To date, there had been no published report on Juan Gaviota on a national mass media. Never seen billboards or newspaper ads or local channels that promoted the most expensive beach houses in the country. Some regional magazines had shown the advanced designs of some residences. CNN also visited the compound to display on "Destinations", the segment of the exotic and exciting places in the world. However, locally, Juan Gaviota has always maintained a low profile, has been a famous stranger who has been promoted by word of mouth, so that you know only those who should know.
It is the largest condominium on the south coast of Guatemala and has jurisdiction only in size and luxury in Costa Rica. Located in Puerto de San José, Escuintla, 118 kilometers and an hour and a half of the capital. According to the bird's eye view of Google Earth, are 4 miles turquoise points (pools), green (garden) and brown (manaque roofs) around a sparkling artificial canal to the sea. Inside, covered with ant view, is a residential complex catalog. A parallel, quasi-perfect, in which raw, more than anything, the order and aesthetics.
His full name is Juan Gaviota Marina South, although some known only by the first or second. Emerged more than 14 years, with the risky idea of a group of entrepreneurs who visualized in 6 km of pasture, without land communication and electricity, the most luxurious residential complex in the country. The Guatemalan Miami.
In its first phase, the condominium was developed at 4 km and is home to 500 housing units (although the actual capacity is one thousand). The first guests, friends of the investors came to pre helicopter.
Then came the 12-kilometer road and a bridge 200 meters across the Achiguate, the river that had kept the area isolated from the main town. Currently, there are 300 housing units already built (homes, villas and apartments), with the remainder to total 500, are vacant lots, almost all sold.
In Juan Gaviota and no property overlooking the sea or the Channel-the most coveted, "one of the lagoon, but there are resale properties. In round numbers, the price of one square yard beachfront is U.S. $ 100 (most expensive) facing the canal, it costs $ 80 to $ 90, and facing the lagoon, from $ 65 to $ 75. The existing house is priced between U.S. $ 400 thousand and $ 1 million 200 thousand, explains Walter Gándara, the managing director.
This year, the condominium will add a new phase. In one of 2 miles are undeveloped will stand another complex of apartments, priced between $ 100 and $ 200 000 will compete with the range of real estate on the south coast.
Sold house on the beach
The condo market Pacific property consists of more than a dozen condominiums built within a length of 60 linear miles (or 11 nautical miles), explains Ricardo Maza, a well known realtor specializing in waterfront properties, the many call "Ricardo Fish." This section is for Juan Gaviota (bordering Sipacate, La Gomera, Escuintla) to kilometer 25, Santa Rosa.According to a survey of Global Inspection Data, a research firm in the housing market, this stretch of beach have been built at least 15 housing projects totaling about 4 thousand homes.
These projects account (the Port of San José to the right) to Juan Gaviota, Linda Mar, Marena, Radisson, Doors of the Sea, Las Olas and Offshore. And the Puerto de San José on the left is San Marino 1 and 2, Punta Vela, likin, Bahia del Sol and is known as Monterrico, ranging from bridge Iztapa to kilometer 25, Santa Rosa (Monterrico only Taxisco a village, Santa Rosa, but has been given the name to the whole area). In that stretch are Pergolas del Mar, Villa Los Cabos and Blanc Monterrico.
On the south coast there is an interesting real estate market because "there is everything," explains Juan Carlos Salazar, Manager of Global Inspections. They range from a flat $ 60 thousand to a home that exceeds $ 2 million. On average, a housing unit costs U.S. $ 150 billion, a figure Maza. To this must be added the cost of decorations and furnishings, which houses medium-size averages U.S. $ 80 billion, plus the cost of maintenance and services that are less than $ 500 a month.
But this is a market, although growing, has its own sales pace: slow. "Fish" estimates that do not sell more than 25 beach houses per year, exaggerating the figure. His real business, he says, are the rents, about 300 contracts a year.
That is, for every two rest homes sold per month in the south coast, is almost a daily rent.
Marina del Sur, however, has its own dynamics. Not only does not require traditional channels of promotion, but that is not open to the public. To buy or rent there, the person must have three condominium proposed that as a neighbor, his three "sponsors." The request amounts to the general home owners, and if no opposition, given income. The procedure takes about a month and involves an investigation whose information is confidential. The other filter is the price of home: How many people in Guatemala can pay half a million dollars for a rest home?
The names of the owners of Juan Gaviota is a list stored in a safe. Exclusivity refers not only to restrict entry, but the discretion that is offered to members. But Guatemala is a small country. It is difficult to know, and guess what families can afford Q5 million for a home of rest, especially because the bill does not provide funding. There are names on that list a long career, business, political, active and retired, "artists. Under the umbrellas on the beach or in the table next to the restaurant is so easy to come with the CEO of a financial corporation, as a world-renowned artist or a journalist or famous American singer who was taken by helicopter. With a ruler in shorts or a Latino singer who fills stadiums.
likin successor
The land where John Gull was bought up in 1997. Is 6 miles long, about 1 million 800 thousand square meters. An article published in 2006 in Strategy & Business magazine detailing the entrepreneur Juan Monge discovered these lands and then visualized "a five star resort development." A public limited company as investors joined Carlos Enrique Mata, Javier Arzu Descamps and Walter Enrique Gandara. Roesch brothers made the design and in 1999 was the "first shovel" to begin building the channel outlet to the Pacific, tells Gandara. The extracted material was used as fill for a residential area.The condo was designed to meet the market "triple A" local, said the official. Of the 500 housing units available, there are only 40 land for sale and less than half of the 24 apartments of the last of the 4 towers, still under construction. The new phase will begin pre-sold in less than six months, was designed by company engineers and architects Tinoco & April (which took the project from the tower III).
Topo market "triple A? Gandara is convinced that no. However, he says, are seeking to meet the investor does not want to spend more than $ 200 thousand in a rest home in the Pacific. The apartments in the towers I and II, in fact, those prices were around and were sold in its entirety.
Roberto Peralta, a builder who had a house in Juan Gaviota, knows the offer vacation homes on the south coast.
In the seventies, he says, his family has had a likin bungalow in the first and only residential condominium beach to "disaster." Likin was developed by the Venezuelan company Ferrobetón under the slogan "Pacific paradise."
Was, at the time, the complex's most famous vacation homes in the region, with large swimming pools, villas, bungalows, track planes, hotel and apartment towers. I was in the top 10 vacation homes, villas next to Amatitlán Atitlan and Rio Dulce.
But the construction of Puerto Quetzal in the eighties was buried. The port riprap generated a change in ocean currents and while Chulamar the beach 200 meters away in likin, the sea was introduced despite the barricades of sandbags. The current likin the area was behind the canal.
San Marino became between the late eighties and early nineties where exiles migrated likin. In those lands that were once the family moved salinas de Peralta. Then came Punta San Marino Vela and II and in the last 15 years has been dragging on the beach at both ends with townhouses. In two of them, Juan Gaviota and Villa Los Cabos (Monterrico) - were built apartment buildings.
Although there are beautiful beaches to the east, such as smoking, Flange and Las Lisas, the proximity of the Port of San José with the highway capital and Palin are two reasons why the projects in this sector have attracted more than half the supply and demand, points out Richard "Fish". Which also favors Monterrico, 5 to 15 kilometer, and the entire stretch of Iztapa to Juan Gaviota, the land can be acquired in property, while between 1 to 5 km and 16 onwards, are taken in usufruct for 30 years, according to the Bureau of State Land Reserves (Ocret).
The profile of Guatemala who buys a vacation home in the Pacific is a person over 35 years, with a home in the capital and a family and looking to have a destination on weekends, he describes "Fish." In the decades which has been selling houses has also confirmed that Guatemala is not much given to sporting and water activities, and instead is happy under a strong manaque ranch, surrounded by good food and drinks and a large swimming pool.
Many, like Peralta, beach houses bought as investments, because they know they are highly profitable goods. Between 2000 and 2008 the rate of sales of homes in the Pacific was more, Bill "Fish", an average of 40 units per year. But with the crisis, the volume went down and today you can get "good deals" for example, houses that cost its owner $ 350 thousand and sold in half. Signs "for sale" spend several months hanging off the property. But good business will always have a rented beach house, he says. The average rent on the south coast is U.S. $ 1.500 per month. If you only rent a weekend (Friday to Sunday), $ 600 for Easter and New Year, U.S. $ 2.500 per week.
There are those who, like Peralta who believe that the housing market on the south coast is already saturated. Riders like Richard "Fish" are betting on a business that moves well, but at their own pace. And investors are Jonathan Seagull, who like 14 years ago, when poured into an uncertain market, on a desert, will launch its new major phase. Gandara said that the project has so much credibility that it would need to be made to begin construction prevend with planes. Like 12 years ago, are close friends of investors and friends of members who will attend the opening cocktail party invitation. With a toast by the sea.
