Border security fears push Mexicans north

McALLEN - Increasing numbers of Mexican nationals are purchasing homes in Greater McAllen since Mexican soldiers were deployed to northern Tamaulipas in January, local real estate agents said.

"They don't come right out and say it but you can tell that's the reason," said Michael Check, a sales agent with Keller Williams Realty in McAllen.

"They say, ‘I consider this a safer environment for my kids.'"

While no publicly available records track the nationalities of home buyers, numerous real estate professionals reported a heightened interest from northern Mexican buyers in homes in this area ranging from $120,000 to nearly $1 million.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon ordered troops to his country's border with the United States in mid-January to combat drug trafficking, resulting in almost immediate shoot-outs with suspected cartel members in the Mexican border cities of Reynosa and Rio Bravo. Calderon has offered no timeline for the military's withdrawal.

Jim Gaines, an economic analyst with Texas A&M University's Real Estate Center, said there was a similar run on homes in Laredo three years ago when fighting broke out between drug cartels across the border in Nuevo Laredo.

"If you live in northern Mexico but work in the States it's going to get harder and harder to get back and forth," he said.

The Mexican peso's recent gain on the U.S. dollar also makes this country's real estate a more attractive investment for Mexicans, as has been the case for Asian and European investors, Gaines added.

One U.S. dollar was worth 10.76 pesos Wednesday, below the four-year average of 11 pesos to the dollar, according to the currency exchange Oanda.

Well-heeled Mexicans historically have been regular buyers of McAllen real estate, often keeping homes here and traveling back and forth to their residences in Mexico.

Following the Mexican economic crisis in 1994, the number of home sales here to Mexican clients increased dramatically as people sought to move their money out of the country, Gaines said.

The real estate buying spree continued over the last decade as manufacturing operations in and around Reynosa expanded and Mexican businesspeople became wealthier, said Lucero Latigo, a real estate agent with Star Properties GMAC in McAllen.

"I sell to Mexican nationals exclusively," she said. "There's a lot of people in Mexico with good buying power."

But over the last few weeks real estate agents have seen a virtually unprecedented upsurge in inquiries about available properties.

Benjamin Garcia, an agent with Select Properties in McAllen, said he is currently working with three "wealthy" Mexican families looking to move to the McAllen area and knew of plenty more working with other agents.

"It's the instability of the security in the northern (Mexican) border cities," he said. "Some of them are purchasing and lots are renting while their houses are being built. But all of them are making permanent moves."

Like many agents and brokers, Garcia declined to provide his clients' names, saying the clients wished to remain anonymous out of concern for their safety in Mexico.

Mexicans wishing to purchase homes in the United States do face some significant hurdles.

Because their money is in Mexico, U.S. banks typically require a down payment of between 20 and 30 percent before granting a mortgage, Latigo said.

And while the U.S. government places no restrictions on foreigners purchasing property, if a Mexican citizen plans to live here permanently as opposed to just using their property as a vacation destination, he or she would have to obtain some form of permanent residency visa. The temporary Laser visa on which many travel for weekend shopping trips wouldn't be enough.

"They have to get their immigration status sorted out, but it's not a problem for most of (my clients)," Garcia said.
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James Osborne covers McAllen and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4428.