Before you purchase property in Mexico, consider the following. You purchase a well maintained home located directly on the beach. You close on the property today & let’s assume that all of the paperwork & transaction was legal.
You are anxious to get to your new home that you just invested $500,000.00+ You decide to stop & get a case of cervesa to celebrate when you get home. You leave the store where you bought the beer, forget to signal your turn & the local police notice the US license plate on your car, pull you over & order you to follow them to the police station. You can’t speak Spanish & are subjected to a fine. You notice the cash drawer is full of $US & you see 3 more US cars in the lot. You go home, make a list of items needed for the new house. You look in town & find that what you want is not available or poor quality. You decide to purchase items in the states & rent a vehicle to transport your purchases into Mexico. You arrive at the border & find that the guard who accepts “pay offs” isn’t working, you get harassed, you don’t speak Spanish, so you simply pay the duty of up to 25%. You get to your new home, are exhausted & start to wonder if your Mexico investment was really worth the trouble but keep a positive attitude & move in. While you were gone, there was a sand storm & your patios are full of sand, your new home is full of dust so you clean. You are a mechanical engineer so you attempt to do all of your maintenance yourself. After 1 year your patio tile need to be sealed to keep the environment from lifting the surface. You replace the rusted rollers on your patio doors. You notice rust on your water heater, a/c & anything made of metal inside your home. The outside will need to be scraped, power washed, primed and painted with 2 coats of paint. In 2 years plan on repeating the process. In 3 years the water heater is rusted & needs to be replaced. In 5 to 7 years the heating & a/c equipt. will need to be replaced. If you are not connected to the government’s power grid, plan to maintain your generator, solar panels, inverters & batteries. For contact with the outside world the only choice is satellite internet, phone service & television. The initial cost is expensive & you will more than likely have to contact a US co. that is able to “smuggle” the equipment into Mexico & do the installation. You work hard, keep your home well maintained in & out. You notice that termites have moved in & eating everything that contains wood such as structural supports, doors, windows & furniture. You call 3 termite companies before you find one that knows what a termite is. You tell them to treat the property & they inform you that they can’t offer warranty as termites are such a major problem in the area. While you are in the states, your paid security guard knows that you are gone & totally strips your property including the a/c & water heater. You are so frustrated that you sell your property at a huge loss & get out of Mexico. Should you purchase a condo, association fees are high & you are not guaranteed that the fees will not go up. You are subject to special assessments if additional repairs are needed. Personal property taxes are low but don’t forget the federal zone tax, beach tax, concession tax, yearly renewal of your FM3, insurance, high utilities & annual renewal of a Bank Trust. There is no mail delivery. You are responsible to see that all of the above are addressed on time or be subjected to stiff penalties. If you drive a car in Mexico, it must have Mexican insurance. If you are in an accident, your car could be impounded & you may have trouble recovering it. If your car is near the ocean for a long period of time, it will start rusting. This information is totally based on actual experience. If you can’t do all of the work yourself, you can’t afford to invest in Mexico. Mexico
