Letters to the Editor
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The Great Mexican Land Rush
Housing is like any commodity. This is like saying people need to eat less cornflakes to work off the excess supply of corn, when a box of Cornflakes costs ten bucks. Applied to housing, lets imagine the price of corn went too high, no one could afford corn, so farmers stopped planting it?
I am not concerned about the housing industry, however. The Mexico Land Rush will happen soon enough, and US home builders will be putting up homes all over Mexico, mostly Northern Mexico probably. Mexico has long had restrictions against foreign land ownership, but these restrictions are about to lift. One Mexican capital group is planning a major seaport south of Tijuana, that will rival the Port of Los Angeles.
Donald Trump is in Tijuana building condo's for future expatriot Americans, but also for middle class Mexicans. The fall in the dollar won't end until both economies have some relative parity. If the US market doesn't mark these existing homes down, then a glut of new, cheaper homes will replace them, and they will be built south of the border. Its ironic to watch the Bush administration work both sides of the street, first by destroying the dollar, which makes Mexicos economy more on a par with the US, and secondly by trying to prop up the US housing industry, and reinflate the asset bubble.