OCEAN VIEWS CALLING FROM DEEP IN MEXICO
Canadians buying into growing resort as both a vacation home and investment property
California hotelier Steve Nim knows a good resort when he sees one.
After decades in the business, he was an early buyer — and is one of several full-time residents — in Mexico’s Vivo Resorts, the brainchild of Calgary developer and former Olympian Cary Mullen.
“I wanted to fulfil a dream of living with an ocean view when I retired, and I couldn’t have afforded this in California,” says the 65-year-old Nim, who bought a two-bedroom condo and now gives free English lessons to resort staff and Spanish lessons to fellow homebuyers.
While there is a growing North American contingent at the ever expanding Vivo along southern Mexico’s beautiful Oaxacan Emerald coast, more than 80 per cent of buyers continue to be Canadian.
Zenith and Laurie Zazulak of Edmonton bought a villa complete with infinity pool overlooking the ocean, after taking Vivo’s Discovery Tour (a “test drive” of the resort) and talking to other owners. They now spend three or four months a year with family and friends in the villa, including increasingly more time during summer months.
Zenith, a machine shop owner, says it’s less expensive to travel to Mexico than to fly to Kelowna and rent there, and “it (Kelowna) doesn’t have this ocean.”
A family from Ontario just bought in Vivo’s soon-to-be-completed Laguna building with direct ocean views, after years vacationing at the resort, and will use it as both a vacation spot and an investment.
“I like the sense of community here that Cary has stated in his philosophy, a community to grow together,” says the mother of three teenagers who works in the finance industry. “But it’s also turnkey, and having it in the rental pool (owners receive 70 per cent of net proceeds) will pay expenses while accruing value.”
At completion, the development that sits on 75 acres with 800 yards of sandy shorefront along Palmarito Beach, will feature 114 private homes, and about 600 condos joined by a dozen pools (two plus a swim-up bar are already in use).
A $7 million, 53,000-square-foot clubhouse is completed and offers a spa, open-air restaurant with ocean views, lounge, fitness centre, yoga studio, business centre, meeting room, and library, over four floors.
The gated community is away from Mexico’s hectic, crowded tourist areas and instead is nine miles from Puerto Escondido, a town of about 45,000 residents with new supermarkets, hospital and a growing stretch of top-notch restaurants and cafés, with one of the most consistent weather patterns in the country.
Its Zicatela beach is rated as having the world’s third-best surfing waves, and the town, says former professional ski racer Mullen, has an energetic, international vibe that reminds him of ski town Banff.
For Mullen, a third-generation real estate developer/owner, Vivo is the result of an extensive search for the perfect investment — and the perfect getaway for his own family.
“Where Vivo is already, is better than the vision I started with,” he says of the development that’s now 30 per cent complete, with new phases over the next decade to include views of the Sierra Madre del Sur mountain range.
Beyond new condos (the 28unit, all-beachfront Nautico starting from US$319,000 and low-rise tropical garden-styled Botanica, starting at US$219,900) and villas under construction, proposed amenities include the Village Shoppes, another restaurant, boutiques, and eco tours to the resort’s offerings.
“We’re not just building buildings, we’re building atmosphere,” says Mullen, with Vivo adding value to enhance the whole community, including a foundation that supports a turtle release and an orphanage.
Buyers who came in at the start, says Mullen, have seen average returns of five to eight per cent, while paying costs through a rental system draws increasing numbers of vacationers.
The focus going forward includes continuing to press for direct air flights to Puerto Escondido from Canada, instead of current flights through Mexico City.
I wanted to fulfil a dream of living with an ocean view when I retired, and I couldn’t have afforded this in California.