Real estate news

For sale or rent

For sale by owner.  One prep school… complete with heliport.  One prep school, conveniently close to country club.  Two more prep schools.  A six hundred square meter residential facility, with golf course and sports facilities.  And, for the ultimate in luxurious modern living, a lovely 91, 900 square meter residence tucked away in an exclusive neighborhood.

I’ve been describing the reorganization of the Legionnaires of Christ as a sort of religious form of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but perhaps that’s not quite right.  This is just plain old bankruptcy.

Giving to God what is God’s also means rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s… and the Legionnaires are up to their wazoos in back taxes, unpaid bills, bad investments and can expect to shell out for massive fines and court settlements.  It’s no wonder:  cult leader Marcial Maciel reportedly “spent up to 50,000 euros a day, and would take the Concorde from Europe to the US just to have his teeth cleaned.” And the investigation is just beginning.

So, without much notice, the Legionnaires have begun looking for buyers for four prep schools, the headquarters for the “Consagradas” (basically, nuns, that I wrote about yesterday) — that’s the one with the golf course — and their novitiate (priest’s finishing school and brain-washing center), all located around Monterrey, “donations” from wealthy conservative regiomontañanos over the years. The land value for these properties ranges from a low-low thousand to 5,250 pesos per square meter, and the properties themselves are being offered at fires of hell sale prices ranging from ten million to one hundred twelve million pesos.

Although property prices are lower in Mexico, I’m not sure who can afford these places. Given the history of the present owners, perhaps the seller would be wise to look for someone more respectable and of better reputation… say, Chapo Guzmán or the Zetas (that convent might make a wonderful training facilities). Or — given the government’s vague promise to build more drug rehab centers, and the need for more public universities (both in science and agriculture), these might be actually give the administration a way of fulfilling a few of it’s unmet promises.

The Legionnaires are also selling off several residential facilities in San Pedro Garza García, the Beverly Hills of Mexico. I wonder if we can find the Mexican version of the Jed Clampett looking to move?

New development

Meanwhile, in Guachochi, Chihuahua, the Secretaría de Desarollo Social (Secretariat of Social Development) is giving grants of 100,000 pesos to build energy efficient starter homes — 32 square meters, though “round meters” might be a better description.

Combining traditional Mexican building materials (adobe and brick facing) with a middle-eastern style suitable for desert climates and earthquake-prone regions, the basic one room with kitchen and bathroom “eco-dome” is naturally insulated and largely self-sustaining.  It can be designed to be expanded into a 90 square meter house of two or three bedrooms, a dining room, kitchen, bathroom and main room, with enough space on the lot for a garden, fruit trees and chicken run.

Build your own

Not from Mexico, but Canada, comes the most ambitious home building project I’ve ever heard about.

That’s dam impressive!