How are Latin America’s coastal regions faring? I was one of the panelists trying to answer this question in National Geographic’s annual Geotourism survey. As usual, some places got failing grades (like Louisiana after the BP oil spill), while ironically oil-rich Norway scored the highest. In general cool climate places to better: fewer people are moving there and building vacation homes and resorts.

See the full report here, but the top rated destinations included spots in Chile and Argentina. These were places rated as “In excellent shape, relatively unspoiled, and likely to remain so.”
Chilean Fjords
Argentina: Valdés Peninsula

These were rated as “doing well, with a few surmountable problems.” (Scores out of 100)
Antarctic Peninsula 70
Costa Rica: Caribbean coast 70
Brazil: Bahia, northern coast 69
Brazil: Rio de Janeiro beaches 66
Colombia: Cartagena coastal region 65

Then “A mixed bag of successes and worries, with the future at risk.”
Mexico: Tulum to Sian Kaan 61
Chile: Viña del Mar 60
Belize: Coast and barrier reef 58
Honduras: Northern coast 57
Costa Rica: Pacific coast 55

Thankfully, only one Latin American destination showed up in either of the bottom two categories, that being Zihuatanejo in Mexico. It’s nice little town that is unfortunately a cruise ship stop, with the ships’ massive footprints overwhelming the fragile marine system and the thousands of visitors totally changing the character of the town itself.

Overall, the biggest problem on the coasts is over-development, with poorly planned and minimally supervised building projects quickly transforming coastal regions, not always for the better.

“From Costa Rica to Nova Scotia, native residents are getting priced out of their own oceanfronts. Some places cope with these changes. Others teeter at a tipping point,” says the intro.

There’s an inherent struggle that a publication like ours has to face. Sure, it’s great to buy your piece of paradise on the ocean, but at what cost to what was there before?

We do what we can to steer people to developments that preserve what made the place special instead of obliterating it in the process, but there are few locals anywhere who won’t take crazy gringo money in order to leave their fishing village shack with an unfathomable wad of cash in pocket. We can only hope that the positives—new jobs, better infrastructure, the sprouting of new outreach programs to help the poor—will make up for some of what has been lost along the way.

Please tread lightly when finding your place in the sun and ask that your builders and architects do the same. Do what you can to support the less fortunate in the community. If you can get to some place by some method other than on a cruise ship, that’s nice too. There’s only so much coastal land on this Earth and we need to take care of it.

We feature three kinds of travel reviews on Luxury Latin America: the best luxury hotels, interesting luxury travel tours, and Latin American real estate that appeals to foreigners buying a vacation home or retirement home in Mexico, Central America, or South America. In the latter category is a piece we put up a couple weeks ago: Real Estate in Punta Mita.

Punta Mita goes by two slightly different names, so it’s a little confusing. Punta de Mita (which sort of translates to “arrowhead”) is the peninsula region in general, located between Puerto Vallarta and Sayulita in the Riviera Nayarit region. Punta Mita without the “de” is the private development within that region. It’s anchored by the Four Seasons, a St. Regis resort, and two golf courses designed by Jack Nicklaus. Plus there are plenty of different real estate developments for those who like it so much they don’t want to leave.

That feeling is understandable as this is one of the prettiest and most dramatic coastal locations in Mexico, plus the golf experience here wins plenty of “best of” accolades on a regular basis. Don’t come to this area looking for a bargain though—one software mogul has built a house here that supposedly cost $36 million, give or take a few mil—so you’ll be in the company of people who can afford to buy exactly what they want. Except for a few condos and townhouses, prices are listed in seven digits.

This is perhaps the most prestigious resort living address in Mexico. See the full story here:

Luxury Real Estate in Punta Mita, Mexico

In a move designed to lure more Americans to Costa Rica, the country is designating certain areas with good medical facilities to be “retirement clusters.” The country wants to better compete with Panama and Mexico, both destinations that have lured lots of retirees with the combination of lower costs and good hospitals.

The Tico Times reported the story back in February (see a reprint here), so I’m late to the party on this, but it has interesting ramifications for the future. Anecdotal evidence says foreign investment in Costa Rica has declined during this recession, especially in areas where the property bubble had spread south. This government program aims to spread out that investment to more areas. The zones include Lake Arenal, Miramar, Cartago, and Rincon de la Vieja in Guanacaste. According to this story on Mathaba, getting residency should become easier.

The concept is simple, and includes slashing red tape to the minimum by providing one-stop residence permits at the Migration Directorate, so that foreigners, especially the well-heeled, can come to live in the country. Tax exemptions on real estate and vehicles are on offer, and a promotional campaign aimed at older adults abroad will be run by the Costa Rican Institute of Tourism (ICT).

Time will tell whether the plans turn to reality and whether there is longevity in the mix. Costa Rica was the first country to launch big incentives for foreign retirees, but the country has become less attractive over time as those incentives were removed and real estate prices kept rising. If this program actually works, it could turn things around.

Don’t pull a House Hunters International move though and just fly down for a weekend to buy a house. Spend some time in a Costa Rica rental first and do your homework. Keep in mind too that the U.S. dollar is at its lowest exchange rate in two years in Costa Rica, which may limit your bargaining power for anything sold by a local company. Take your time.

Get info here on luxury travel in Costa Rica.

It looks like the U.S. home foreclosure wave is climbing into the upper ranks. A new story in the Wall Street Journal out today is titled, Foreclosures Hit Rich and Famous.

There’s nothing modest about these houses, with outstanding loads of $5 million or more.

-a Tudor mansion in Bel-Air belonging to film star Nicolas Cage

- a 14-acre Westchester mansion belonging to a former Merrill Lynch executive who headed up the Latin America division

- a Manhattan condominium owned by Italian film producer Vittorio Cecchi Gori, sold in a foreclosure auction for $33.2 million

The article says that in February alone, 352 homes nationwide in this $5 million+ category “…were scheduled for foreclosure auction, the final step before a bank acquisition.”

So what does this mean for Latin America? If you want my advice, tread carefully in the obvious bubble markets fueled by lots of speculative California money, places like Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta, and the northern Pacific developments of Costa Rica. Or at least drive a hard bargain there to be sure you’re getting the true market rate. Plan to use your home a lot as the high-end rental market and near-term appreciation are both looking dicey for a while.

See our Latin America real estate stories for more.

A place high on my list of potential real estate investments abroad is one I haven’t even stepped foot in yet: Cuenca, Ecuador. I was blown away by the prices I saw for land and houses in that area when I was looking at listings while in Quito and everything I’ve read about the city makes me want to spend some time there.

Our correspondent John Lamkin did spend some time there recently and he scoped out the real estate scene in the region. This seems like one of those “can’t lose” propositions since prices  have nowhere to go but up and this city is just now getting on the radar of foreign investors. While there have been a few bubble markets in Latin America lately, they have all been in areas where California money flooded in and there was a lot of speculative investment, mostly on the Baja Peninsula of Mexico and the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. For most of the rest of Latin America, the housing crash taking place in the U.S. has had little effect.

See the full scoop on this attractive area with a great climate: Cuenca, Ecuador: the Next South American Real Estate Boomtown?