Carol Schmidt
Jan 28, 2004, 7:56 PM
Post #2 of 2
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Re: [drdan56] Reasonable real estate in SMA?
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Oh for the days when property was still "cheap" in SMA. Many homes are in the multi-million dollar range now! SMA is supposed to be second only to Cancun in expensive living (though it is still much cheaper overall than Phoenix where I last lived).
The usual recommendation to gringos who come down here is to live here at least a year before you take any steps toward buying property, so that you're sure of the neighborhood you want. I can't afford to buy a house here but have a great rental deal that I plan to hang on to as long as possible--others in this complex have been here 18 years so I hope the same goes for us.
I do scan the Atencion RE ads each week and do see some houses for under $200,000, even an occasional fixer-upper for $100,000 or less, and the ones outside Centro are of course cheaper. I've heard that the best way to find houses for sale in the cheaper ranges is to ask a taxi driver, and if the deal goes through in the end slip him some money for his effort.
If your Spanish is good you can get the real estate ads in the local Spanish-language newspapers. You can ask Mexican people that you meet if they know of any property for sale (the price to you, a US doctor, might be raised a bit, as it might in the States if a seller found out you were a doctor).
Realtors are all over the place, you can see photos of their offerings on their store windows, and some will say if the house is in a Mexican neighborhood, i.e., no gringos there yet.
The classic book on SMA is "On Mexican Time" by Tony Cohan, who first came here in the '80s and bought a colonial house in Centro for $60,000, with a small casita attached. The book is hilarious as he describes what he went through fixing it up. He says at the end that by 2000 the casita alone would go for more than $60,000. I bet the house would go for $600,000, or maybe $6 million since it's famous! Somebody would pay it.
There is a Jack Nicklaus golf course and accompanying resort planned for SMA-- it hasn't gotten its environmental protection approval yet, but the developers have agreed to pay for a new water reclamation/treatment plant that would provide all the water for the greens and also provide water for some of the local agriculture as well. Assuming that resort goes through, it might have an effect on local real estate prices as well, or maybe the effects will be localized on that area which is a bit outside of town.
Everyone says they wish they had bought a house when it was cheap and hung on to it, and those who did now have a sizeable profit. The way I am, I probably would have looked at a house for $60,000 some 20 years and said, "Whoa, that's overpriced for Mexico" and let it go by. But then I was living in LA then and hadn't bought a house in the '70s so I'd have a sizeable nest egg now from that.
There are occasional seminars here by realtors on the state of real estate in SMA today--one guy has one every week. I wouldn't be too eager to buy a house right away, as I said--the standard recommendation is to look around for awhile until you're sure Mexico/SMA/a particular neighborhood is for you.
Just make the leap of faith and come down and spend some time here before worrying about all the details. Stuff falls into place or it doesn't, at least not right away. Part of learning to live "On Mexican Time" is to relax and stop worrying about all the details. Do check out everything you can, of course, but a perfect house might fall in your lap once you arrive, or it might take awhile to make the decision or to find the right place. A friend of mine has moved three times in a year and a half trying to find the perfect rental! We did.
Carol Schmidt
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