Mexico’s 400,000 Abandoned Homes Draw Venture Capital

Mexico’s attempt to solve the country’s housing shortage by constructing millions of new homes far from city centers has crippled the nation’s homebuilders and fueled record foreclosures. For Antonio Diaz, a former investment banker with Banco Santander SA, it’s an opportunity.

Diaz’s company, backed by a venture-capital firm whose funders include JPMorgan Chase & Co. and the Soros Economic Development Fund, is buying foreclosed homes for as little as 60 percent of face value, refurbishing them and then selling them for up to 90 percent of a new home price. The number of properties sold by Tijuana-based Comunidades que Renacen SAPI, or ProVive, climbed 10-fold to 530 last year, and its target is to sell 1,300 units in 2013, said Diaz.