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Mexico is losing alot of their wealthy citizen due to the continued violence of the Drug gangs. Tired of living under the threat of kidnappings, assaults and perennially polluted gray skies that kept their children homebound, Wealthy Mexicans and their families are moving from Mexico City to Miami. Wealthy Mexicans are choosing Miami over Los Angleles due to costs or real estate in LA.
Miami is smaller, has less traffic, but what Wealthy Mexicans love the most is the freedom to go out into the street with their children without fearing that we're going to be kidnapped or robbed or that my children's health is going to suffer.
South Florida is not known as a haven for Mexican immigrants, but more and more it is becoming one as a new wave; a professional and entrepreneurial class; settles in Miami, a city seen more and more as a place where upper- and middle-class Latin Americans find ambiente among their well-heeled Hispanic peers.
Miami is very fashionable in Mexico right now. A mexican real estate agent says she averages about 10 sales a year to Mexicans for Miami properties, ranging from $500,000 to $7 million. Most of the Mexicans are well-to-do and looking to make Miami their second home or invest in the city's real estate boom, she said. Some professionals get job transfers to the Miami-based Latin American divisions of U.S. companies and settle here permanently, she added. Others commute between Miami and Mexico, where they own businesses.
In Houston, their motives are more than economic. They are also seeking a safe haven for themselves and their families, away from the threats of kidnapping, ransom and even murder that are routinely directed at wealthy Mexicans.
80 percent of Houston's Real Estate business is with Mexicans who have a net worth of up to $100 million. Many pay cash for their homes and are unaffected by market cycles.
Mexicans prefer Houston, because luxury homes there cost less than those in California, or even Mexico City. And from Houston, there are some 40 daily flights to Mexican cities, with at least 20 to Mexico City, a two-hour trip. Is this a fad or they way things will be.
Mexico is losing alot of their wealthy citizen due to the continued violence of the Drug gangs. Tired of living under the threat of kidnappings, assaults and perennially polluted gray skies that kept their children homebound, Wealthy Mexicans and their families are moving from Mexico City to Miami. Wealthy Mexicans are choosing Miami over Los Angleles due to costs or real estate in LA.
Miami is smaller, has less traffic, but what Wealthy Mexicans love the most is the freedom to go out into the street with their children without fearing that we're going to be kidnapped or robbed or that my children's health is going to suffer.
South Florida is not known as a haven for Mexican immigrants, but more and more it is becoming one as a new wave; a professional and entrepreneurial class; settles in Miami, a city seen more and more as a place where upper- and middle-class Latin Americans find ambiente among their well-heeled Hispanic peers.
Miami is very fashionable in Mexico right now. A mexican real estate agent says she averages about 10 sales a year to Mexicans for Miami properties, ranging from $500,000 to $7 million. Most of the Mexicans are well-to-do and looking to make Miami their second home or invest in the city's real estate boom, she said. Some professionals get job transfers to the Miami-based Latin American divisions of U.S. companies and settle here permanently, she added. Others commute between Miami and Mexico, where they own businesses.
In Houston, their motives are more than economic. They are also seeking a safe haven for themselves and their families, away from the threats of kidnapping, ransom and even murder that are routinely directed at wealthy Mexicans.
80 percent of Houston's Real Estate business is with Mexicans who have a net worth of up to $100 million. Many pay cash for their homes and are unaffected by market cycles.
Mexicans prefer Houston, because luxury homes there cost less than those in California, or even Mexico City. And from Houston, there are some 40 daily flights to Mexican cities, with at least 20 to Mexico City, a two-hour trip. Is this a fad or they way things will be.
It should read that over 80% of the real estate transactions in Houston involving Mexicans; the Mexicans have a net worth of up to $100 million.
Why have Houston and Miami become so popular with Mexican Expats? Are most of the expats coming from Mexico City or Cartel controlled cities?
It should read that over 80% of the real estate transactions in Houston involving Mexicans; the Mexicans have a net worth of up to $100 million.
Why have Houston and Miami become so popular with Mexican Expats? Are most of the expats coming from Mexico City or Cartel controlled cities?
80% of transactions in Houston are Mexicans? Got any proof of that? Houston is an incredibly diverse city, I'm sorry there is no way in hell 80% of the transactions are done with Mexicans. Not 80% even if you included people whose ancestors are Mexican but have been living in Texas for generations.
Can't believe you make up something stupid that has some slanted opinion and you expect people to play along.
The New York Times
September 16, 2007
National Perspectives
For Rich Mexicans, Parallel Lives in U.S.
By EUGENE L. MEYER
ANA LUISA SANCHEZ MACCISE, a Mexican citizen, is neither seeking a path to American citizenship nor living a fitful undocumented existence. Yet she lives and works in Houston, where she sends her son to a local private school. She has another home in Mexico City, where her husband still works. He visits his family in Houston regularly.
Mrs. Maccise is among a small but growing group of Mexican citizens who are creating parallel lives in this sprawling city north of the border; Dallas and San Antonio are other cities of choice.
Their motives are more than economic. They are also seeking a safe haven for themselves and their families, away from the threats of kidnapping, ransom and even murder that are routinely directed at wealthy Mexicans.
“Right now in Mexico City, the situation is not good because of safety problems,” said Mrs. Maccise, who is 43. “You can be robbed anytime in any restaurant. You can’t drive a nice car. You can’t wear a nice watch. So I really like the U.S. because I feel free.”
Mrs. Maccise lives and works in Houston on a business visa issued as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement. A treaty provision allows visas for those making a significant investment in a new business and also for those with Mexican companies doing business in the United States, along with their spouses and children.
United States State Department statistics, not broken down by city, show a national increase in the most popular business visa, to 72,613 last year from 57,721 in 2002.
Making the move from Mexico to Houston is both a cultural and logistical challenge, and an industry of professionals has grown up around the need for real estate agents, immigration lawyers, bankers and others to ease the way.
Mariana Saldaña, a broker and owner at the Uptown Real Estate Group, is in no small part responsible for Mrs. Maccise’s life in Houston. Ms. Saldaña, 56, directed her to an immigration lawyer and helped her to rent space in the Galleria, a shopping mall in Houston, where Mrs. Maccise runs a franchise of the Tane jewelry store. Tane specializes in expensive handmade jewelry and silver and gold art from Mexico. Ms. Saldaña even arranged for telephone and cable service for Mrs. Maccise.
Hoping to cement her client relationships, she also provides additional assistance. “We’re one stop,” she said. “If you need a Mercedes, I send you to a Mercedes dealer. A Porsche, I send you to a Porsche dealer. We’re like a concierge company. We have gardeners, a pool guy, everything they need. They don’t have to pick up the phone.”
Ms. Saldaña has helped potential buyers find private schools for their children and even called a locksmith when a client forgot her key when taking her child to a community pool.
She said 80 percent of Uptown Real Estate’s business is with Mexicans who have a net worth of up to $100 million. Many pay cash for their homes and are unaffected by market cycles.
Mexicans prefer Houston, according to Ms. Saldaña, because luxury homes there cost less than those in California, Miami or even Mexico City. And from Houston, there are some 40 daily flights to Mexican cities, with at least 20 to Mexico City, a two-hour trip.
“I sometimes go to Mexico for lunch and come back on the 5 p.m. flight,” said Wilka Varela Toppins, a Puerto Rican-born Houston lawyer who works closely with Ms. Saldaña to help Mexicans establish businesses in this country. This year, she said, she has helped to open more than 35 companies from Mexico City, versus about 20 in 2006.
“They’re here and they’re there,” she said of her clients living and working in both Mexico City and Houston. “They travel back and forth. They’re not interested in becoming U.S. citizens or renouncing Mexican citizenship. They just want to do trade, live here, pay taxes, be responsible residents, and be safe.”
Mrs. Maccise opened her store, where one piece of handmade jewelry sells for $17,000, six years after her first Houston real estate purchase, a condominium near the Galleria, used for weekend shopping trips. She is now living in her third home, which she bought last year for $1.3 million, having sold her first two properties through Ms. Saldaña. Situated in the Royal Oaks, a gated golf community, her four-bedroom house overlooks the 12th hole.
Like many upscale communities attractive to wealthy Mexicans, Royal Oaks has a high brick wall, multiple locked gates and car patrols. It is what Mexican buyers say want when they move north, based on what they already have at home.
“We’re so used to having it, coming here, without all this you don’t feel O.K., even though you are O.K.,” said Aldo Novi, an architect and builder who lives in the Woodlands neighborhood, where he is building homes in the gated community of Carlton Woods.
CURRENTLY, Mr. Novi is building a $1 million home for Alejandro Chaoul, 38, who has lived in Royal Oaks for four years with his wife and children. Mr. Chaoul, who works for the Mexican state-owned oil company Pemex and travels back and forth, would like to move to Carlton Woods, where he and his family can live in a larger house in what he regards as an even more secure community.
“I really want to stay in the States,” he said. “My main reason is my kids. In Mexico, you can get kidnapped pretty easily. You can’t take them to the supermarket or grocery store because you maybe turn around and lose them.”
“Seguridad” (Spanish for security) in Houston is what Ms. Saldaña includes in her advertisements in Mexican magazines. Also, through word of mouth — her “best advertising,” she says — she finds other clients.
But she offers much more than property. For those needing financing for a home or a business, Ms. Saldaña refers her clients to bankers she knows. Among them is Mexican-born Ana M. Kennedy, a senior loan officer for Chase Home Lending, which has a special program for international clients without a credit history in the United States.
“Their credit can be ascertained from their own country,” Ms. Kennedy said. "They are exceptional borrowers with superb qualifications.”
On a recent weekday, Ms. Saldaña spent 12 hours with Fernando Sánchez de Orando, 40, of Mexico City, who is planning to open a Houston branch of his family’s newsprint brokerage business. After a two-day search, Mr. Sánchez contracted to buy a $1 million home in the Woodlands.
“I like the United States, Texas and Houston,” he said, “and my family and I want to make a change. We are looking for a better quality of life for us and the children.”
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
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Yet the Mexican elite keep supporting illegal immigration to the US. If Mexico isn't good enough for you, why the hell do you wanna turn the US into Mexico?
One realtor who works mostly Mexicans says 80% of clients in one part of a large city are of one race. Hmm, use anecdotal info like that in a journalism class and see how fast you fail out. That's hideous. You know 80% of the time I go to Chipotle I enjoy my meal so I'm going to say Chipotle has an 80% satisfaction rate with the public. Do you believe me?
Talk about ironic. These same Mexicans benefit from (are a part and parcel of) the ludicrous tax structure there and corruption of the ruling elite of Mexico that has prevented the country from fully developing. So now they jump ship and head here.
Wonder if they will be willing to pay their fair share of taxes here? First World countries require the wealthy to contribute enough to provide for decent water, air, schools, infrastructure, etc. The wealthy in Mexico have never been willing to pay that price, and instead encouraged the poor to flee to the USA. Mexico is what it is because of the selfishness of the wealthy there.
In a word, I say get lost and go back from whence you came. They should be helping to transorm Mexico into a better place instead of abandoning the hell hole they helped to create.
Talk about ironic. These same Mexicans benefit from (are a part and parcel of) the ludicrous tax structure there and corruption of the ruling elite of Mexico that has prevented the country from fully developing. So now they jump ship and head here.
Wonder if they will be willing to pay their fair share of taxes here? First World countries require the wealthy to contribute enough to provide for decent water, air, schools, infrastructure, etc. The wealthy in Mexico have never been willing to pay that price, and instead encouraged the poor to flee to the USA. Mexico is what it is because of the selfishness of the wealthy there.
In a word, I say get lost and go back from whence you came. They should be helping to transorm Mexico into a better place instead of abandoning the hell hole they helped to create.
Exactly, like that: " Mr. Chaoul" mentioned in the article... he works for the government, PEMEX, under normal conditions his salary shouldn't allow him to buy a $1 million home...
Quote:
Originally Posted by wargod
Willy 702:
....
CURRENTLY, Mr. Novi is building a $1 million home for Alejandro Chaoul, 38, who has lived in Royal Oaks for four years with his wife and children. Mr. Chaoul, who works for the Mexican state-owned oil company Pemex and travels back and forth, would like to move to Carlton Woods, where he and his family can live in a larger house in what he regards as an even more secure community.
...
I hope the U.S. Government somehow can put these corrupt in their place...
Does everyone who work for Pemex have to be corrupt? There are plenty of millionaires working for US oil companies, are they corrupt too? Pemex pays prevailing industry wages in many hard-to-fill positions because quite frankly the workers could easily pick up and leave. Same with PDVSA, they kicked out talented people making a lot more money than the average local salary and replaced them with people now making quite a lot more money than local average. Simple difference there was the new wave of workers came in loyal to Chavez and talked as if they were going to be working for the people, but they quietly went out and bought $100,000 cars and Miami real estate since they were among the lucky few to get dollar-based salaries.
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