Pajaro Area

The Pajaro area lies in the valley south of Las Cruces, below Mesilla Park, among the pecan orchards that line the roads toward La Mesa. Pájaro is Spanish for bird, and the orchards and the river bosque nearby still draw them.

It is a small area with two kinds of property. The first is The Sanctuary, a planned neighborhood of custom homes built from the late 2000s to the present, on lots of about a third of an acre, with a homeowner association. Homes there are large, commonly around 3,000 square feet, and several are new.

The second is the older valley property around it: homes from the 1970s onward on larger parcels, some of two acres or more, reached by farm roads such as Carver Road.

Most of what comes up for sale here is priced above $500,000, which is unusual for an area of this size, though little of it comes up at once.

The setting is the draw. The orchards give shade and green through the summer, the Organ Mountains show to the east above the trees, and New Mexico State University, Mesilla and Interstate 10 are each a short drive away.