Three questions I ask before I show any pre-construction project to a client.
The renderings are always beautiful. These questions are what I ask before the renderings matter.
Every pre-construction project in Banderas Bay arrives with the same package. Architectural visualisations. A price list. A sales team trained to create urgency. None of that tells you whether the project will actually be built.
The buyers in those projects were not careless. Most did exactly what the sales agents and brochures told them to do. The regulatory environment simply shifted under their feet. That is the entire reason these questions exist.
The environmental approval.
"Which environmental authority approved this project — federal, state, or municipal — and may I see the approval document?"
Environmental approval in Mexico operates at three levels: federal, state, and municipal. Which one applies depends on the project's location, size, and ecological impact. The question is not whether the project has an approval. It is whether the project holds the right approval for what is actually being built.
Do not expect the selling agent to answer this on the spot — most won't know, and that is not a failure on their part. The question is a request that needs to travel: to the developer, to the project's legal team, to whoever holds the file.
The funding.
"Where do my deposits go when I wire them — into the developer's account, or into third-party escrow?"
In this market, buyer deposits typically go directly into the developer's operating account. There is no third-party escrow, no structural protection if the project does not deliver. This is not fraud and it is not bad practice — it is simply what most buyers, not knowing to ask, end up agreeing to.
Worth asking too: what has the developer already invested — land, design, permits — before taking a peso from buyers? A developer with meaningful skin in the game before sales open is a different counterparty from one building entirely on deposit capital.
The delivery date.
"What is the contractual delivery date — and is there a grace period after it before any late-delivery penalties begin?"
Most buyers read a delivery date literally. The reality is more layered. Mexican pre-construction contracts commonly include a grace period — a defined window after the stated delivery date during which the developer can still complete without incurring penalties. It may be six months. It may be a year. This is not a trick, and it is not bad practice: construction runs into weather, permitting, and supply realities. But the date on the brochure is the earliest plausible date, not a guarantee.
Ask for all of it: the contractual delivery date, the length of the grace period, and what the contract says happens if the project runs past even that. A serious developer has clear answers and puts them in writing.
The water feasibility letter.
Before any of these questions: ask for the factibilidad de servicio — the water feasibility letter from SEAPAL, Puerto Vallarta's municipal water authority. It confirms the project can be connected to municipal water at the density it is proposing. If it is more than twelve months old, it is no longer current.
A developer who cannot produce a current factibilidad is selling units in a building that may not legally connect to services at the volume promised.
A serious developer welcomes every one of these questions.
The pace of the answer is itself the answer.
If you are evaluating a pre-construction opportunity in Banderas Bay and want to walk through these questions against a specific project — that is exactly what the Strategy Audit is for.
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