E X P Mexico.com

When I first was approached abut selling Mexico real estate to foreigners interested the Mexico market, I was hesitant because I thought I didn’t really know that much about real estate in the first place.

I did have 2 things in my favor. I understoood – pretty well – the U.S. and Canadian mind-set and I’ve lived here in Mexico – for 30+  years. Plus I’ve been closely involved in the purchase of quite a few houses even before I ever thought to try my hand at helping other people purchase their own.

So – it was always easy to talk to and write to people and frankly – to answer their questions as to why Mexico, how to do this or that, and to provide some guidance to bridging the culture gap in general. All of it became pretty much second nature.

I started out working with a retirement services company that tried to offer absolutely everything to everyone. I was coordinating a team of service providers in almost every corner of the country and heading a team of people dedicated to answering phone calls and emails almost 24 hours a day. Trouble was  – and maybe still is – most folks don’t want a lot of help.

Most of the people that I talk to today simply accept Mexico for the challenge it is – and they’re happy to jump in head-first and start tackling and studying and trying to learn everything there is to know about Mexico’s amazingly diverse and fascinating culture. It can be a big project for people who’ve only heard recently about everything Mexico has to offer. But there are also people who’ve been visiting Mexico regularly for decades and who only now want to take advantage of the great opportunities that Mexico represents today.

There are alot of reasons – maybe that seems obvious. Great destinations and locations to live in and to just be closer to: Michoacan, San Miguel de Allende, Merida, Playa del Carmen, all of La Huesteca, Cuernavaca, Mazatlan on the Pacific and the list goes on and on. Obviously Puerto Vallarta is still a big draw, and San Miguel de Allende just never goes out of style.

The cost of living is almost always reasonable, healthcare is very good and more affordable and if you eat the fruit and vegetables in season and shop your local market – you’re almost guaranteed to see a long healthy sun-filled retirement. Property taxes are a steal compared to the U.S. – ridiculously low – and maintenance fees and help at home or in the garden are very reasonable. For most of the people I’ve worked with it’s the very first “help” they’ve ever had in their lives.

But let’s face it – most of the websites you’ll encounter on the internet today have (at least some of) the information you may or not need posted up on their internet pages. It’s not always there so that you can truly get answers to your questions – but so that the proprietors can better position themselves to scoop you into the net of their list of sales leads. Finding someone to clarify the finer points – or to really answer your own unique questions is no easy task. Well, that’s the niche I’ve carved out for myself – and with Cristina who works more with the Spanish language side of things – the two of us do a pretty good job.

And we do get questions. Maybe it’s obvious, but this blogging business we’re doing now is just one place where we’re trying to answer some of them. Here’s the most common from foreign buyers.

If you really want a home in a beach destination – as many of my clients do in Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, Veracruz – you still have to purchase it through a bank trust. There was a brief glimmer of hope that the Mexican government might lift the restrictions on properties on the coast or near borders, but with this year’s elections again any chance of reform seems hidden away again. And as I wrote on Fideicomiso before – I don’t think there is much chance of this bank and finance cash-cow to be stolen away from the big guys – at least not in our life-times.

Make no mistake – BANKS LOVE THESE TRUSTS. They put your title into a safety deposit box and charge you anywhere from US$450 to 750 depending on the state and then they pocket that fee – every year -  without doing any work – for 50 years! Not pretty – but what you get in return can be very pretty.

Perhaps we can get all the foreign owners to start to complain. And some of you may have a better understanding of lobbying and pressuring congressmen and some of you may slowly start to understand and even to become adept at – the grinding slow nature of the Mexican political process.  Maybe we can get the fees reduced by SRE and the banks? I don’t have an answer really.

At the end of the day – this is a popular article in the Mexican constitution and changing it for our sake is probably not going to happen. If you think the Mexican people have some influence over the process of legislating – compare that to the influence the banks have over the same process.

So – let me tell you – I’ve been involved in about 40 fideicomiso set-ups and purchases. Do my clients lament every year that the fee goes into the hands of the banks? Maybe some of them do. I can think of one client who cried when she saw the view from her balcony and – she told me while laughing at the same time – “I keep crying everytime I see the ocean from here.” She’ll pay US$450 for every year she enjoys that view, and there are some other added costs. There’s some headaches with learning Spanish and some confusion here and there at the pharmacy or with a payment that needs to be sent back home. None of it comes anywhere near to what she was paying – in money and headaches – to hold onto the house where she raised 2 kids in Minnesota.

None of the purchases I watched were dirty nor difficult though I have witnessed quite a few tricks that made things a lot more pleasant and faster for the people I was working with.

And that is where I start to answer questions every time I sit down here…
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