In the past week, much has been made of the dive in second home sales stateside. The National Association of Realtors’ recent report on the vacation home market notes that sales of such properties dipped 31 percent in 2007.

But the picture starts to look a little rosier south of the border. Take Punta Mita, a community just north of Puerto Vallarta on Mexico’s Pacific coast that saw sales jump 30 percent last year. St. Regis and the Enchantment group are both building residential and hotel properties there, while a second Jack Nicklaus-designed Signature golf course is set to open this year.

According to Andres Rossetto, the Managing Director of Resort Development for Punta Mita and DINE, the cost to build a home in Punta Mita is about a third of what it would cost to build a similarly high-end property in California, Hawaii or even Cabo San Lucas.

A third of the cost? Sounds a little aggressive, especially considering that one-acre home sites in Punta Mita range from $2.25 million on up to $7.2 million for a beachfront stake in the sand. And yes, that’s without the house, though the lot does include a private yacht pier. Other properties have similarly luxurious price tags. Private villas at the Four Seasons are priced at $3.6 million (45 of the 55 available villas were sold by the end of last year), a three-bedroom condo in the El Encanto development goes for up to $1.4 million, and the next round of four-bedroom condominiums at Las Palmas de Punta Mita will start at $1.5 million a pop when sales begin this spring. No doubt the construction labor and material costs in this corner of the globe are lower than they would be in resort areas in California or Hawaii, but clearly this south of the border enclave, with beachfront lots topping $7 million, is seeing its own old-fashioned, American-fed real estate boom. How this market will to be impacted by the rough waves of the U.S. real estate slowdown, remains to be seen.