By Joseph Sanchez, Team Sanchez · RE/MAX Legacy
Last updated: August 2026
Slide open the balcony door and the Sea of Cortez is right there, rolling onto Sandy Beach. It is an easy condo to fall for. But the reason to call me about this one isn’t the view — it’s the numbers, and how they line up. This unit brings together three things you rarely see on one beachfront condo: seller financing, rental income that covers the payment, and a rare chance to hold title in a way that can legally eliminate your taxes. Let’s walk through all three.
The rare part: the seller will finance you
No foreign bank, no cross-border mortgage maze. The owner will carry the note directly, so you can own a beachfront condo in Rocky Point without a U.S. or Mexican bank in the middle. Here is the structure on the table:
Rate: 7% · Term: 5 years · Payment: about $1,550/month
To keep that monthly payment low, the payments are calculated on a longer schedule, with the remaining balance due at the end of year five (more on that below — it’s a strength here, not a catch).
The part investors like: your renters help pay it down
Sandy Beach is one of the most rental-friendly stretches of coastline in Puerto Peñasco, and a turnkey condo in the sought-after West building rents well. At around $350 a night and a realistic 6 to 10 booked nights a month, here is how the monthly rental income stacks up against that ~$1,550 payment:
| Booked nights / month | Rental income / month | After the ~$1,550 payment |
|---|---|---|
| 6 nights | $2,100 | +$550 |
| 8 nights | $2,800 | +$1,250 |
| 10 nights | $3,500 | +$1,950 |
Every row is positive. Even at the conservative six-night floor, the rental income covers the loan payment with room to spare. Over the full five years, guests contribute somewhere in the range of $126,000 to $210,000 toward a property you financed for $172,500.
A straight-shooter’s note: those are gross rental figures. Real-world costs — property management, HOA dues, utilities, cleaning, and predial (property tax) — come out of them. The point isn’t that it’s free; it’s that the income does the heavy lifting on your payment instead of coming out of your pocket. When you call, we’ll run your actual net together.
How you hold title — the piece most agents skip
Here’s an advantage that never shows up in listing photos, and most agents never raise it. The current owner is a Mexican national holding clean, direct title — which makes this sale a blank slate. Instead of putting a bank trust (fideicomiso) in your own name, you have the opportunity to take title into a U.S. LLC and set the structure up right from day one. How you hold title to the property changes your economics in three real ways:
- At closing — legally eliminate the ~3% transfer tax. Taking title through a U.S. LLC, rather than a fideicomiso in your own name, can be structured to legally eliminate the roughly 3% city transfer/acquisition tax — trimming your total closing costs by about 4%.
- At sale — legally minimize or eliminate capital gains. When you’re ready to exit, you sell the company that owns the unit instead of the property itself. Structured properly, this can legally minimize — or eliminate entirely — the capital-gains tax on your sale, in a market where the gain-based rate can run 35% or more. It also makes you an easier sell, because your buyer legally eliminates that ~3% transfer tax too. That’s a listing advantage most sellers can’t offer.
- For your family — clean succession and asset protection. Held in a U.S. LLC or a family trust, the property can pass to your heirs and be held for asset protection — keeping it out of Mexican probate and making cross-border succession simple.
One honest note so you have the whole picture: a U.S. LLC carries modest ongoing accounting and filing obligations — a local accountant handles it for a small annual cost, and your rental income is reported through the company. It doesn’t change the core advantage; it just comes with the territory.
These are exactly the details to pressure-test before you commit, and I’m a broker — not your tax or legal advisor. I work with a Mexican tax accountant and a notario who structure these every day, and I’ll get you on a call with them so the numbers are confirmed for your situation, not just illustrated here.
What about the balance due at year five?
Here’s the honest picture, because you should have it up front. Keeping the payment low means the loan isn’t fully paid off in five years — roughly $133,500 remains as a final balance at the end of the term. That is not a trap; it’s arithmetic, and your position is strong. Because you put 50% down, you hold more than 60% equity from day one. When the balance comes due, owners in this spot simply refinance it, sell, or pay it off — typically after the property has had five years to appreciate on one of Rocky Point’s best beaches. You are negotiating from a position of equity, not scrambling.
The bottom line
A turnkey, beachfront, fully furnished condo on Sandy Beach — seller-financed, cash-flow positive from the first booking, held in a structure that can legally erase your transfer and capital-gains taxes and pass cleanly to your family, with you holding a majority-equity stake the whole way. Financing, income, and the right ownership structure rarely line up on one property. When they do, it doesn’t sit long.
Want me to run these numbers for your situation? Book a meeting with me and we’ll put your real down payment, target rental nights, net costs, and the right ownership structure on one page — and if it pencils out, I’ll get you in to see it and on a call with my cross-border tax people. No pressure, no obligation.
I’m a real estate broker, not an attorney or accountant. Seller financing, U.S. LLC ownership, and any cross-border (U.S./Mexico) purchase carry legal and tax details that must be reviewed with a Mexican tax accountant (contador) and a licensed notario público, and every term should be confirmed in writing for your specific situation. Whether these tax savings apply depends on how the structure is set up and on your own U.S. and Mexican filing obligations; the figures here are illustrative examples of how the structure can work — not tax advice, a guarantee of any tax result or rental income, or an offer of credit.
Joseph Sanchez is an AMPI-certified real estate agent with RE/MAX Legacy and the developer of Viviente at Sandy Beach. He serves as president of Rocky Point Home Builders and is a proud U.S. Veteran. Originally from Chicago and a Southern Illinois University at Carbondale alumnus, Joseph now resides full-time in Puerto Peñasco with his wife and three children for over 15 years. For more information email rockypointrealestate911@gmail.com.