According to the American Association of Retired Persons, one-third of Americans age 55 or more have less than $25,000 saved for retirement. For someone who is prepared, retirement can be the opportunity of a lifetime to indulge in favorite pastimes, travel and leisure activities. To retire comfortably, however, you must be prepared.

Saving early and consistently is critical, but so is making the kind of retirement investments that will enable you to have the life you planned to enjoy. Whether you’re ready to retire now or have many more years ahead of you in the workforce, an investment in Puerto Vallarta property can allow you to retire comfortably.

The opportunity to invest in Puerto Vallarta real estate is here, and it won’t last very long. Property here is in great demand. Developers have purchased a great deal of land and are building retirement high-rise condominiums. Buying one of these will ensure that you have a place to live, but the investment value is suspect.

If you want to guarantee yourself an excellent return on investment, a better approach is to purchase premium property and build a luxury home. Once your Puerto Vallarta home is finished, you can enjoy it part-time or year-round as a retirement home, a vacation or second home, or you can sell it as a quick route to additional cash. Property appreciates here at a rate of about ten percent each year, so holding onto the property, even for a few years, will produce an excellent return.

Additionally, if you live in your Puerto Vallarta home for at least six months of the year for five consecutive years, you’ll receive preferential resident tax status. Unlike in the US, taxes here aren’t particularly burdensome, so even as a non-resident, your tax payments will be much lower than what you’re accustomed to paying in the US.

If you don’t plan to live in the home for a significant portion of the year, a Puerto Vallarta home can also be an income-generator. You’ll find a ready market for luxury home rentals for part-time residents and tourists who are looking for something different than the conventional hotel experience.

Whether retirement is imminent or several years away, building a Puerto Vallarta home can help you retire comfortably.

Photo Credit: Geoffrey Martell

For years, the baby boomers have been the subject of intense media attention. At each life milestone, the media have covered what the boomers are doing. Now, the first boomers are reaching retirement age and the focus is on how they’re handling the transition from work to leisure. For many boomers, the future holds only delayed retirement plans.

A new report shows that many baby boomers are ill-prepared for retirement. Although many have planned well for their golden years, the generation immediately preceding the baby boomers is having a hard time adjusting to retirement, and all signs seem to indicate that the same fate awaits many baby boomers. Thirty percent of people between the ages of 65 and 69 are either still employed or looking for employment.

While a segment of the population will always opt to work as a matter of personal preference, statistics seem to indicate that a growing number of people who want to retire can’t. Many pressures face the newly retired and soon-to-be retired. Boomers who may have waited until later in life to have children, or who have a second family, are finding that their retirement goals intersect squarely with their children’s college years. The true cost of divorce is becoming apparent, as some boomers find their retirement savings apportioned to former spouses. Add in the high cost of health care, and escalating food and energy costs, and you may end up with a large segment of the population that doesn’t have sufficient capital to retire.

Retirement planning can only do so much to help. High performing investments – like those offered by Puerto Vallarta real estate – can help ease the lackluster performance or the loss in value of other kinds of investments. Puerto Vallarta real estate offers the potential of solid returns over a relatively short period of time. It may be the solution to a lagging retirement portfolio and could mean the difference between enjoying a comfortable retirement and struggling through a difficult one.

Photo Credit: Shaun Ellithorpe

Right now there is a flood of bargain priced real estate on the market in many cities in the US. Real estate agents report that they are seeing some interest in luxury real estate from overseas clients who want to take advantage of depressed housing prices in the US. If you’re looking for bargain real estate as a retirement investment, is buying in the US a good strategy?

You may get more return on your retirement investment from buying real estate outside the United States. Some experts, like real estate mogul Sam Zell, insist that even at low prices, real estate in the US is no bargain. Instead, Zell and others are turning to emerging industrialized countries like Mexico for the real value in real estate.

Puerto Vallarta is among Mexico’s hottest real estate markets right now. The government has made Puerto Vallarta and other tourist towns the centerpiece of its plans to transform itself into a regional and global economic powerhouse. Developers who want to build hotels, resorts and condominiums are buying real estate here, in anticipation of a flood of retirement-age émigrés looking for affordable retirement living.

This is great news for real estate owners here in Puerto Vallarta, but it signals an urgent need for individual investors who are looking for solid retirement investments to buy residential building sites while they’re still available. Pacific coast real estate is in particular demand right now. Additionally, federal laws limit the amount of coastal real estate that can be used for private residences and recreational or commercial purposes.

If you’re looking for a solid investment with high growth potential, you need to consider adding Puerto Vallarta real estate to your retirement investment portfolio.

Many people are looking for safe retirement investments that will shelter their savings. There are few shelters you’ll find that do as good a job as a Puerto Vallarta second home. A Puerto Vallarta second home offers multiple benefits, whether you are looking for an investment property or a place to call home during retirement.

For the investor, a Puerto Vallarta second home offers a stable investment with a solid rate of return. For the past decade, Puerto Vallarta property has appreciated at the rate of ten percent per year. Due in large part to the expected demand for retirement and luxury properties in Puerto Vallarta, the property appreciation rate in the next five years is expected to go beyond 10 percent.

For the retiree, a Puerto Vallarta second home offers a low cost of living and a high quality of life. You can find excellent health and dental care, low prescription drug costs and excellent personal assistance. The municipal water here meets the same water quality standards applied in major US cities and has for the past seventeen years running. The number of activities here geared toward people of all ages, the unbeatable climate and the availability of all modern conveniences make Puerto Vallarta a natural choice for retirement living.

Regardless of what you’re looking for from a Puerto Vallarta second home, you’ll certainly find it when you invest here. The key to a solid investment is finding the right place to build a home. Select Mexico Properties has some of the most beautiful residential building sites available for sale right now. You won’t find better properties than these anywhere along the Pacific coast.

The opportunity to take advantage of all that a Puerto Vallarta second home has to offer won’t last long. So many retirees – and soon-to-be retirees – are looking for a Puerto Vallarta second home as an investment or as a residence, you’ll soon find that the best properties have been bought and developed. If you plan to get in on this opportunity, the time to do that is right now! Don’t wait!

This isn’t going to surprise you if you’ve been paying attention to the Puerto Vallarta real estate markets lately: Puerto Vallarta is one of the top Mexico real estate markets. Puerto Vallarta property has been appreciating at a rate of about 10 percent per year. Not too many markets are doing that right now, but Puerto Vallarta is one of the most attractive.

Puerto Vallarta is physically close to the US and people who own investment properties in Puerto Vallarta can get here very easily. Puerto Vallarta International Airport handles nearly 500 international flights per week, and many major carriers land here. From most major cities in the US, Puerto Vallarta is just a few hours’ flight away.

Buying property in Puerto Vallarta is safe. The Mexican Federal government is bending over backwards to help erase the very negative experiences of some early foreign investors in Mexico real estate. Right now, land purchases by foreigners are easy to execute. Several protections are built into the sale to help guarantee the safety of investment properties. These safeguards include title insurance, property registration and the establishment of a required trust in which the title to the property is held.

Puerto Vallarta has been the beneficiary of an enormous investment in infrastructure by the Mexican Federal government and by the government in the State of Jalisco. Puerto Vallarta will enjoy new tunnels and a new interstate highway that runs past every beach in the city. The city also opens a brand new convention center in October.

Private investment is also hot in Puerto Vallarta. More than two dozen hotel, resort and condominium projects are underway right now. Remodeling of the city’s marinas, the construction of new ultra-modern hospitals and many US retailers have or will open outlets here in Puerto Vallarta to cater to the growing ex-pat population here.

Private waterfront properties in Puerto Vallarta are all but gone. Fortunately, what may turn out to be a better investment opportunity is opening up north of Puerto Vallarta, in San Pancho. Luxury real estate building sites are being sold to individual investors right now through Select Mexico Properties. If you haven’t done so already, please visit the Select Mexico Properties Web site and take a look at the properties that are still available. You’ll see why the Puerto Vallarta real estate market is in such high demand!

If you’ve been paying attention to the Puerto Vallarta real estate market, you know that it is a hot place to be right now. Extensive construction is underway for both resort/hotel and private real estate projects. Investors are snapping up premium Puerto Vallarta properties almost as fast as they are being built, and many developers are pre-selling units within their projects.

Despite what a real estate agent or developer might tell you, a high-rise condominium in Puerto Vallarta won’t provide as much ROI as a stand-alone luxury home will. Premium Puerto Vallarta property is getting hard to come by. Massive tourist resorts are being built all over the city, with special attention being paid to the waterfront.

A better way to profit from premium Puerto Vallarta properties is to buy a parcel outside the city, and build a luxury home there. To benefit from this strategy, properties must be close to Puerto Vallarta, yet be far enough away that the tourist traffic won’t diminish the enjoyment of owning a premium Puerto Vallarta property.

Areas to the north of Puerto Vallarta are being developed right now. Major tourist sites as far north as Punta Mita are being built. Slightly farther north, in Sayulita and San Pancho, investors can reap the benefits of owning premium Puerto Vallarta properties without coming too close to tourist developments.

The peace and quiet of these luxury properties provides substantial value and will attract a certain type of buyer in the luxury segment. Whether you plan to purchase premium Puerto Vallarta properties as an investment or for your own enjoyment, it’s hard to think that you could go wrong by investing in a premium building site in San Pancho.

These days, retirement is on many peoples’ minds. A large percentage of the American work force is preparing for retirement. In the face of what could be a recession, many workers who are old enough to opt for an early retirement are rethinking that approach because their retirement investments are taking a hit.

The conventional wisdom says that you don’t retire in a recession. You may not have to shelve your retirement plans, however. Prudent investments, even late in your retirement planning cycle, can add significant value to your investment portfolio.

One of the most promising retirement investments is luxury real estate. You won’t find high performance investments in the US real estate market right now, but you can find stellar gains in the Mexican real estate market. Certain areas of Mexico, like Puerto Vallarta, have experienced double-digit gains in property values in the past several years. Those gains are expected to continue in the next five years. According to expert forecasts, you could literally double the value of your investment in Puerto Vallarta in five years.

That kind of growth is unheard of in most North American markets. Puerto Vallarta property makes one of the best retirement investments, not only because of its short return cycle, but also because Puerto Vallarta is an excellent place to live in retirement.

The cost of living is low, meaning that you can stretch your retirement dollars farther. The quality of life is high here, due to the wide availability of high quality health and dental care, the low cost of prescription drugs, the availability of quality food, and the relative security of retirement investments.

Puerto Vallarta offers excellent potential for a high return on retirement investments. The market outlook is positive for the next several years, meaning that owners of real estate in Puerto Vallarta should have no difficulty selling their properties, should the need arise.

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