Pre-construction real estate has always required buyers to pay for something they cannot yet see, but the distance between marketing and reality is widening. Developers can now produce photorealistic renderings and video that make an unbuilt project appear finished and occupied, while slower sales across many markets over the past year have left some projects short of the money needed to complete them.
The risk is not confined to any single country, but it is sharpest for buyers purchasing far from home who rely on marketing materials alone. “In today’s world, a lot of developments use AI to create a beautiful picture,” said Ed Eakin, a Texas broker and Certified International Property Specialist based in Cabo San Lucas. “It looks like the project is done and people are living there. In reality, no dirt has been moved.”
Eakin’s starting point is a set of direct questions for the developer: Has the project broken ground? How many units have closed? What are the expected completion dates for each phase? When will amenities be started and finished? The amenity question often separates marketing from reality. He points to a development near Spicewood, Texas, where the golf course has been finished for about a year but no homes have been built, streets and utilities are still going in, and the clubhouse is a temporary tent.
The most revealing question concerns money. Many developers cannot start construction until they reach a set level of pre-sales, so Eakin asks whether a project could still be finished if no further units sold over the next year. Developer track record carries similar weight: a firm with decades of operation and dozens of completed projects presents a different risk than a first-time builder.
The structure of the deposit schedule offers a less obvious clue. Some developers ask for around 30 percent at contract, another installment when the foundation is complete, and the balance at delivery. Others take an initial deposit and ask for nothing more until the end. In Eakin’s view, the second structure usually points to a stronger developer, one able to fund construction without drawing on buyers’ money along the way. A developer asking for half the purchase price before breaking ground warrants extra caution.
How deposits are held matters as well. Eakin advises against wiring funds directly into a developer’s own account, recommending a local third-party escrow service that releases money as construction milestones are met. Mortgage lenders active in Mexico typically vet a developer before agreeing to finance a unit, adding another layer of scrutiny. None of this replaces seeing the property: workers, machinery and noise suggest progress, while a fenced, locked site with no crew or grass growing over earlier work suggests a stalled project.
For buyers who cannot visit often, that monitoring can be delegated through regular site checks, photos, video and live walkthroughs. The consequences of skipping these steps tend to arrive late; Eakin says he still receives calls from buyers who sent deposits directly to a developer who later disappeared. As pre-construction marketing becomes more polished and financing for new projects tightens, the distance between what a buyer sees online and what exists on the ground is likely to keep growing.
