We met a very interesting person last week, Lina Maria Salazar Nogales, an attorney who has recently opened an office. Lina has a great deal of experience with real estate. For 7 years she worked with a notario in Hermosillo. For the last three years she's been with a consultant firm called Cenint Las Lomas. Now she has her own practice in Puerto Peñasco.
Lina's office is elegant and unique, like herself. The waiting room has a desk and chair with wrought iron legs in original designs. We learned that she had created the designs herself, and her secretary's husband had reproduced them in metal.
Lina's inner office had one wall painted in dark maroon, the others in light yellow. On a slim table behind her desk was a flower arrangement with maroon flowers and a lamp with a shade that repeated the color. Very effective.
Lina's task has been to put together banks and companies doing real estate business. She's done credit checks, searched titles, researched details about properties, prepared powers of attorney, and processed the paperwork. In Mexico all transactions must be completed through a notario, who is a lawyer with special powers, something like a judge in the U.S. But Lina did most of the work of preparing documents so that the notario could finalize the transactions.
We were intrigued by what we heard because Lina is doing what escrow companies do, even though escrow is a concept that seems to be unknown in Puerto Peñasco. In the U.S. escrow is a neutral third party, often a title company, that holds money and documents and processes paperwork for real estate transactions. When everything is in hand and has been checked, the transaction can be closed. The taxes are paid, the fees are paid, the buyer gets the property, and the seller gets the money, all at the same time. In Puerto Peñasco these things are often done separately; the problem is that if something goes wrong with one part of the transaction, one party or another may be the loser. The buyer may have already paid money to the seller, yet be unable to acquire the property. The seller may have invested in repairs or paid fees for services and then been unable to transfer title. It seemed to us that Lina has a talent that could be readily used by both buyers and sellers of real estate in Rocky Point.
Lina told us that typically the costs of buying or selling real estate amount to about 8% of the purchase price. They include federal taxes, state taxes, municipal taxes, notario's fees, registration, valuation, and recording fees. Foreigners who buy property in Mexico also need to get a bank trust (fideicomiso), something that Lina can arrange.
Lina told us a little about her family. Her father, Benjamin Salazar, is a doctor and director of a hospital in Caborca. He is also a politician, having served as a congressman and as mayor of Caborca. He enjoys politics because it gives him a chance to help people. Her mother is a property manager for real estate, something she recently started doing and really enjoys. Lina has a brother who is an accountant in Hermosillo, and her sister is an agronomy student at the university.
Lina is an example of the new Mexican woman. She's optimistic about Mexico and its future. She is obviously devoted to her family and her cultural tradition. But she's also independent and dedicated to her profession. The desire to help people has come down to her from her parents; she talked about her father's accomplishments with great pride. Lina is a daughter any family might be proud of.
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