Million Dollar Tear Downs Have Begun!

I was out for a run a few weeks ago and on my way back to the house I looked up and a house I walked by a couple hundred times was missing.  Totally gone from where it stood the last time I was in this particular part of town.  These pics are from the fisherman's beach area. There is a road and several large houses that are as close to "beach front" as you can get on this end of town.

Some of the houses have been there for a long time since this is certainly prime real estate for those wanting a house on the beach.  Many of these homes need lots of work to bring needed upgrades and systems to this high rent district in town.  So much work that it appears that buying and tearing down these places has begun.

An older property just a few doors down from this lot is for sale for about $2.5 million USD.  Two doors down the other direction a small new condo complex has been under construction with the penthouse unit going for about $1 million USD and rest of the building's units selling for a bit less.

So, when a buyer has millions of USDs and they know they can just tear down and rebuild something bigger, better with all the modern amenities that will fetch a better return, tearing an older existing place down and building something new is a no brainer.  The time of Sayulita's million dollar tear downs has begun.

Computer rendering.

UPDATE:  This condo complex that I just saw online is now available for sale in this exact location.  4 of the proposed 6 units are already sold pre-construction.  When you can buy a property for a couple million USD, tear it down and sell 6 new units for over 3.3 million USD I'd say the investor appears to have done well enough that this will not be the last tear down and rebuild that we will see in the near future.

It's Official! Our House In Park City, Utah Is For Sale!

We are selling our house in Park City!  The house we bought before we got married. The house we brought both kids home to after being born.  The decision seemed to come out of no where.  We never intended to sell and told everyone as much.  But as we drove away and headed to the airport our discussion in the car changed from "no way" to "let's ask some questions and crunch some numbers".

The house will be listed by our amiga, Jennifer Johnson, with Equity Real Estate Luxury Group.  Jennifer was also our Realtor when we bought the house back in 2003.  Her # is 435-901-1704.

We spent 6 full weeks putting the house back together and spent lots of $ doing so. Looking at the money that will continue to go out each month to pay for the improvements is steep.  Add that to the money out to pay for and finish the Sayulita house and the financial benefits of selling significantly outweigh the argument for keeping it.

These are some photos that our realtor had taken of the property by Kellie Hatcher Photography. We think they are great.  Makes me even sadder to see how good the house looks after working on the place for six weeks.  We still enjoy the mountains, are close to many people there and love our neighbors on the street but it just isn't the place we want to come back to when there are so many great places to go visit in the world.

The market is up, inventory is low and the rental market is saturated with similar properties to rent.  The house looks good and is empty to allow our Realtor to do her thing and see if she can find a buyer.  We are sad but at the same time we feel relief at the idea that selling the house off may pave the way to bigger experiences rather than putting more money and time into something we may never have the means to really fix up properly.  Our kids are unfazed by the idea since they were very young when they lived there and feel Sayulita is home too.  Hopefully, another family can pick it up and love it as much as we did.  Crossing fingers we can find a buyer soon.

House Hunters International - Margaritas In Sayulita

A fun location shoot here in Sayulita for a program on HGTV.  The house the couple decided on is not far from us and we have worked with the Realtor who helped them.  Certainly turned out to be a great property for them.

The Future Of Sayulita - When Will Chain Stores Become The Norm?

We visited Sayulita from Park City, Utah in 2006 and saw many comparisons between the two towns. In 2006, the shine of The 2002 Olympic Games was still fresh and the world now knew a lot more about The Greatest Snow On Earth.  In 2006 Sayulita was not necessarily off the beaten path any longer but it was still a long way from what Park City had become.

Time passes and Park City becomes "Big Time".  There is no "offseason" any longer.  Every weekend is a festival or some kind of event.  Real estate prices go up with more homes being used as vacation homes.  Nightly and monthly rental prices go up.  Locals, seasonal employees and lower wage earners have a difficult time finding housing.  Commercial space rates also see an increase.  Long time local shops hope to survive but many cannot afford the going rate for operating a business.  Who can afford it?  Bigger, more established chain stores can.  North Face, Starbucks, Patagonia, LL Bean, Lululemon etc.  When I first arrived in Park City it was full of locally owned stores and businesses and because of this it had it's own character, it's own color and charm.  This has changed over the years.  I can't say if it is good or bad but Park City is certainly a bit less unique than it once was.

I feel like we are seeing Sayulita travel the same path.

Real estate prices are rising.  Inventory is down.  Monthly rentals are very limited and rent is high.  When you can rent a 2 bedroom one bath house nightly for a minimum of about $100 USD and there are bills to pay it is hard to offer it up to local seasonal workers or a young family at $350 USD per month.  There is money to be made and landlords are getting premium rates.  Our landlord could get over $1200 USD or more for the place we rent and he has asked us to move on for just that reason.  It is impossible to afford that when you earn less than $50 per day.  Locals, seasonal employees and lower wage earners have a very difficult time finding housing.  Sound familiar?  Yes, it does.

We have already seen the arrive of two chain convenience stores.  There are lots of arguments about whether they are good or bad for town.  Prices for commercial space are high too, inventory is limited and small bodega store spaces are popping up everywhere.  I wonder when we will see the chain stores become a bigger presence in the pueblo.  I do not think it will be long.  My guess is that it will be a surfing related chain.  Slowly but surely the chain stores will happen as Sayulita continues on it's current path.  More exposure, more popularity etc.

Again, I am only a visitor and cannot say this is good or bad.  What I can say is that we have seen the progression before.  Sayulita is following the same path as Park City as well as many other cool places in the world.

This is an article from the local Park City paper that talks about the possibility of limiting chain stores in it's historic downtown district.  Might Sayulita do something like this?  Does town have that kind of vision?  I am guessing not but we will be here to see.  I hope to be proved wrong.

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