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Own A Slice of Luxury in Cabo San Lucas and Make Money Too

- A No BS article by David Mandich - Baja California Real Estate and Consulting Advisor

There are luxury condos on Medano beach located on Cabo's bay, up on the hillsides in the luxurious Pedregal housing development and over on the Pacific side of the Land's End mountains. They*re all beautiful, affordable (compared to California beach communities) and many come with fantastic views of the Pacific, or Cabo downtown, its bay and the Sea of Cortez.

The greatest percentage of luxury homes and condos in Cabo are used as vacation rentals, investments and tax write-offs. So many, in fact, that the local hotel association has taken umbrage and declared war on the owners who are using their homes as short-term villa rentals and competing with their hotel room rentals, time-share sales, fractional ownerships and resort condo sales. These owners receive $300 to $3,000 USD per night for their rentals * the same as the hotels charge. Given a choice, would you rather rent a luxury ocean or Cabo bay view home that sleeps eight for $400 a night or a hotel room that sleeps two for the same money? Touche*!

If you want to own a five thousand square foot villa overlooking the crashing Pacific and be able to rent it out for $3,000 per night to wedding parties, etc. * then be sure to pay your fair share of the local hotel tax. That's basically what the hotels are howling about. If you want neighbors, a sense of community, if you want to avoid traveling through downtown congestion * then better head out of Dodge (Cabo) to find your nirvana.

In Cabo San Lucas, one can party nearly twenty-four hours a day at the clubs, on the beaches, around the pools and on the yachts. Buying a place in Cabo is for the truly young at heart, or those who have business interests there.

Cabo San Lucas Versus San Jose del Cabo

Cabo San Lucas is actually a part of the municipality of Los Cabos which includes San Jose del Cabo, located eighteen miles to the east, and in some ways, a hundred years in the past.

For all the millions of dollars in tourist hotel development in Cabo San Lucas and the Tourist Corridor in between the two towns, San Jose del Cabo still evokes the roots and spirit of Mexico as opposed to Cabo San Lucas, with its faster paced, more commercial and touristy atmosphere.

Those wanting to really LIVE in Mexico, i.e., avoid the Cabo tourist crowds, etc., may want to consider buying in San Jose del Cabo eighteen miles to the East and eighteen miles closer to the airport. Or, as I'll discuss below, in the 18 mile corridor between the two towns.

Some view Cabo as more like Vegas and San Jose more like Santa Barbara California but with warmer waters, colder margaritas and fewer tourists. It has soul. It was a colonial town over two hundred years old when Cabo was just a few ranch houses, a dirt airstrip and a tuna packing plant a few decades ago.

Next: Living In The Corridor