South of the Border Market Still Hot: WSJ

December 17th, 2007

mexico panama real estate investment

I’ve been wondering when the Wall Street Journal was going to catch up to the news that properties and residential real estate conditions south of the border are still growing strong and that market conditions are newsworthy. June Fletcher’s article from today more than covers the region and the good news for home buyers.

Since 2003, annual home-price appreciation has been running at 20% in the Dominican Republic, and could reach 50% in the near future, according to Boomerang Unlimited, a Napa, Calif., real-estate investment advisory firm. […]

Americans’ appetite for investment opportunities is helping to spur a building boom in some areas. In Panama, 170 residential-building projects are under way, mostly marketed to Americans, and 100 more are in the pipeline, according to Panama Legal, a law firm based in Panama City. Among them, a 1,500-acre resort and marina by Naples, Fla.-based developer Todd Gates. The project, on Isla del Rey, one of the Pearl Islands near Panama City, is slated to open in 2009 and will have condos, villas and single-family homes ranging from $275,000 to $1.4 million. “It’s like Florida was in the ’50s,” Mr. Gates says.

The WSJ folks included this spiffy interactive map, for people not already hooked on a given country. It lists some of the possible downsides to each of 5 countries as well as the advantage to each. Again, with warnings to those who want to buy site-unseen, the real estate market and conditions are still favorable enough that you can fly down and get an eye-full, and feel that your money is going somewhere.

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