Osprey
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3694
Registered: 5-23-2004
Location: Baja Ca. Sur
Member Is Offline
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3 MMM
The Three M’s
The thread about East Cape and where to stay took me back down memory lane and thoughts of money, margaritas and mortgages.
There are nine fishing resorts in Palmas Bay – I’ve not stayed at all of them but in the almost 40 years of visiting/living here I’ve learned a little
about them, how they work. Sportfishing has brought them to a place where almost 400 charter boats now operate; the resorts have a potential annual
income of nearly $20,000,000 U.S. dollars.
For the most part the resort facilities, the land and buildings, enjoy a debt free existence. Given that they have no debt service looming over their
heads every month, the atmosphere at most of them is casual and client friendly even when times are tough. Likewise the Mexicans who run the places
live in homes in nearby villages and enjoy the same pressure-free living without a mortgage obligation.
Under those conditions the resorts grew slowly, one cement block at a time, when cash was available to buy that block, have it laid. Same with the
humble homes of the resort workers. Not fiscal responsibility, fiscal constraints hold the whole place together in a hammock siesta kind of misty
paradise by the sea theme. In that light, mortgages are the paradise killers of our day.
Without the pressure of the debt, the resorts, at times, look like family run businesses bent on pleasing people, providing work for the villagers and
making a small profit or just breaking even. In that atmosphere time can stay in the Mexican abstract and things like deferred maintenance and capital
improvements are rarely the subject of serious discussion.
Now business for profit has found its way down here and things are changing fast. Mortgage loans for land draws and build-out have begun to change the
landscape and the atmosphere. Now new people with high hopes are scrunched down with pen, paper and calculator working all the numbers back to the
debt --- so many thousand margaritas at $12 each, minus the cost of the ice, mix, alcohol, salt, the bartender and the dish washer…….
Boggles the mind. I may write a story, a book, no, maybe a movie. Fiction. The plot calls for mortgages to show up here, hot and heavy, in the 70s,
right after the highway pushed through. I’ll paint the bay, the resort, the villages with the gilt of all those billions of mortgage pesos, then
repaint it again and again after the collapse/rebirth/rebuilding and the final abandonment where I show the wild dogs digging in the rubble searching
for scraps.
No rocket science down here. Even the humble fishermen will be laughing at the prospect of new Maya Rivieras here. The laugh belies a deadly serious
truth; sometimes the fish don’t come around and when they don’t show the clients go somewhere else.
Maybe somebody will invent a flexible goodtimes/badtimes mortgage plan where you only have to pay when you have the money. Sounds like a good idea for
a Mexican corporation with headquarters in Rosarita Beach.
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Howard
Super Nomad
Posts: 2353
Registered: 11-13-2007
Location: Loreto/Manhattan Beach/Kona
Member Is Offline
Mood: I'd rather regret the things I've done than regret the things I haven't done.
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And all this time I thought 3M made scotch tape and was based in Minnesota
We don't stop playing because we grow old;
we grow old because we stop playing
George Bernard Shaw
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BajaGringo
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3922
Registered: 8-24-2006
Location: La Chorera
Member Is Offline
Mood: Let's have a BBQ!
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The stress free life of no mortgage and very low property tax on a remote stretch of beach is a large part of the reason why I am here...
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shari
Select Nomad
Posts: 13049
Registered: 3-10-2006
Location: bahia asuncion, baja sur
Member Is Offline
Mood: there is no reality except the one contained within us "Herman Hesse"
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stress free life, no mortgage, million dollar lot for a grand, year round swimming, warm sand, great people and TECATE...that's why I'm here.
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Udo
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6364
Registered: 4-26-2008
Location: Black Hills, SD/Ensenada/San Felipe
Member Is Offline
Mood: TEQUILA!
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The underlying theme of the story (and this is not fiction from Osprey), is the stress free life of no debt. Make do with what is currently available.
Udo
Youth is wasted on the young!
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Barry A.
Select Nomad
Posts: 10007
Registered: 11-30-2003
Location: Redding, Northern CA
Member Is Offline
Mood: optimistic
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Yep-------no debt and adaquate income and a happy successful family-------what more could you want-------works anyplace in the civilized world,
(almost).
Life is good!!!
Barry
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monoloco
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6667
Registered: 7-13-2009
Location: Pescadero BCS
Member Is Offline
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I always laugh when I hear someone comment on how poor the Mexicans are here. At least most of them own their own home unencumbered by a mortgage,
something that very few people in the US can say.
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