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The Nick Fong Podcast · Ronival Real Estate

The Ronival Series

Five years of conversations. Seven episodes. The market, the developments, the racing, and the story underneath all of it.

The Background

Scott Purcell and Ronival

Ronival Real Estate was founded in 2010 by Nick Fong. It is now the largest brokerage in Baja California Sur — more than sixty agents working out of Cabo San Lucas, San José del Cabo, the East Cape, Los Barriles, Todos Santos, La Paz and Loreto, and the firm most people in the region name first when they're asked who to call. Nick and the company have been featured on HGTV's Mexico Life.

Scott joined as Director of the Developments Division. That means pre-construction: the projects that exist as a rendering, a permit set, and a developer's track record long before anyone can walk through a door. It is the part of this market with the most upside and the most ways to get hurt, which is why the division exists at all — someone has to vet the developer, read the financing structure, and tell a buyer the truth about what happens if construction stalls.

The Nick Fong Podcast is where a lot of that thinking gets said out loud. Scott has been a recurring guest since 2021 — first on where to buy across Baja Sur, then on the mechanics and the risks of pre-construction, then on what the market actually did between 2021 and 2025 when the numbers stopped cooperating. Along the way the conversation kept drifting off the spreadsheet: the Baja 1000, the training, and eventually the whole story of how he got here.

All seven episodes are below, newest first.

2010

Ronival founded

60+

Agents across BCS

7

Offices, Cabo to Loreto

2021

First episode with Scott

Newest Episode · July 2026

From Chronic Pain to Peak Performance

Cholesterol medication in his mid-40s and a shoulder that hurt every day from old injuries. At 58, racing motorcycles in the Baja 1000. This is the episode where Nick asks about everything that doesn't come up when they're talking about developments and market updates.

Scott Purcell on The Nick Fong Podcast — From Chronic Pain to Peak Performance
44:02

Before real estate

Years as a touring musician, then a sailmaker, then a hurricane-protection fabric business that grew large enough to become a vendor for two major U.S. home improvement chains — a jump that forced him to take private equity just to fund the cash flow.

The turn

He sold out of the business in stages between 2012 and 2016, then moved to Cabo full-time to run sailing tours out of Puerto Los Cabos, answering every client email and phone call himself.

What's next

The NORRA 1000 in the Pro division and the Baja 1000 in the Ironman class — a race that starts and finishes in Los Cabos for the first time, where he's going for oldest competitor to finish it.

The Archive

Every Episode, 2021 to Now

Click any episode to play it here. Nothing loads until you press play.

Is this a good time to buy in the new construction market — The Nick Fong Podcast
31:25
June 2025 Market

Is This a Good Time to Buy New Construction?

Scott with Nick Fong and Sergio Benítez on the shift nobody in Baja Sur wanted to name out loud: pre-construction went from roughly 60% of sales to under 30%. They walk the transaction and volume data from 2021 through 2025, how new construction is financed in Mexico versus the U.S., how to tell a well-funded developer from one that will stall, and where the leverage sits now that it's a buyer's negotiation — price, upgrades, and terms.

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What is the Baja 1000 — The Nick Fong Podcast with Scott Purcell
18:23
September 2023 Racing

What Is the Baja 1000?

The first episode where the conversation left real estate entirely. Scott takes Nick through what the Ironman class actually asks of a rider, how he trained for it, who was in his crew, when he started riding in the first place, and the part of the course that worried him most. Filmed weeks out from the race.

Watch on YouTube
Baja Sur's Real Estate Secrets — Scott Purcell on The Nick Fong Podcast
36:05
August 2023 The Craft

Baja Sur's Real Estate Secrets

Recorded in the new common areas at Cuatrovientos in Cabo San Lucas. Mostly a working conversation for agents: how to qualify a serious buyer, why response speed decides more deals than anything else, reading the communication history before you pick up the phone, asking the questions nobody wants to ask — and who actually pays the closing costs down here, which surprises almost every U.S. buyer.

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Why buying a pre-construction property in Baja — Ronival Real Estate
29:23
April 2023 Pre-Construction

Why Buy Pre-Construction in Baja?

The risk episode. How a buyer protects themselves in new construction, whether there's any warranty to speak of, when a real estate attorney should come in (earlier than most people think), what due diligence looks like on both sides of the table, and the vetting process Ronival runs before it agrees to represent a development at all.

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Buying a pre-construction home in Mexico — Los Cabos and Baja Sur
26:52
December 2022 Pre-Construction

Buying Pre-Construction in Mexico

Scott's first full episode as Director of the Developments Division: the honest pros and cons of buying before a building exists, in Los Cabos and up the peninsula. A walk through the projects the division was representing at the time — Rivieri, Vistamar, Mantarraya in Loreto, Monteluna, Cenit and Cuatrovientos — and what separated the ones worth the wait.

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Where to buy your new home in Baja Sur — Ronival Real Estate
20:47
October 2021 Where It Started

Where to Buy Your New Home in Baja Sur

The first one. Scott and Ciro Ramos, then Director and Assistant Director of the Developments Division, taking listener questions on the real trade-off: Cabo San Lucas, San José del Cabo, further north at Cerritos or La Ventana, or all the way up to the magic town of Loreto. Five years later, most of the projects they name are built and sold.

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Pre-Construction & Developments

Thinking about a project
that isn't built yet?

That's the whole job. Bring me the development you're looking at and I'll tell you what I'd want to know before I wired a peso.

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