a burden to the taxpayers. No welfare, no food stamps, no health care, nor any other government assistance programs.
5. Foreigners can invest in this country, but it must be an amount equal to 40,000 times the daily minimum wage.
6. If foreigners do come and want to buy land that will be okay, BUT options will be restricted. You are not allowed to own waterfront property. That property is reserved for citizens naturally born into this country.
7. Foreigners may not protest; no demonstrations, no waving a foreign flag, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our president or his policies. If you do you will be sent home.
8. If you do come to this country illegally, you will be hunted down and sent straight to jail.
Harsh, you say???
The above laws happen to be the immigration laws of "MEXICO"!!!
Wow, it’s been interesting reading some of these comments. First, this just shows the level of ignorance of people in this country. Mexico is a country with a social making much like the US, Doctors, Attorneys, Bankers and Business Owners live and make up the population of Mexico. If you were to gather all the Drug Dealers and there organizations the percentage is so Minimal it’s to the point of ignorance to stereotype all Mexicans as Drug Dealers. Now don’t get me wrong, maybe some of the buyers of these expensive homes are cartel bosses... I wouldn’t know. But if they are... we should thank them for investing that money back in our economy... does anybody here realize how many US citizens benefit from a real-estate transaction of this size.... Construction workers (Union most likely), Real-estate agents (Most Likely White in Vail), Bankers (Most Likely White in Vail), All levels of government collecting much needed taxes for the transactions, and the list goes on. So instead of posting ignorant comments pick up a book and educate your self’s.
Yes, there are very rich people in Mexico. A small group that have sucked the life out of that country through their uncontrolled greed. Sound familiar? The danger is not from outside our borders. These folks and their money were invited here and those who extended the invite don't care how the money was made.
About Teresa Mears
Teresa Mears is a veteran journalist who has been interested in houses since her father took her to tax auctions to carry the cash at age 10. A former editor of The Miami Herald's Home & Design section, she lives in South Florida where, in addition to writing about real estate, she publishes Miami on the Cheap to help her neighbors adjust to the loss of 60% of their property value.
msn real estate is social
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