Live on Your Own Vineyard…From $165,000
Date: 02/22/2008Saturday, Feb. 23, 2008
Read more about international real estate in International Living Postcards—Saturday Edition
Waking up every morning to a view of your own grape vines… The idea has an appeal…especially if someone else is tending the vineyard.
Developers in Argentina are seeing potential in residential communities combined with grape-growing. They’re taking two approaches: One puts each house on its own plot of vines within a larger development. In this case, you own the vines, the land, and the house. The level of developer assistance with vine maintenance varies, but most such communities are offering turnkey ownership. The developer organizes the planting, the maintenance, and, ultimately, the sale of the grapes to a winery. Some are even building wineries onsite to bottle their own wines.
As a homeowner—and, therefore, a shareholder of the vines—you get a portion of the production after costs. You can take your split in cash or in wine.
In this development model, lot prices aren’t super cheap, as you’re buying productive land as well as your building plot. One such project near the city of Mendoza is offering lots from 3.5 hectares to six hectares (one hectare is about 2.5 acres). The price per square meter averages about $5…which means the lots work out to be from $165,000 to $275,000 apiece. Each lot comes with two hectares planted with vines and equipped with full-drip irrigation systems, and owners can elect to plant more vines at their own cost (up to 70% of their total lot size).
Lots at Villa Dolce Vita are also fully serviced with city water, electricity, and natural gas. In addition, the developer is building a winery, so you have a guaranteed outlet for your grapes. The project sits on a small stream that the developer is planning to stock with fish. A couple of the lots sit alongside the stream, and all owners will have access to it for fishing and strolls.
As with most developments of this type (that is, houses interspersed among the vines), Villa Dolce Vita is small—17 lots on 80 hectares of land. However, others I’ve scouted have been even smaller. In San Rafael, for example, I saw a 10-hectare piece of land being divided into five two-hectare lots. This leaves little room for vines and not enough total production for any economies of scale on maintenance costs.
Furthermore, Villa Dolce Vita is the first development of its kind I’ve seen so professionally conceived and managed.
The second approach Argentine developers are taking to this community-cum-vineyard idea is to separate the home construction from the vines. You’re living on the same parcel of land, with easy access to the grape-growing, but the community and the vineyard are managed separately. This model is used where the vineyards are a business and when more land is involved (typically more than 100 hectares). The housing development is a small part of the total land area.
On the one hand, as an owner and resident, you don’t enjoy the same charm factor in this kind of development. No vineyard view from the master bedroom balcony.
On the other hand, lot prices can be lower, especially if homeowners aren’t participating in the vineyard. Furthermore, vine maintenance is more cost effective under this model, so, if you are participating in vineyard production, your grape payout should be greater.
One project of this kind near Mendoza is planning to release lots in the second half of 2008 starting at $70,000 (but the wine production isn’t part of the development). While the final plans haven’t been completed, these lots will likely be in the half-hectare range. Amenities planned for this development include all the usual suspects—clubhouse, swimming pool, and tennis courts…and a wine cellar, of course.
For International Living
P.S. Contact Alejandra at alejandra@villadolcevita.com.ar if you like the idea of a home among the vines, or Steve at rosberg@ushay.com if you want to be part of a vineyard community but prefer a lower price in exchange for not having your own vines.
Editor’s note: Meet Lief at International Living’s Ultimate Event on May 28…where he’ll show you how to turn real estate profits into an early retirement…and at the Global Real Estate Profits Summit on June 2, where he’ll show you the top international real estate investment markets in the world right now.
Read related articles:
- “We knew nothing about farms, and couldn’t speak Spanish…so we bought a vineyard in Argentina.”
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