Bugs, et al… yeah, I spaced for a moment on calculating the lot size. The lot is 108,000 square feet or almost 2.5 acres. (It’s 10,000 square meters and I just multiplied by a little over 3, thus forgetting the “squared” part. Doh!)
Bugs, I agree with your entire last paragraph. It looks overbuilt down there and heavily influenced by the Southern California and Arizona real estate markets. My understanding is that the typical buyer used their home equity up here to make a down payment on a place down there. I will be curious to see how things shake out down there over the next couple of years. It’s hard to believe that there’s enough “real” demand for everything that’s being built down there…
Having said all that… the guy who wants to do this particular development is not a dumb gringo (he’s Mexican, has dual citizenship, and is well-connected in Baja), although his timing may be off here. He’s done a fair amount of building, both commercial and residential, in Tijuana (and he’s built several homes in Chula Vista) but he hasn’t done a project like this. (There won’t be any water or septic issues for this particular property.)
I told him point blank that this wasn’t my type of investment but that I’d introduce him to some people that I know who do this sort of thing. I’m basically agnostic on the whole thing. I wish the guy well.
As I said previously I’m just interested in what the spread is between “similar” parcels in Baja and San Diego. And from the numbers bandied about thus far it looks to be larger than I thought.
Right now you can buy a newly constructed 1200 sqft 2bed/2bath condo in a reasonably nice tower on the ocean in Rosarito for about $250K – $300K. The same unit in La Jolla/Del Mar/Solana Beach/etc. would probably cost between $750K and $1.25 million (depending on lots of factors). So I was wondering if the spread was larger on raw land, and at least in this case it appears to be the case.
