| | |  Puerto Vallarta Real Estate 
Stilettos or Huaraches: A Blond Perspective on the Vallarta Real Estate Market
 Nicole Martin - PVNN
October 05, 2010
| | Finding a Puerto Vallarta property is no different from finding the perfect pair of shoes. | |
I have learned my lesson time after time.
I see a lovely pair of shoes in a window and then procrastinate. I turn my back and walk away only to return a week later ready to buy. But they have sold my size. The perfect shoe is gone.
The same thing happens with property seekers. Looking for property can be a daily habit, kind of like always looking for the right shoe.
My favorite and most challenging clients are those who have the real estate seeking gene - those who open up the property section before their first sip of coffee in the a.m. Their appointments to view property are an intensive urban shopping commitment, more frequent than trips to the grocery store.
But as we all know, in life, the moment comes for a decision. That's doubly hard to deal with when you're in a down market and everyone expects phenomenal shoe sale discounts in real estate. Those discounts just don't exist here in Vallarta. It's too much of an all-cash market. But owners here generally don't have mortgages to pay, and they just don't react with panic. Why should they? This market is so clearly a wonderful place to live. What's going to stop it.
So condo owners - the 90% of local buyers who pay cash here - are not at all like shoe stores at 50% off through Sunday (cannot be combined with other promotions.)
Too bad. Imagine the buying opportunity if a Phoenix, AZ-type collapse occurred in beachfront real estate here. It would be as if the tide went way out into the Bay and we could begin the market again somewhere in the 1980's.
But that's not going to happen. Too many Vallarta owners are too tough to cave in on price beyond a certain reasonable point. Reasonable is the point. There are attractive prices in any market - good, bad or mediocre.
So how do you recognize the good prices? With a lot of expert help. If real estate agents are worth anything here (they are), they're valuable because they can help read the market and interpret the price being asked for any property.
Without that help, all you really have is a long, nicely organized MLS list of properties. Many are in places you've never heard of, and you don't even know about the recent axe murder in the "Sitting Room" of the Johnson place just a block off the bay.
So, back to my theme. Finding a property is no different from finding the perfect pair of shoes.
Should I wait till it goes on the sale rack?
It might not be around next week. And if it is, I won't want it.
I'll want something a little more beige, but also a little more, oh, how should I call it? - a little more nautical. You know, women out on the terrace overlooking the ocean. Shoes prefect for the event. They look almost like, well, shoes from the Hamptons!
Look, it's the same with the partner thing. You shop too long, you can talk yourself out of anything.
So the shoes are good. Buy 'em. And the real estate? Perfect. The shoes and the real estate were conscious decisions. Make 'em.
(I´m getting ready to go out for dinner tonight. I can´t find the right shoes to go with my outfit. I am suffering the consequences of a failure to act decisively in a turbulent world.)
Nicole Martin is sales executive with Prudential California Realty-Vallarta Division and also hosts Realtor 365 on BanderasNews. She can be contacted at nicole.martin(at)prurealtypv.com. |
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