Brokers

Yesterday I talked about why Americans and Canadians move to Mexico. Today, let’s look at the other side of things; why do Mexicans move to and buy real estate in the U.S.? And I’m not talking about the undocumented workers who are the focus of so much politics these days – I’m talking about Mexico’s millionaires – apparently there are about 145,000 of them.

Here’s an excerpt from an article by Dolia Estevez at Forbes:

Mexico ranked third, after Canada and China, in international purchases of U.S. residential real estate in the year through March 2013, according to the National Association of Realtors. The NAR’ s 2013 Profile of International Home Buying Activity, an analysis of data gathered from realtors, reports that nearly 50% of purchases by Mexicans in the U.S. were in suburban areas and about 30% in resort areas. The vast majority, 91%, were residential purchases of detached single-family homes. The average price was $156,250 and 48% of the purchases were made with cash. California and Texas accounted for 62% of all Mexican purchases; San Diego, El Paso, Laredo, San Antonio, and Las Vegas, were Mexican buyers’ preferred cities.

 

The United States’ proximity and security are the most attractive features for Mexicans when it comes to buying residential real estate. Asked if there were other factors, Sergio Aguayo, a political scientist with the Colegio de Mexico, explained that Mexico has a large number of millionaires. According to WealthInsight, at the end of 2012, there were approximately 145,000 individuals with $1 million or more in assets, whose total combined wealth was $736 billion which equals to 43% of total individual wealth held in Mexico. Other reasons, Aguayo said, “are the American cultural attraction and the Mexicanization of large parts of the U.S.”

So, yes U.S. brokers should be paying attention to what’s going on in Mexico so they can help their clients get started in the right direction; but they should also be paying close attention to what Mexicans – wealthy and established middle-class Mexicans – are doing in the U.S.

-by Thomas Lloyd