Let's Talk About Retiring in Mexico

In My Humble Opinion
1

I am sitting in a cyber-cafe in Ajijic, a village on the north shore of Mexico’s largest lake, Lago Chapala. Although I am here to brush up on my Spanish, I am also considering retiring here in five or ten years.

What are your thoughts on retiring to Mexico? Here is my meditation, a chance to clear my thoughts by setting them down in photons. Please see if I am making sense and add your comments.

I am comfortable with Spanish-speaking places, it seems my accented castilano puts me way up in the upper half of the Gringos here. I have lived overseas for 15 of my 45 years and I like it. I am in good health so far.

We all hope to retire somewhere someday, so why not here?

I have been teasing real estate agents while here. I have seen properties that approximate my Saudi villa for USD85K. I have seen properties that approximate what I would consider an elaborate lifestyle for USD325K. (I have also seen elaborate moutainside mansions that look way overpriced at the one million simolean mark. Not at all worth it.)

In any case, I would suppose the thing to do when the time comes is to buy (or rent) at the level one is used to, not at the price one is used to. I would suppose that the cost of a modest-but-nice villa here is one third or less the DC metro area price. Your mileage may vary.

Further I would guess that it would pay to rent for a year or so before buying. Mexico (or any place) could get wearing after some time. No need to commit oneself too soon.

This place offers many opportunities for an active retirement. With working papers one can find a real job. Otherwise, voulenteering looks like a good thing to do. There is a huge Gringo community here, and that is both a plus and a minus to keeping the ‘little grey cells’ active.

In additon, the climate here is nice enough to draw friends from north of the border down at least occasionally. That would be nice.

What am I missing? Have I convinced you to come down here? If I have I supose I have made a good case for me to return.

2

You could buy now and use the property as a rental to generate income and pay for itself until you’re ready to relocate. In 10 years you’d have it mostly paid off (on a 15-year note) and be ready to move in. If you decide that Mexico isn’t the place for you, you could then sell it and have the equity you’ve built to move elsewhere.

StG

3

You can buy there? Someone told me “outsiders” or noncitizens could not buy land anymore. Whether you rent or buy, you can probably find a nice place for less than you would pay in the States. If you want to live by the sea, expect to pay more, since those are the prime areas.

4

Well, there are no mortages available for Gringos, so you have to write a check for the full amount :eek:

The laws are not as restrictive as you may think. Foreigners cannot buy property 100 KM from the frontier or from the sea. This is to prevent another Texas situation.

5

Be very, very careful when it comes to buying land in Mexico. There are some cautionary tales floating around out there. In one case, a group of retirees all bought land somewhere, and had nice houses built for themselves. Then, the real owner of the property showed up, and gave them 30 days to clear off his land. They had, of course, been swindled by someone who pretended to own the land when they bought it. They lost everything.

6

You speak the truth. My Former wife is a real estate person in Panama. Nasty things happen.

Still, I am five or ten years out from buying and retiring. Sunday mornings are good for daydreaming.

7

I used to be heavily into the idea of retiring in a foreign country but as I researched I found that real estate was not much cheaper in the third world than it was here in the US if you bought a home in the rural parts. here in the US you can buy a manufactured home (which are not low quality anymore) that is under 10 years old for about $30 sq/ft, and that includes the yard. Stick homes of good quality in rural parts run about $60 sq/ft. The food in the third world is also supposedly highly priced too if you want to eat western. And there is the language barrier and the threat of crime (being relatively wealthy white people and all) I just don’t think the savings make the risk worth it. The high risk of being swindled and whatnot outweights the meager savings a person would get.

My plan would be to retire in one of the better developed first world countries and get a small rural home. New Zealand or Australia sound nice, but that is decades away.

8

Panama might be an option worth looking at. I lived there for two years, and it was great (for a fisherman like me anyway). Virtually the whole country is a stone’s throw from the sea, and you have the Chagres River too. Panama is world famous for some of the finest fishing in the world, and it’s not an exaggeration.

9

No can do Panama. I lived there for a number of years, but my (now ex-)wife is there and I would prefer not to be reminded of her every day. It still stings.

Good scuba diving though.

10

Paul - after your ex-wife threads, and your general demeanor towards her, Mexico is still rather close to Panama no? Why not Tubac, or Tucson, AZ? What about Mexico do you like?

11

A lady I used to work with moved to Loreto (Sea of Cortez side of Baja California, north of La Paz) to retire. Overall, they love it. However, when I got together with her at Christmas, she did tell of a number of “inconveniences” or more accurately “things she was accustomed to in the states, but are not available in Mexico”.
Perhaps the biggest was pretty much only being able to rely on themselves for having their stuff moved. I guess attempting to arrange moving of their furnishings became a huge nightmare, and they finally just gave up and moved their belongs (driving a trailer from San Diego) themselves over several trips. It was work, but it was all they could reliably come up with.

The other thing was not being able to (reliably) get items via the mail. Be it catalog sales or online stuff, it would just get “lost” and never appear. They’d find that the source did ship the stuff, but it would never make it to their home. I guess the mail service doesn’t quite work the same. I don’t know if the same applied to things like Fedex, but again, she had pretty much given up on the concept. Letters worked fine (albeit slower than in the US) - it only applied to packages. So this severly limited “shopping” at any place other than a store she could visit in person (which severly limited just what kinds of things she could get period).

She mentioned it taking months before they were able to get phone service installed. She actually used e-mail from the local cyber cafe as a means of communication during that time, but it was a pain having to go into town just to communicate with others. Once they got the phone service, it sounded like the ISP connection (or maybe the ISP itself) was too unreliable to use most of the time.

All in all, though, she did enjoy having “simplified” her life. She talked of spending entire days snorkelling and kayaking on the bay. Pretty much a life of vacation.

12

All in all, Mexico attracts me, but so does the idea of retirement. Sometime I am confusing one with the other. The pace of life seems slower in Mexico, the place is less crowded that the (portion of the) US (I am from), the people friendlier.

I like being ‘richer’ (compared to the local population) than I am now. (Isn’t that terrible? Still I must admit the truth.)

As for inconveniences, I have lived outside the US for most of my life I guess. Mexico is a civilized place compared to many of the locations I have been in in the past. It would be a piece of cake. Besides, unlike most Gringos, I speak the language (with a thick accent that makes girls giggle, and I like it when girls giggle.)