Workers put the finishing touches on landscaping at Las Ventanas, a development of 38 single-family homes, ranging in price from $389,000 to the high $900,000s.

Diane Gibbs steers her white SUV up the free road linking Tijuana and Ensenada on the Baja coast, looking beyond the gritty details rolling past the car windows to her vision of what this “long, skinny town” with the blue-water views can become. We were just starting a tour of new residential developments along the Pacific on a Friday morning last month. Gibbs, a Realtor who has lived and worked in Baja since she moved here from Oklahoma City in 1988, muses that not everyone is cut out for life south of the border.

“Some people can deal with Mexico, and some can’t,” she says, recounting a similar tour she’d given not long ago to a couple from New York. The wife sat up front, next to Gibbs, and her husband sat in the back seat.

“She’d go, ‘Look at that dead dog, look at that wrecked car,’” says Gibbs, whose speech still carries a touch of Sooner drawl. “I told her, ‘I’m not sure you can be happy living in Mexico if those things bother you.’”

Gibbs advised the couple to look at homes in Chula Vista’s EastLake community, where they ultimately settled.

As for Gibbs, she cheerfully drives past the rusted hulks and trailers with laundry flapping like banners in the wind. “Those are things I don’t see anymore,” she says. What she does see is opportunity. Gibbs now commands a real estate firm with five offices and a corps of 40 agents. By the end of this year, she hopes to have 10 offices up and running.

Our first — and northernmost — stop is at Calafia, a spit of land that juts into the Pacific a few kilometers south of Rosarito Beach where U.S. college students spend spring break on the hot sand, cradling cold Coronas.

When completed, the Calafia Resort and Villas will consist of three condo towers fronting the ocean, along with an existing compound of villas. Gibbs and the resident sales agent unlock a ground floor model, which is equipped with tile floors, granite kitchen countertops, travertine bathrooms and a large patio overlooking the Pacific, all standard for the project. Units in the third tower, which are being sold before building, range from $302,000 for two bedrooms and two baths on the first floor, to a $750,000 penthouse.

The well-appointed kitchens in Club Marena’s new tower are an example of the condos&rquo; luxury. Units range from 1,500 to 3,900 square feet, and the price range is $340,000 to $1,035,000.

Next, Gibbs points her SUV south toward Club Marena, a generously landscaped residential development at KM 38, which Gibbs says was an old surf spot mentioned in a Beach Boys song. Built in 1989, Club Marena is one of the older residential developments on the Baja coast, its whitewashed towers exuding old-school gentility. A new tower is in the final stages of construction, and its condos look out on a pretty crescent of beach, with green lawns and colorful bougainvillea.

As we step through the sliding glass doors from the sales office out onto the ocean side of the complex, with the breakers only yards away, Gibbs says, “This is the sizzle we sell.”

When the new tower is completed, Club Marena will have 190 units. The new condos range in size from 1,500 to 3,900 square feet, and prices are from $340,000 to just over $1 million.

Eduardo Ochoa, sales director for Club Marena, says the people coming to look at his project are more likely to want the property for their own use. A couple of years ago, many more speculators were looking to make a killing in the market. One recent development that seems to have lifted the entire residential market in Baja was the fall 2006 announcement that Donald Trump will build an oceanfront “condo hotel” between Tijuana and Rosarito.

“That made people feel secure going to Mexico,” says Ochoa of the Trump Ocean Resort. “(Trump’s) going to Mexico, everything’s going to be OK.”

Gibbs and other real estate professionals interviewed for this story say Americans who buy property in Mexico should feel perfectly safe regarding their investments. Gibbs and Ross Edward Buck, president of Baja-based First Title Services, say foreigners who buy in a special “restricted” zone within 100 kilometers of the border, or 50 kilometers of the coast, can hold title through a legal device called a “fideicomiso,” or bank trust.

This means a bank acts as trustee, with the foreign owner named as a beneficiary of the trust, which runs for 50 years, plus a 50-year extension. The foreign property owner can sell or lease the property, or pass it along to his heirs, as with any U.S. property. If the property remains with the same family for 100 years, Buck says, the owner would have the option of applying for a new 50-plus-50 trust.

Within the past 18 months, it also has become possible for U.S. buyers to get financing for their real estate purchase in Mexico, using their existing Baja home as collateral. Previously, buyers had to pay in cash or obtain financing linked to U.S. homes.

Real estate broker and mortgage banker Rick Hesley, who bought a villa at Calafia two years ago, has no qualms about investing in Mexican property.

Hesley, who lives in Orange County, paid $440,000 for his 1,800-square-foot villa, which he says has “panoramic ocean views.” He spent another $100,000 on upgrades, including new flooring, granite countertops and wall-mounted plasma-screen televisions.

“I love it,” he says, because he and his four children are “total beach freaks” who can surf, dive and fish to their heart’s content from right in front of the villa.

The existing tower at Calafia, where two- and three-bedroom condos in the new Tower III are priced in the $300,000s.

“I think the big value there is what I’ve got in comparison to what I could get in California. It’s probably a third of the price,” he says. “I jump in my car, I’m there in two hours, driveway to driveway.”

“Getting back is another thing,” he adds, referring to the long waits that can occur at the U.S. border, which he calls the biggest drawback to owning property in Mexico. But even the prospect of a tedious border wait doesn’t stop him from heading down to his beachfront getaway as often as possible.

Gibbs says the majority of buyers she and her agents deal with are like Hesley, people who want to retire to their Baja homes, or use them for vacations.

Over lobster burritos and salad at the Palm Grill, midway between Rosarito and Ensenada, she says there are three questions she and her staff must be prepared to answer from potential buyers: the details of holding title to a property, the availability of health care, and where the salespeople themselves live. Gibbs says there are good hospitals and clinics in Rosarito, Ensenada and Tijuana, and ambulance service that can transport a patient across the border if necessary. She says she requires all of her salespeople to own property in Mexico.

Back on the road, we visit condo and single-family developments with names like Paradise del Baja, Las Ventanas, Palacio del Mar, Puerta del Mar and Plaza del Mar. Each project has its own distinct charms, but there are striking similarities as well: each is within a short distance of the water’s edge, with striking ocean views and generous upgrades. All we visited included granite countertops, and many also featured stainless steel appliances. Travertine-tiled bathrooms were common. One complex of small attached homes — Plaza del Mar — which were priced from $259,000 to $385,000, featured rooftop decks, and built-in barbecues, tiled bars and fireplaces in the back yards. Unlike model homes in most U.S. developments, these amenities are standard in the units.

Las Brisas, a low-rise development in Bajamar, an older residential area north of Ensenada, featured units with mosaic tile entryways, granite kitchen countertops with Italian glass tile backsplashes and a built-in wine cooler with digital controls. The units boasted golf course views to the east, and ocean views to the west.

Our final stop was Porto Hussong, a project on the northern outskirts of Ensenada, that will consist of three condo towers and a 280-slip marina. The project, says Gibbs, is set to break ground in June. Gibbs’ Realty Executives office holds an exclusive sales agreement with the project, which encompasses a 16-acre parcel owned by members of Ensenada’s prominent Hussong family. The Hussongs are partnering with Reno-based MDG Resorts to build the project.

“We’re very proud of this one,” says Gibbs. “This is the jewel, the crown jewel.”

Porto Hussong’s 186 units will carry price tags ranging from about $700,000 to $1.3 million, and the marina will include two 400-foot-long slips for “mega yachts,” says sales executive Thom Graham.

One twist: Those who don’t want to go whole hog and purchase their own unit can buy “fractional ownership” in a 10th floor unit, entitling the owner to five weeks in the condo, plus one week in a fully crewed 72-foot yacht each year. These fractional ownerships start at $200,000, and include such perks as a staff that will stock a unit with the owners’ favorite cigars and champagne, and even put out their family photos before they arrive.

“So when you walk in, it’s your place,” says Gibbs.

Gibbs bubbles with enthusiasm as she drives through the property, pointing out where the boutique hotel and shopping village will be built once the existing small homes are demolished. She’s so smitten with Porto Hussong that she plans to take up residence there in five years when she retires and turns over the reins of her company to her daughter, Julie Martin, who now runs Gibbs’ Ensenada office.

“This is where I’m going to live,” she says with a smile.