First, thanks to all of you for your interest, support and investment in our projects. The projects are on track although capital raise and architecturals have taken longer than originally expected and slowed us down a tad. Good thing we added a good 30% buffer to our time frame, so I am confident our timeframe is still realistic. I'm going to divide this update into three components, and update on: The Area The road is under construction and moving forward, expect completion in 2.5 years as scheduled. Perfect timing for our projects. Although our properties have already appreciated in anticipation of the new highway, appreciation will surely continue as progress on the road is made. On both projects we are finishing up capital raise. Once that is complete I will send out quarterly updates to keep you all informed of our progress. As always, you can go to www.investinloscabos.com to see what we are up to. In the immediate area Tony and Roger Pollack are planning a hotel and timeshare project behind the Cerritos Beach Club which should break ground the first half of 2008. Currently under construction is Sol Pacifico Cerritos - www.solpacificocerritos.com , a 54-unit condo project of Tony's. Before ground was even broken he had sold 40 of the 54 units, in 4 months. Since then ground has been broken and he expects to be sold out by the end of the year. At that time his sales team will begin selling our products!! Tequila Ranch Marketing and Sales will begin once we have finalized the drawings and will kick into gear once the Tequila Distillery is open and tours are going through. We had a hiccup with Sales, we had hired a Sales Directory that didn't work out so we let him go which has slowed our progress some, but we are still on track. I am still finishing up our capital raise, I have two more LLC's that are still funding. The money is committed; we are waiting for IRA money to free up. We should be complete by the end of year. I'll be honest, I'm looking forward to concentrating on moving the project forward! I'm headed to Mexico next week, I'm expecting to meet with the architects and further refine the plans. Cerritos Beach Well as in any project, some times things work out like you expect them to and sometimes they don't. This time they didn't. I won't pain you with the specifics, but net net, we fired our sales director, are no longer partnering with the wellness center doctor at this time and have gone back to our original plan of selling whole ownership condos. There are numerous reasons why we feel this is the best path to take at this time, not the least of which is that although wellness is a hot topic these days, the truth of the matter is that the money is just not there, YET. So we are keeping the spa facility but are not partnering with a wellness doctor. The spa will be a more typical spa, with massage, work out facility, etc. We will revisit the wellness concept periodically as it becomes more mainstream. We are finishing up the final LLC and will be complete by the end of the year. Although I have thoroughly enjoyed the capital raise process, I'm glad to be focusing on moving the project ahead. We are in the entitlement and condo regime process right now. This should take 3 months and we should be ready to break ground early 2008. While in Cabo last month, sitting out the hurricane, holed up in a B & B with the architect, we made some significant changes to the site map. So Larry is furiously re-doing the site map and condo floor plans. I will get them up on our site as soon as they are finalized. (www.laamanezca.com) Our architect, by the way is Larry Henry of Henryarch and is a member of the Nevada Board of Architects. His work is beautiful and interesting, check it out, I think you will be pleased. I will also post the updated drawings and floor plans on www.investinloscabos.com as soon as they are completed. He is working on virtual tour as well, wait until you see that!!! We are working on permits and entitlements and will be complete in January. We should break ground then. Tony's team will be selling our condo's from Sol Pacifico, his office in the Marino and at the Cerritos Beach Club on Cerritos Beach. Once we break ground I will provide quarterly updates. Thanks, Janet, Loral and Will Happy New Year to everyone, I visited the projects the second week of January. Cabo San Lucas and the surrounding areas continue to explode. There is massive growth on both sides of Cabo, up the Sea of Cortez side and on the Pacific Ocean side where our projects are. As I posted on the website, very large builders like Donald Trump are coming into the area with projects. The new four lane road from Cabo to the capital in La Paz has been funded and is on schedule. We should see it completed in 2.5 years. Perfect timing for our projects. The newly elected president, Calderon is very pro US and we are seeing the effects. Mortgage companies are coming into Mexico with much more affordable rates. Six months ago we were seeing financing for property in Mexico at 10% and 10 points. I am now working with a company that is offering 20% down, 9% for residential financing and prime + 1 for construction financing. We intend to provide a financing option for our retail buyers which should speed sales. For those of you who have visited Cabo, you know that to get there you need to fly into San Jose del Cabo Airport which is 20 – 30 minutes from Cabo. There is an international airport in Cabo that until recently only accommodated small aircraft. The Cabo airport has been expanded and they are currently courting large carriers. Tony, our developer, has been very involved in the airport expansion and is in the process of becoming a partial owner in the airport. Good news for us. I expect by summer we should be able to fly into Cabo instead of San Jose. Too bad we it won’t be a done deal by May – Alumni # 7 in Cabo. Speaking of Alumni # 7 in Cabo, I hope you all will be in attendance. For those of you interested in visiting our projects, we have planned a tour on Sunday May 6 th. I’m so excited about this for a number of reasons. First, you get to see what you invested in. Once you see it and “get” the vision, well, you’ll understand why Loral, Will and I are so excited and will personally own property there. Why this will be the first of many projects we will do there. You will get to meet Tony. Tony will spend the day with us and share with us his vision for the area, his enthusiasm and of course his extensive knowledge of Mexican real estate. How it really works. You’ll love him. In addition, you will get to see what it really takes to make a deal happen, in the streets, real time. The trip as planned now: we will load into busses to make the 35 mile trip to Tequila Ranch and Cerritos Beach. After visiting the properties we will party on the beach at the recently opened Cerritos Beach Club. We’ll return to the hotel via bus. I hope you will be able to join us.
On the sales front, I have hired a sales director to head up sales to the retail market. He is an expert in fractional sales and has been involved with most of the timeshare and fractional projects here in California. California is our number one target market for sales of our projects, followed by Arizona, Colorado and the western states. He will also manage a team of sales people in Mexico, selling to visitors to the area. His first day was Feb 1 st and we are expecting great things from him. He will head up our marketing efforts, so expect to see marketing collateral, ads, etc in the next 60 – 90 days. One more general update before I get into the specific projects. Tony and his partners have purchased 550 acres in Migrino, which is half way between Cabo and our projects. He is building a golf course there and we will include private memberships to our owners at Cerritos Beach and Tequila Ranch.
Cerritos Beach (La Amenezca) – We are fully funded, the land has been closed into our Mexican Corporation. Good news, our lot which we paid $3M for has recently been appraised and is worth $6M. Happy Day!!! In addition, we have purchased 7 lots from the highway to our lot so that we will fully own the access road to the property. We also will use the front lot for a grand entrance visible from the highway. We also purchased a lot across the highway for our sewer treatment facility. We are currently in discussions with Dr Graham Simpson and his partner, architect Larry Henry. Dr. Simpson owns and runs a wellness clinic in Reno called the Ageless Zone. He is also the author of the book Spa Medicine. We are looking to build a wellness center on our property at Cerritos Beach. Tony and I have had many discussions on the need to have a draw, something that will get people out of the Cabo area and to our property. With the aging baby boomers being our target market, we think a wellness center would be the perfect solution. Wellness centers are all the rage these days and with the number of boomers increasing, that market is sure to continue to grow. Graham’s latest book is scheduled to be out in 3 -4 months. We will target his clients as potential buyers of our condos. We are finalizing our plans and I will keep you up updated as we move ahead. The wellness center concept is one that I believe will greatly increase the value of your investment. We are finishing up environmental and permitting. We are beginning structural design and will start grading the property in the next couple of months. We are finalizing the floor plans and I will post them to the website when they are final. They are now 1800 square feet in size and each condo will include a treatment room for private spa treatments. Tequila Ranch (Playa Agave Azul Estates) – The infrastructure is in, the roads are in the process of being paved, (we wanted to get through the rainy season to make sure grading, etc. was perfect). Water, power, cable TV/Internet are to the property and it has been graded. We are working with the our architect to finalize the drawings. There is a set of drawings posted on the website if you haven’t already seen them. We are still working the site plan, we expect to get 15 villas on the site, so expect the site plan posted on the web site to change. On our last visit to Mexico, Will and I met with the architect, provided our input and expect final drawings, models, etc to be completed by mid Feb, early March so that we can turn on our sales machine. We’re almost there!!! At Playa Agave Azul, one house is being built, three others are ready to break ground this month. The tequila distillery is a little behind schedule, ground has been broken, we are expecting it to open in October this year. In the mean time, Tony has purchased a tequila distillery and has begun to make his own brand of tequila. I tasted some on my last trip, it was the best tequila I’ve ever tasted, although admittedly I just recently have been learning the art of sipping tequila. Many thanks to my partner who has been instructing me. : ). Tony is producing tequila with the intention of branding Mexcallimetl in the interim before the distillery is open at Playa Agave Azul. He is producing Silver, Reposado and Anjeo He will do some very special bottling of his Reposado and Anjeo. I visited hand blown bottling shop with him on my last trip and we picked out something special. Hope to see you at Alumni and share some tequila with you.
The Tequila Distillery – work in process As you can tell we are rockin’ in Cabo. My special thanks to everyone of you for seeing the vision and investing with us. Call me anytime, I’d love to hear from you.
Janet August on the Beach August at Playa Agave Azul Construction on the horse stables nearby is just beginning. There’s no shortage of things to do when you come to stay and play at Playa Agave Azul. I’ll bet you didn’t even realize there were going to be stables…. I’ll keep you posted on the progress. I’m sure that I have shared with you the plan for the restaurant at the Distillery. Organic produce, grown on the Ranch or locally in El Pescadero, but did I tell you about the meandering botanical gardens?? You see when Tony and his crew were clearing the land, they removed and relocated many local protected plants that will be replanted on the site of an educational walking garden complete with placards identifying the species; fun and educational at the same time. And, oh so environmentally correct. Tony knows how to do things right!!!
The two lane highway from Cabo to La Paz is making great progress. Already begun from La Paz south to Cabo, work will begin soon in the northern direction from Cabo. When that road is complete, our property values will skyrocket. From the July 24th issue of the Gringo Gazette – July at the Ranch
15,000 blue agave plants arrived from Guatelajara and have been planted. Irrigation is installed and the plants are taking well to their new home. Boy that tequila is going to taste sweet.
July on Cerritos Beach
And hot off the Gringo Gazette presses, this article was front page news in the July 22 edition. We’re in the right place at the right time… There are rumors that a major celeb is VERY interested in what is going on at the Beach Club being built on Cerritos Beach. Rumors are flying for now, as soon as something is finalized, you’ll be the first to know. JUNE 2006 We’ve gotten the first drawings back from the architect and had the chance to make our first revisions. The style for the Villas is old Mexican Hacienda style with modern California type conveniences added in. We have expanded the original plans to make all the Villas 4 bedrooms, have opened up the kitchen to the family room and added great rooms in some of the models. The old Mexican style is to separate the kitchen from the rest of the living areas, but that just wouldn’t do for our potential buyers. At least at my house the party always ends up in the kitchen so we built the entertaining areas around the kitchen. We also have added plans for ample storage near the security building so owners can store their personal belongings on the premesis ready for their monthly stay each year. |
