Brad Billingsley and his wife Linda

Brad Billingsley could have been waiting for his tee time at an Arizona golf course.

Instead, the former Lafayette resident and his wife Linda were in a lagoon off Cabo San Lucas, snapping photos of gray whales bobbing next to their small charter boat.

“Every day, it’s an adventure here,” Brad Billingsley said. “It’s added 20 years to my life.”

Brad, 62, and Linda Billingsley, 61, are among the “silver surge” of baby boomers seeking alternative retirement nests in Mexico, according to a recent report by the International Community Foundation.

It’s not certain how many U.S. retirees are living in Mexico — a 2004 study puts it between 500,000 and 600,000 — but the foundation and other researchers say the number is bound to increase as more boomers settle into their golden years and find Mexico an affordable alternative. Almost half the retirees living in coastal areas are getting by comfortably on less than $1,000 per month, said the report, which cites the growth of real estate projects targeted at retirees as proof that expatriates are flocking south of the border.

The Billingsleys had seriously considered a retirement community with a golf course in central Arizona. But they lacked the enthusiasm for fairway living that seemed to consume retirees there. “Their entire lives were involved with golf,” Brad Billingsley said.

In 2007, the couple became expatriates and settled into a $300,000, two-bedroom beachfront condominium in Rosarito Beach, in Baja California.

They’ve made the most out of their retirement dollars, Brad Billingsley said. The cost of living — from groceries to health care — is low in their beachfront town and there’s plenty to do, such as driving down the coast to Cabo, walking on the beach and shopping at the local mercado.

The couple lived in the Bay Area for 60 years, much of it in Walnut Creek and Lafayette.

Sometimes they miss their old haunts, especially bookstores, Brad Billingsley said. But like most expatriates surveyed in the foundation report, they return often to the states. The Billingsleys make a trip across the border to San Diego every few weeks.

Affordability, quality of life, weather and proximity to the U.S. were top reasons retirees chose Mexico, according to the survey of 842 expatriates conducted by the foundation.

“After the market crash of 2008, we wanted to better understand what was going on with retirees in Mexico,” said Richard Kiy, president and chief executive officer of the foundation, a Southern California-based nonprofit that works to increase charitable giving and volunteerism across U.S. borders. In an 88-question survey of retirees 50 and older, the foundation found that expatriates had weathered the economic storm well.

A survey snapshot: Retirees’ biggest complaint is litter, while their favorite pastime is walking on the beach. More than three-quarters own a home. Almost 44 percent get by comfortably on less than $1,000 per month, and 61 percent are married — slightly less than the U.S. average of 65 percent for the same age group.

The foundation’s 17-page report, released in March, deals with demographics and day-to-day basics such as public safety concerns and household expenses of retirees in coastal areas such as Cancun, Rosarito Beach, Rocky Point and Puerto. Four follow-up studies over the next few months will tackle topics that include the impact on Mexico’s environment, health care accessibility, real estate and civic involvement by U.S. retirees.

Crime concerns affect mostly tourists

A weakening American economy, U.S. State Department travel alerts and worries about the H1N1 virus have hurt tourist travel numbers to Mexico over the past year, but the country still remains an attractive haven for retirees, said Anne McEnany, co-author of the report and the foundation’s senior adviser for environment and conservation.

Reports of narcotics-related violence, especially in border cities like Tijuana and Nogales, gave many retirees jitters initially, McEnany said. After they’ve settled into their new homes, anxiety fades away.

“They said they felt completely safe and that the media was over-hyping the narco-violence,” McEnany said. The impact was on friends and family, who changed their minds about visiting, she said.

“I’m really saddened to see coverage of (Mexican) crime in the media,” said Doug Gray, 60, a retired public safety officer from Livermore.

He and his wife Cyndi recently purchased a condominium in Manzanillo, a port city between Puerto Vallarta and Acapulco. They say they feel as safe — if not safer — walking around the mercados and boulevards as they did in Livermore.

Cyndi Gray said her best moment in Manzanillo was sitting on little plastic chairs at a cafe, watching waves roll in from the Pacific, sipping margaritas and eating coconut shrimp.

“We really love the pace,” she said. “It’s a slower pace and you can sit down there and get into the groove. I can unplug.”

The Grays have yet to live there full-time; Cyndi, 48, is still working.

Ellen Fields, another expat from California, lives in Merida, on the Yucatán Peninsula.

Her adopted city is about 22 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico — close, but not part of the coastal regions surveyed by the foundation. It has a reputation for being safe and hasn’t been affected by crime associated with border cities. “The Yucatán is not touched by that,” Fields said, adding, “I’ve never felt unsafe here.”

A self-described “dot-bomb refugee,” Fields and her husband James run yucatanliving.com, a Web site for expatriates. They moved to Merida from San Luis Obispo in 2002 and never looked back.

Ellen Fields says she’s enchanted by the Old World feel of the markets and people. “People in Yucatán are very welcoming. It’s a very gracious culture,” she said. “You walk down the street here and people say hello to you.”

One of the things she misses about California: “Mountains. It’s flat as a pancake here.”

Fields recommends living and working in Mexico, but warns that it takes a lot of planning. “You can’t come down here expecting someone to hire you,” Fields said. And learn the language, she advises.

Although Fields isn’t quite fluent, she says she can now hold a conversation without thinking about it.

About 48 percent of those surveyed in the foundation’s report were fluent or spoke intermediate-level Spanish, McEnany said. Even though many service businesses in Mexico have English speaking staffers, there’s no substitute for learning the language, she said.

Retirees may settle in only to find they can’t interact.

“They do the hobby thing and then after about a year they get bored,” McEnany said. “They are interested in getting involved in the community but they don’t have the language skills.”

One pitfall of expatriate living comes when communities “tend to circle around themselves” and don’t reach out to their adopted country, McEnany said. In addition, English-oriented businesses and the proliferation of big-box outlets like Walmart, Sam’s Club and Costco around near retirement hubs have made it even easier for Americans to isolate themselves from Mexican culture.

In the survey, about 88 percent of respondents said they feel somewhat or fully integrated into their new country. Nevertheless, most retirees continue to “see themselves as visitors in someone else’s country,” McEnany said.

The foundation is keenly interested in what U.S. retirees are doing with their time. Its chief goal is to assist American donors in charitably supporting communities abroad. The largest group of foundation donors consists of American expatriates in northwest Mexico.

Bob Hansen, 52, of Alameda said he’s aiming to retire in Manzanillo because of the community there. Like most retirees in the foundation survey, he visited several times before deciding to buy. Three years ago, he purchased a fixer-upper on the beach for $64,000.

Hansen has made many friends there and loves the lifestyle. “I have a huge pool of friends there,” he said.

He met one close Mexican friend after anchoring his sailboat close to a small village called Colimilla, near Manzanillo. A fisherman helped guide him to shore and afterward they cooled off with a cola.

“I could hardly speak Spanish and he didn’t speak English well either, but we had a connection of the souls,” Hansen said. “After the drinks, we got in his old truck and he drove all over the area showing me all the beautiful places in the area.”

Hansen purchased his home the next year and he stayed with his new friend in a nearby village while the sale cleared.

“I ended up being introduced to some of the kindest and warmest people on earth in that wonderful time I stayed in this village,” Hansen said.

Quality of life a top draw

Kathie Parker, formerly of Oakland, can attest to that. A third-generation Californian who moved in 2008 to Merida, Parker said she doesn’t miss the stress of living in the Bay Area.

“I never plan to move back to California,” she said.

Parker, 60, is a retired masseuse and moved with her partner Holly Smith in June 2008. They sold their home in Oakland and purchased a three-bedroom, three-bath home with a pool for less than $200,000.

But she insists that quality of life was her top concern. “I didn’t just choose this place because it was cheap,” Parker said. “I wanted to live here.”

She visits and talks daily with Yucatecan friends in Merida and is taking Spanish classes. Along with a group of other expats, she participated last year in a U.S. National Day of Service. They raised enough money to buy chairs and tables for a local school library.

“There are a lot of (Americans) who live here who want to make it as American as they possibly can,” Parker said. “We moved to Mexico to be with Mexicans. The people here are wonderful. You just have to try.”

If you have any questions you would like to ask Brad Billingsley you can send him an email at bradbillingsleyy@yahoo.com.

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Bring Your Medicare to Mexico

Suzan Haskins
Latin America Editor, International Living
International Living Postcards—your daily escape

Which foreign country will be the first in which Americans can use Medicare and Medicaid benefits?

Mexico, of course.

It just makes sense. Mexico is right next door to the largest market of health care consumers in the world. Some health services in Mexico can cost 12 times less than what is charged in the U.S., experts say.

It’s no wonder that Americans (and yes, Canadians, too) cross the Mexican border in frequently increasing numbers to avail of the high-quality but low-cost health care Mexico provides, including reduced cost prescriptions.

Already, the four largest commercial U.S. health insurers—with enrollments totaling nearly 100 million people—have either launched pilot programs exploring or offering overseas travel to countries like Mexico for health services. Some smaller health insurers and brokers also have introduced travel options for hundreds of employers around the country.

It also makes sense that Americans should be able to use insurance benefits from Medicare and Medicaid in Mexico. And that ability may become reality very soon, says Bruno Ferrari, the chief executive officer of Promexico, Mexico’s foreign investment agency.

And he believes that within one year, the governments of Mexico and the U.S. may have an agreement to let Americans use their Medicare and Medicaid insurance at Mexican health care facilities.

Already, 10 U.S. and Canadian companies have expressed an interest in building facilities to cater to Americans seeking to take advantage of low medical expenses, he says.

This is all good news for those of us who live in Mexico and for anyone thinking about relocating or retiring there.

Anticipating the approval of both U.S. private insurance and Medicare/Medicaid programs in Mexico, real estate developers are getting in on the act, too. Many of them are creating special communities that cater to the health needs of foreign retirees, including assisted living centers.

Since Mexico has been hard hit by the global economic meltdown, and the peso has recently lost 30% of its value against the dollar, there are deals to be had on real estate in Mexico right now. (And on travel and just about everything else).

Health care, health insurance, and real estate opportunities in Mexico will be just some of the subjects of discussion at our upcoming Live & Invest in Mexico Seminar in Puerto Vallarta November 12-14.

There are many reasons why today’s Mexico makes sense for the retiree or investor. There truly will never be a better time in your lifetime to start a new life in Mexico.

Suzan Haskins
Latin America Editor, International Living
International Living Postcards—your daily escape

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Finally Some Good News on Travel in Mexico

Poor old Mexico. Talk about kicking a guy when he’s down! Just when the price of oil plummets, American jobs dry up, and the fear of drug violence cuts tourism in half, along comes swine flu to cut it in half again.

OK, it’s time for a little good news. In May, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control lifted its recommendation against travel to Mexico; the swine flu isn’t so bad after all, and it probably didn’t come here from Mexico in the first place.

And now a little more good news. Drug violence is not a threat to ordinary tourists like you and me. This is according to the Mexican government, the U.S. State Department and me. Let me give you a little background.

I had driven to, in and around Mexico with impunity and pleasure, but that was years ago. Now I was planning two road trips, one from the border to central Mexico, another from Mexico City to Cuernavaca to Oaxaca and back, and my friends were alarmed.

“What about the drug war?”

“Aren’t you afraid of being kidnapped?”

No. At least I didn’t think so. The dangers of Mexico have always been exaggerated, and I have always taken them with a grain of salt. The drug trade is nothing new, and poor people have been kidnapping rich ones for money in the Third World and even in the First World (Italy) for a long time. Besides, I’m not rich.

Still, news reports in the weeks before I left caused my grain of salt to grow smaller. One said that President Felipe Calderon’s assault on the drug cartels had started a “civil war.” Another called the kidnappings an epidemic. A third compared Mexico to Pakistan and described it as a “failed state.” And an official at an Air Force base in New Mexico advised those in his command who planned to drive into Mexico to do so in broad daylight in caravans with cell phones at the ready.

Hmmm.

I called Sanborn’s, the American insurance people who have been providing auto insurance for American motorists in Mexico for 60 years, and asked if they advised any special precautions.

“Only to stick to main routes and not to drive at night, but that’s mainly because of animals that wander onto roads.”

“Have you had problems with tourists being held up or hijacked?”

“No. We wouldn’t be insuring them if we did.” (A review of Sanborn’s rates indicates no dramatic increases in recent months or years which would likely have occurred if theft or damage claims had gone up.)

OK. I’d go, but I’d avoid Ciudad Juarez where the violence is the worst. I’d cross the border on a Sunday morning, the quietest time in any week, and I’d do it at Laredo, where the cartels recently seemed to have called a truce.

What follows are facts, anecdotes and opinions.

Here are the facts:

Mexican highways are excellent and well-marked. Most major cities are now connected by well-engineered toll roads that have limited access and are patrolled by federal police and Green Angels, motorist-assistant trucks manned by mechanics.

Customs offices are clean and customs officials are professional and efficient. Neither used to be the case.

Gas stations are also vastly improved. Almost all now include a convenience store and some even have food courts.

And the vehicle stock is better than years ago; gone are most of the lopsided buses and one-eyed trucks of the past.

Here are the anecdotes:

David Tramp is an American who has lived in Ensenada, Mexico, for three years and sells real estate. He drives his Hummer into California through Tijuana, one of the hotbeds of drug violence, about four times a month. Has he ever had or seen any trouble? “Never.” Does he have any advice for tourists? “Stay out of high-crime areas where there are drugs and prostitutes. Common sense.”

Fiona McNeill is a school teacher in her 60s with very little Spanish who is working in a Waldorf School near San Miguel de Allende in central Mexico. She drove there alone in nine days from her home in Bend, Oregon, without incident except being short-changed in a gas station.

Ramon Morales is a Harley Davidson motorcycle mechanic who came to Mexico with his pregnant wife and three-year-old daughter when he was laid off from his job in San Antonio. Despite his Hispanic name, he has red hair and a Texas twang. His wife was reluctant to come. “Now I can’t get her to go home. Hell, I gotta get back and find some work.”

Then are the drug wars a figment of someone’s imagination?

Not at all, but they are not a problem for tourists. One traveler I talked to compares them to the turf wars of inner city gangs or the internecine cocaine wars of the 1970s and ’80s in South Florida made famous in the television show “Miami Vice” and the movie “Scarface.” “People were dying all over the place, and no one stopped going to Florida.” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton drew the same analogy on March 26 while speaking in Monterrey, Mexico.

Then is the press in the United States overreacting?

One observer I spoke with thought it is—at least in part in response to political pressure. Fanning the flames of the issue are the anti-immigration forces in whose interest it is to stir up fear of Mexico and Mexicans. “I think this is about ‘the fence’ that anti-immigration groups want to build from the Gulf to the Pacific. Almost no one who lives down on the border wants this wall,” he said. Indeed, Texas’s conservative Republican governor, Rick Perry, has opposed the wall, and Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano once famously said when she was governor of Arizona, “If you build a 50-foot high wall, somebody will find a 51-foot ladder.”

But alarmist news accounts continue. A headline on an article in the San Antonio Express News in February announced, “Mexican Murders, American Victims,” and led with the statement that “230 U.S. citizens have been slain in Mexico’s escalating wave of violence since 2003.” After some alarming claims, the article implicitly admits that two-thirds of those killed were involved in the drug trade or gang activity. Many of the others were in high-crime areas. In fact, only three of the 230 deaths have resulted in protests by the U.S. State Department, seeming to support the Mexican government’s contention that “Tourists wishing to visit cathedrals, museums and other cultural centers are not at risk.” Despite the Express News’ claim that its investigation “examined hundreds of records,” it failed to report a single instance of an ordinary tourist on vacation being murdered.

A CNN report on “Anderson Cooper 360” that aired on March 5 from Rosarito Beach in Baja California, warned American students of the dangers of traveling to Mexico for spring break, reporting that 20 murders, including some beheadings, had taken place in the community in the previous year. Only late in the report and then parenthetically was it noted that none of the 20 murder victims was either American or a tourist.

I entered Mexico with considerable trepidation, sticking to toll roads and watching both my clock and rearview mirror. When I departed a month later, I did so at my leisure using secondary roads and leaving even these to explore the villages and countryside. As a motor tourist I did not feel threatened by the drug violence or kidnappings I had read and heard about. And I was able to take advantage of the very favorable exchange rate that has made Mexico once again the best travel bargain available while rediscovering that country’s charm, beauty and friendliness.

Should you go? You’ll have to decide that for yourself. As for me, I’ve already rented an apartment in San Miguel de Allende for a month early next year. I’m going back, and I’m driving.

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TIJUANA — About 1 million adult Californians seek health care in Mexico each year – and that figure is likely growing as the recession expands the ranks of the uninsured who are drawn to cheaper care south of the border, said the lead researcher of the first major report on the topic released Tuesday.

The pharmacy business in Tijuana is still booming, despite crackdowns by the state to weed out illegitimate operators. - John Gibbins / Union-Tribune

These people live from the Bay Area to San Diego County. Most come to Mexico for prescription drugs and dental care, and a smaller number go for surgeries. Beyond finances, other factors prompting individuals to head south include language and cultural barriers.

Living within 15 miles of the border also greatly increases the likelihood of someone obtaining health services in Mexico.

Angela Tapia, 45, of San Ysidro crosses the border several times each year to see her gynecologist. She also had back surgery in Tijuana a decade ago.

“It’s cheaper to go there,” said Tapia, who doesn’t have health insurance. “When you go to those doctors, they give you time, they ask a lot of questions and they care about you.”

Roughly half of the cross-border patients are Mexican immigrants, a statistic that might challenge the popular notion of Mexicans burdening California’s hospitals and clinics by receiving all of their health care on this side of the border, said UCLA public health professor Steven Wallace, lead author of the new report.

“What this helps document is that (some) immigrants are facing barriers to receiving care in the United States, and they are turning to Mexico for that care,” said Wallace, who also serves as associate director of UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research. “And it’s not just immigrants facing barriers here.”

Approximately half a million U.S. citizens living in California also seek health services in Mexico, Wallace and his UCLA colleagues found.

Altogether, about 4 percent of adult Californians traveled to Mexico for some type of medical care.

Wallace’s study was published Tuesday in Medical Care, a journal for the American Public Health Association.

He and his fellow researchers based their analysis on data from the 2001 California Health Interview Survey, which questioned more than 55,000 random households across the state.

The wide-ranging survey, conducted once every two years, is funded by a coalition of agencies and groups including the state Department of Public Health, the National Cancer Institute and the California Endowment. Those done since 2001 have not asked about accessing health care south of the border.

Wallace’s group was the first to delve deeply into the statistics on medical treatment in Mexico. Previous research relied on anecdotal accounts or small localized populations.

The cross-border trend likely will intensify as the number of Mexican immigrants living in California increases and the recession costs more people their jobs and health insurance coverage, Wallace said.

Between 2001 and 2007, the population of Mexican immigrants in California grew by 756,000 to 4.6 million, according to the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C.

“The numbers that are bad in this study have only gotten worse,” said Margaret Laws, director of the California HealthCare Foundation’s Innovations for the Underserved program. “Under the current climate, they will continue to get worse.”

The UCLA researchers found that more than 13 percent of Mexican immigrants traveled to Mexico for care, with the largest number visiting dentists.

Such patients make up the diverse range of U.S. residents who visit the Bartell Dental Clinic on Avenida Revolucion in the heart of Tijuana’s tourist district, said Dr. William Bartell Jr.

“Probably 95 percent of my clientele are self-employed or their jobs don’t provide any dental insurance,” he said.

The clinic, which has a Web site that targets Americans, sees about 10 patients a day – nearly all from north of the border. That’s enough to keep three full-time and several part-time dentists busy, Bartell said.

Mexican immigrants who lived in California for less than 15 years were less likely to cross the border for care than those who had been in the country longer, the UCLA report said. Many shorter-term immigrants are undocumented, so they face risks every time they leave the United States and try to return.

Among all other Californians, the top health-related reason for going to Mexico was to purchase prescription drugs.

Much attention has been given to doctors performing cosmetic and weight-loss surgeries on Americans in Mexican cities such as Tijuana. But Wallace found that only 7 percent of the 464,000 non-Latino Californians who sought treatment across the border went there for medical procedures, including surgeries and treatments for serious illnesses like cancer.

Health insurers offering relatively low-cost coverage plans that allow Southern Californians to receive care on both sides of the border should be encouraged by the study’s findings, Wallace said.

In fact, several of the largest players in the cross-border insurance market have recorded steady growth in recent years.

Membership in Health Net’s U.S-Mexico plan has reached 40,000, up from 23,700 in late 2007, said Brad Kiefer, a spokesman for the health maintenance organization.

Sistemas Medicos Nacionales S.A., the only Mexican HMO licensed to operate in California, now has about 21,000 members in San Diego and Imperial counties, said Christina Suggett, the company’s chief operating officer.

Staff writer Sandra Dibble contributed to this report.

Keith Darcé: (619) 293-1020;

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Palacio Del Mar

Last Wednesday May 20 about 30 AMPI Professional Agents gather to tour Baja real estate along the Rosarito coast and refresh their knowledge on what is readily available on this market. The tour started at Whales Tale coffee shop inside Bajamar where Mona Key served complimentary coffee and donuts. After touring Bajamar Golf Course with Mimi Mills, the group continued north to La Mision, Plaza del Mar, Marena Cove and ended at Palacio del Mar where they were greeted by the Developers and the Sales Team.

Many of the AMPI Agents had not had the opportunity to visit Northern Baja’s first truly luxury oceanfront community development of Palacio del Mar; Palacio Del Mar is currently delivering condos and amenities. Palacio Del Mar amenities and services include a 25,000 ft2 Club House with an indoor granite pool, outdoor infinity pool, children’s pool, bistro, state-of-the-art gym and full service Spa.

As group entered Lobby which boasts a 16th foot high ceiling, Agents got to experience first hand the countless features and detail, from business center, the library, pool tables, to the Movie Theater and Shuttle Service (Shuttle Services only available for Palacio Del Mar Homeowners). There they met Ana Carrillo who heads-up the Palacio del Mar concierge services. Ana helps Homeowners schedule house cleaning services, US mail, restaurant reservations, wine tours and even vet visits for the Homeowner’s pets, just to name a few.

Miguel Sedano, Sales Associate for the Baja Real Estate Group stationed at Palacio Del Mar, has witness first hand the whole construction process, the attention to detail the developer and his crew have put into Palacio del Mar since it was just 10 acres of sand and a sales trailer. Practicality and planning meet luxury at every turn in Palacio Del Mar where the developer has added time and time again quality extras to the building such as fire sprinklers, double walls, and a back-up generator for all units; he also added a cooling system to the trash area so that it always stays at a 2 degrees Celsius complying with higher hygiene standards.

Most of the Agents agreed that Palacio del Mar it’s the most upscale Community currently being delivered in Baja, they look forward to bringing their clients for a personal tour. If you already working with an AMPI Agent make sure you schedule an appointment today. See first hand the luxury and quality that Palacio Del Mar. Call 1-800-678-7583 | 1 (619)-308-788

See pictures, floor plan and amenities on the Palacio del Mar official website.

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Boomers Buying Baja Lots

These Baja communities have established a reputation as a great place to live or buy a home. Over the last few years, with the increase in demand along the coast, many Americans had given up the idea of building and went with new condo construction. However, once again retirees are looking at their future and they are opting to cash in now for the perfect location and buying a lot while taking advantage of the current pricing advantage here in Baja.

In the 3 to 5 years as the real estate markets return to normal these lucky buyers will already have their future in place at today’s favorable prices. Currently to build a home in Baja would cost on average 45.00 to 70.00 per square foot for quality construction. Timing is typically between six and nine months from start to finish. Octavio Serrano of OCA a well known architect says that while the idea of building can be scary for many Americans, that the over all cost savings far out ways any head aches the client my have. And in the end they all say they would do it all over again. Permitting is much like the US where you first need to obtain an official topographic drawing, a building permit and then finally a completed work report. All of these can be handled by your architect.

Working with a good architect who is not only reputable, but also has Vision beyond what a clients needs are for today is KEY says Kathy Katz, owner of Baja Real Estate Group . Katz says that in many of these communities such as Las Gaviotas which started out offering lots Americans built there dream homes over the years, and when they came up for re-sale she always knew which ones would re sale the fastest strictly due to the architecture styling, she adds that you can change the color of the walls and tile, but the architecture stays with the home for ever. Just recently she has seen an increase in quality lots coming on to the market, where in the past they were either not available, or cost prohibitive.

For example a 2200 sq ft lot in Real Del Mar a Golf Course Community that once sold for 75-80 thousand, is listed today for $43,000. An ocean front 7500 sq ft lot in Punta Piedra a gated community is now available for $450,000, where once prices for the same size lot were approaching 1 million.

Can you imagine having your own lap pool with the waves crashing at you front door says Katz. In this market buyers are not only looking at cost of living and a life style, but they are looking at the values in the market, making this a time to act.

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Club Marena Villas

Marena’s decision to transform this idyllic piece of Baja into the Coast’s first true luxury development turned out to me a monumental one. Twenty-Seven luxury villas & one custom home-site were planned, for phase one, of what would become one of the coasts most successful residential resorts. An impressive clubhouse, a spectacular spa and an infinity edge pool were all part of the plan.

Each villa would have an idyllic layout for a seaside retreat. Drive into a private, two car garage with complete laundry facilities. Pull in and park in safety and comfort. Walk into a lush, well appointed personal courtyard and feel the Mediterranean essence of this Riviera style resort. The courtyards offer a special space for private puttering in your own garden. It is the perfect place for a private hot tub, koi pond or outdoor kitchen. Some of the villas have a casita with a third bedroom bordering the courtyard.

The charm of the architecture and the well planned layout of this location are exceptional and were unprecedented, at the time, in this sleepy village in the area south of Rosarito know as Bahia Descanso, “restful bay”. This area represented the premium Rosarito Real Estate and a unique geography on this section of the coast at the time of construction.

People who know the area are very cognizant of the unique micro-climate in this locality. Southern orientation with coastal hills keep the winds side shore, the weather patterns a little sunnier and the area more temperate than just 15 minutes up the coast.

The oceanfront master suite represents the dream we all have in coastal sleeping comfort. The sounds of the waves pour past the private balcony and into the spacious sleeping space accented with the warmth of a cozy fireplace.

The open floor plan of the lower level provides a spacious living space with great accommodations for home entertainment and adorned with another fireplace. A well designed kitchen opens up to the dining and living area. Walk though the space and onto the brick patio and your private wood sundeck. Outdoor living space is what the villas bring better than any condo and most homes in the area. This is what makes life in a Club Marena villa so special.

By 1992 this first phase of what would become one of the coasts most coveted developments would be completed. Villas Marena, as it was know back then, launched a new era of development on Baja’s Gold Coast. Baja had not yet scene this Riviera style of luxury architecture and planning combined with stylish oceanfront amenities. Many phases of development have followed and additional amenities have been added. However the unique character of the villas makes then one of the most desirable acquisitions in Rosarito real estate.

Browse for Club Marena Listings.

Larry French

Larry French is an Executive Sales Agent with Baja Real Estate Group with 10 years experience with web based and multimedia marketing. incorporated in Mexico for Real Estate and investment business for over 6 years. Active investor in Northern Baja with very successful portfolio. Certified member of AMPI/NAR Full-time resident of the Northern Baja area with visa and work permits.

Palacio Del Mar

The amenities far outreach any on the coast. The building is designed with lifestyle in mind, the lobby opens up to 16ft high ceilings a library with fireplace, a movie theater a business center and a separate bar and pool table area. The units are only 4 per floor making for large floor plans as well as top notch standards. This 10 ache luxury Baja Resort is as nice as anything one would find in La Jolla Del Mar or Malibu California or even Los Cabo San Lucas in Baja California Sur or Puerto Vallarta, The only difference is that this Luxury starts in the high 300,000’s with a property tax of approximately $600 dollars a year. Palacio Del Mar in Rosarito is now where Cabo was15 years ago. If you missed out then you still have a second chance. Weather Palacio is a second home where you can still enjoy the comforts of the US and yet take advantage of the Baja Life Style or a Baja real estate investment.

Now imagine yourself calling the shuttle from you condo to arrange a shuttle service to take you to the Guadalupe Valley in Ensenada Mexico finest wine region for dinner.

Call today for a free tour while units are still available in the First Tower. 1-800-678-7583. The current market makes Palacio Del Mar the best investment for retirement years.

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