Is Mazatlán’s building boom screeching to a halt?

By Jackie Peterson

Some months ago the State of Sinaloa sent a delegation of locals to Houston, Texas, to promote both travel and retirement in Mazatlán. Included in the contingent were representatives of most of the developers who are constructing retirement and second-home dwellings in Mazatlán — mainly, those condo towers and subdivisions that you can see going up along Avenida del Mar and the beachfront north of the Golden Zone. Patrick Hobson, the sales and marketing director for Las Gavias Tower Residences, went on the trip to represent not only his own company but also the ADTIM, a Spanish acronym for the Association of Independent Developers and Real Estate Professionals of Mazatlán.
Although not an officer of that group (his boss, Nuria Garcia, currently serves as its president), Hobson referred to himself as the “token gringo” in the delegation. For the assembly of Houstonians who were prospective investors in Mazatlán real estate, he served as the overall spokesman for the association as well as making a pitch for his company’s developments in turn with the sales reps of other developments. “We’ve pooled our resources in a common fund to promote tourist-related real estate in Mazatlán,” Hobson says of the association, “and we promote Mazatlán over any of our individual properties. We plug Mazatlán as a destination, and stress that it’s not just about beaches. It deals with health care, recreational opportunities — golf, tennis, fishing, boating — the Centro Historico, the weather, the affordability, the lifestyle.” In Hobson’s view the incredible building boom that Mazatlan has been enjoying for the past several years does not seem to be screeching to a halt despite the economic crisis up north. How and when did it start? Hobson recalls that Jaime Peña may have made a modest beginning in 1999 when he constructed the Miramar condo tower on the Malecón. But then, he says, the boom really got going when

Eduardo Habif developed the Costa Bonita condominium complex south of Cerritos in about 2001. Hobson says that the tourist demand for permanent housing in Mazatlán “just built up naturally over time. I think its roots were in timesharing. People would come here on vacation as hotel guests. Next visit, they’d buy a timeshare. And finally they would decide they wanted to invest in a full-time property, whether as a permanent dwelling or as a winter home.” In the overall picture of tourist-related development here, Hobson says the vast majority of units are sold before the buildings are completed. “Our Gavias Golden Shores, for example, is over 90% sold and it hasn’t been ready for occupancy until now — February of ’09.” The customers who are buying his company’s properties, he says, are 40% Americans, 30% Canadians and 30% Mexicans, probably a pretty standard ratio. Most units are self-financed, although some attractive mortgages are now becoming available. He cites a 15-year loan offered by Compass Bank of Texas, the U.S. arm of Bancomer, as one example.
For people who are wary of buying a condo unit that is merely a picture in a brochure because it hasn’t been built yet, Hobson advises sticking with a company that has a track record for reliability. He says, “Really, the best deal is buying at ground breaking.” And because many (if not all) banks loathe to grant a mortgage on thin air, Hobson has a solution: “Buyers could put 30% down and when the project is close to completion, they could then negotiate their loan on the balance.” He adds that in general, it takes two years to construct a tower.
Of the nine developers in the association, Patrick Hobson says, “We need to promote Mazatlán but we also need to be committed to the image of Mazatlán. This is a real city with real people, not just a beach. Those are its attractions to me, and they should be attractions to anyone, worldwide.”
(For more information on the ADTIM, you can check the website:
www.mazatlanlifestyle.net”

 

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