East Cape Mexico Real Estate: Living In The Corridor
by David Mandich, Baja Real Estate Advisor

East Cape Mexico Real Estate: Living In The Corridor
It’s a compromise. A big one. It’s miles of gated communities, golf courses, luxury resorts and wonderful beaches. People who buy homes or condos in the corridor enjoy the peace and relative security of living in gated enclaves. Same as some places back home in the States. Homeowners association rules keep out the local door-to-door peddlers, sound trucks advertising the circus, neighbors raising fighting cocks and other ambience destroyers.

I’ve lived in and out of these places. Personally, I kinda liked the hombre that would rattle our gate at our home in the barrio every so often to offer us fresh camarones or fish. Or on one day – a sack of live lobsters for four bucks a pound. “You come back every week,” I told him, "the gate is always open for you amigo." If you like to VISIT Cabo a lot, but don’t want to live IN Cabo, then the corridor is a good compromise. Just remember, major grocery stores, and other necessities will be three to ten miles away in Cabo or San Jose. It’s like living in the burbs without the malls – without much of anything. Just you and your neighbors, behind those big guarded gates, next to the ocean. Oh, yes – Costco and Home Depot are across the highway on the Cabo end.

Corridor Developments
Over the past several years and ongoing, developers have been putting in scores of townhouses on the land side of the corridor at prices starting in the low 200’s and going up from there. They usually have a community pool and other amenities, and a view of Cabo Bay if you’re lucky. Appreciation has been good – some doubling in value in two years. Some are safe investments, some are dicey – depending on the strength of the builder in general. One has to be circumspect when buying anything here. More so than say in California where more real estate disclosure is required. Title insurance is critical, so is working with knowledgeable professionals who will look out for your interests first - not the developers interests. 

Established developments on the ocean side of the highway like Cabo Bello, Cabo del Sol and so on until you get all the way to San Jose are like gold. Some have private (by default behind gates) and semi-private beaches, beach clubs, and full resort amenities such as found in Cabo de Sol or Palmilla.

Homes in these areas will range from around $500,000 USD up to ten or more million dollars. Prices are catching up to Southern California fast. How fast? Well, the new Puerto Los Cabos development on the East side of the San Jose estuary was selling ocean front building lots two years ago for 1.5 million dollars. They are now going for almost four million.

The limited number of ocean front lots in the El Dorado Country club (which went private last year) are going for twelve million dollars. But across the highway, and still with an ocean view (a half mile away) you can buy a town home with a community pool for under $200,000. This year...?