I'm posting this on behalf of my sister-in-law who just returned from a season in Puerto Vallarta, and has a horror story which could be a useful warning as to what is going on in the beautiful resort town.
My sister-in-law has been staying for years in Puerto Vallarta and rented apartments for the few months she would be there. The winter of 2008/09 she decided to look into longer-term housing, and found an ad in the Mano-a-mano for a real estate agent to take care of finding her a place: Carlos Mondavi.
Mondavi claimed to be a real-estate agent with years of experience in Puerto Vallarta specializing in condos for American and Canadians. When my sister-in-law met him, Mondavi said he would be able to get my sister-in-law into a place for the following winter (2009/10). He said he would need a retainer to find a place, which came to $1500 USD. She begrudgingly paid the amount, and was told that everything would be in order.
When she was getting ready to come back, my sister-in-law emailed Mondavi and he told her that he would be able to get her into a 'luxury suite in a famous hotel' which sounded up her alley. When she arrived, Mondavi was nowhere to be found. It took a couple weeks of asking questions before we were able to locate Mondavi. He told us he 'lost his phone' and therefore didn't have my sister-in-law's number, despite being in constant email contact.
Mondavi then had the gall to say that it was my sister-in-law's fault for not arranging things with him more clearly.. As if "Find me an apt in Nov." wasn't good enough.
My sister-in-law was forced to get a hotel room while Mondavi arranged the room (which should have been done ages ago) and then told her that he would be able to get her a room in the Grand Miramar Resort. Well, we checked it out and it was still under construction. We looked on here, saw the posts and told Mondavi NO WAY! He told us the place was a castle in Conchas Chinas and the condos were immaculate and brand-new.
Mondavi quoted my sister-in-law a ridiculously high price, and said would knock it down if she attended a timeshare presentation a month (!?!?!).
AND(!!) that she would have to lie on his behalf and say she was just visiting for the week.
It didnt' take long to figure out that Mondavi scammed my sister-in-law's money, had no intention of finding her a ligitimate place to live, and was trying to "OPC" her into seeing presentations so he could profit off her even further!!!
Please DO NOT get mixed up with Carlos Mondavi, he is a timeshare OPC who is only interested in committing fraud upon trusting foreigners.

Thank-you for reading my sister-in-law's story.