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A new company in Mexico is based on the simple premise that frequent flier miles are the perfect sales incentive for second home buyers.

Mazatlan-based AMAS Inc. is marketing the promotion, which offers developers an easy way to offer miles to their clients. A unit priced between $300,000 and $400,000 might include 600,000 miles, for example.

More than anything, the program protects developers from the need to slash their prices, says Larry Foster, owner of AMAS Inc.

Puerto Los Cabos

As Mexico reels from a year of drug violence and turmoil, Mexico City-based Grupo Questro is rolling out Puerto Los Cabos, an ambitious 2,000-acre marina and resort project on the southern tip of Baja California.

In addition to the 439-slip marina, the largest private facility in Mexico, the project includes an array of lots and residential units priced between $195,000 and $15 million, and signature Greg Norman and Jack Nicklaus golf courses--all targeting the type of international buyers wary of Mexico.

In an e-mail interview Grupo Questro general director Eduardo Sanchez Navarro discusses the state of the market, a new wave of buyers and Puerto Los Cabo’s latest marketing strategy for turbulent times.

The Mexican government formally solicited bids this week to build and operate a new airport near Tulum, the next official step toward making the long-discussed project a reality.

The winning company will be granted a 50 year concession on the airport, according to Investment Properties Mexico, which has been closely following the project. The airport is slotted for 3,700 acres inland from Tulum, and will be Mexico’s first privately built and operated airport, the site reports.

Mexico is developing a plan to attract more U.S. retirees, including provisions to offer them health care, according to a published report.

Mexico is already home to 1 million U.S. retirees, and that number could jump to 5 million by 2025, the Miami Herald reports. New proposals would likely allow Medicare payments to Mexico facilities certified by the U.S., the Herald says.

For years government officials in Mexico have discussed a new airport for the fast-growing region around Tulum, south of Cancun.

The Cancun airport is already over-run and annoying to second-home owners uninterested in the foam bars of the hotel strip. The drive to Tulum can easily take an hour, depending on traffic conditions on the one highway running the length of Riviera Maya. A new airport could open up the region for a wave of tourism and vacation-home development.

Mareazul, Grand Coral's project on Riviera Maya

With the United States still wallowing in the blahs, Mexico developers are allocating more resources to target Canadian second home buyers.

Although difficult to quantify, project managers say the Canadian snow birds are bouncing back quicker than other buyers. Canadians also seem more willing to pull the trigger on a sale, un-encumbered by the recent economic nightmares haunting U.S. buyers, developers say.

A lawsuit filed Monday by a group of buyers who lost their deposits in a Baja California resort charges Donald Trump and his executive children with fraud and negligence.

The seven plaintiffs say they were “duped” into buying hotel-condo units in the Trump Ocean Resort, a 526-unit, twin-tower project planned for 17 coastal acres a short drive south of the Mexican border. When the project collapsed in 2009, dozens of buyers lost their deposits, totaling more than $32 million.

Trump only licensed his name to the project's developer, Los Angeles-based Irongate. In the wake of the project’s demise, Irongate said there was no money to return—the deposit money was used to fund early development in the project, which was allowed by its contracts, the company said.

Changes in Mexico’s tax laws have made it more difficult for foreigners selling real estate to avoid the country’s steep capital gains tax, which can run as high as 30 percent.

Under the new rules, homeowners must prove the house has been their primary residence for at least 5 years to qualify for an exemption to the tax on the sale of property. In the past the residency requirement was typically one or two years, and, to put it tactfully, foreign sellers often could find a way to qualify for the exemption.

There is “absolutely” a new focus on enforcement in Mexico, says Linda Neil of the Settlement Company, a Baja California-based firm.

Everyone knew there had been a steep drop in Mexico second home sales last year. But a new study of the Puerto Vallarta coast line reveals just how far sales fell in new resort developments.

In 2010, developers along the stretch known as Costa Vallarta—including Puerto Vallarta, Punta Mita and the Riviera Nayarit—recorded sales of 315 new units, a 54 percent drop from 2008 and an 80 percent drop from 2007, according to a survey by the Vallarta Lifestyles Publishing Group.

Of the 112 developments surveyed, 43 reported no sales for 2009—zero, nada. Eighteen of the projects had been cancelled or taken off the market.

By an overwhelming margin, investors chose London as the world’s top commercial property market, according to an annual survey by Washington D.C.-based Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate.

London moved past Washington D.C. and New York, with Paris and Tokyo rounding out the top five. In the 2009 survey, London was second, in a virtual dead heat with New York and Washington, but this year respondents chose London by a wide gap, the association reports.

Fifty-one percent identified the U.S. as the best opportunity for capital appreciation, compared to 37 percent in 2008 and 26 percent in 2007. Two-thirds of respondents said they planned to increase their U.S. investments in 2010.

The annual survey reflects the responses of 200 AFIRE members, who control more than $842 billion in real estate.