Texas Real Estate Slump Lets Mexicans Take It Back

By Thomas Black


June 25 (Bloomberg) -- More than a century and a half after Mexico lost Texas to the U.S., Virgilio Garza wants a piece of it back.

A ``Texas for Sale'' sign and cowgirls in boots and white hats greeted Garza at the Convex center in Monterrey, Mexico, earlier this month. A Monterrey developer and investor, Garza was in search of foreclosed U.S. property to buy.

``Texas is like our home,'' said Garza, 45, who joined hundreds of Mexicans poring over lists of Texas properties at the four-day event. Garza, who owns manufacturing sites and other land in Mexico, said he and five partners may invest as much as $8 million in Texas. ``We believe there can be some opportunities.''

A rising peso and an economy growing faster than the U.S. have given some Mexicans the buying power to take advantage of the housing slump in Texas, which the U.S. annexed in 1845 after Texans gained independence from Mexico nine years earlier. A three-year war followed and ended with Mexico ceding about half its territory, including Arizona, Nevada and California, to the U.S. under an 1848 treaty. continue...




Now we will have a selection from the late great Madame Clara Ward, singing an appropriate old time song as only she could sing it.....

The Lord, he moves in mysterious ways,
His wonders, and his will, to perform,
He plants His footsteps, way out on the seas,
And He rides on every storm.

Blind unbelief will surely err
And think His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.