Am I ready to buy a house in Mexico?
Before you start the journey of purchasing a house in Mexico, you will come up with the question, am I ready to buy a home in Mexico? Well, the majority of this depends on your financial situation.
The purchase of the house can be seen not just for your need to have a place to sleep or live. But it also can be looked at as an investment.
Therefore, if you have the liberty to purchase a house in Mexico, you depend on maybe two or three main factors. One of them is where the house is, according to my work, and where my kids go to school. Depending on those, you’re probably limited, and sometimes you might be unable to invest in the best market.
Investing in rental properties?
However, if you have a little more liberty, you might be able to focus on areas with a lot of growth potential and new jobs, which creates even more demand for a property. So when you look at it as a business, you choose depending on the location, price, and finances.
So, if you invest in growing areas, vacation rentals are a little riskier, but you also have a lot more potential to create even 40% more rental revenue than if you go with conservative year-long or long-term rentals. Therefore if you are purchasing for rental vacation rental purposes, that’s what most Americans and Canadians are investing in international real estate. They’re keeping a close eye on being able to rent the property.
In 2022, I recommend investing or having part of your wealth into real estate, especially if you’re analyzing where you invest your wealth and if you want to diversify or change your strategies a bit according to the changing in the economy.
There are a lot of opportunities available for some countries like the USA and Canada, where you can take advantage of some outstanding financial loans with attractive interest rates.
Now it’s not so much available in Mexico so it would depend on the finances. Suppose you have extra money and want to invest in the most attractive real estate locations to put your money into. It is a powerful tool to hedge against inflation during high inflation time.
Single-family house in Mexico or condo
Buying a property to live or retire depends on the size of your family and your interests and hobbies. However, if you want to rent it, either for the time you are not there or as a vacation or long-term rental, you have to talk to property managers in the area. And they can give you a good idea of where high demand is upon or where there’s a low supply.
That should guide you on whether you want to buy a single-family house or a condo for rental purposes. The difference between a condo and a single-family house in Mexico is mostly who you want to rent your property to.
If you’re looking to rent families, a house will be more appealing because they can accommodate better their whole family there than in a small condo.
However, if you’re looking to rent to couples without kids, then condos are usually a little bit easier to rent out that an entire house. So here the question is, should you rely a lot on the rental?
Where do I want to live in Mexico?
One of the first things you must do is look at your last five years and see what type of hobbies you enjoy doing on the weekends and let that be your guide of what you should be looking for regarding the area. Where do you want to buy in and retire or live your winter months?
Some people love the beaches. They love to see them and hear the waves or take walks on the beach. Therefore, you want to focus your search on the coastal cities.
Some people love and live with the idea of viewing mountains or living alongside the lake. The most popular areas for buying a house in Mexico near the mountains or lakes would be San Miguel de Allende, Lake Chapala, and Oaxaca city.
Not all of those have mountain views, but many have a lake or smaller lakes within the cities.
Then as you’re looking at the type of hobbies like tennis you like golfing and tennis playing you can do that practically in any city, and that depends more on the house and the community’s infrastructure where you will buy.
Which weather to choose?
Now the other factor you need to put into consideration is the weather. In Mexico, starting from the South, you have the beachfront you do have humidity is a factor of life, so you have to evaluate if you can live with that or if that’s something that you definitely don’t want to be involved with.
Then maybe look into drier coastal areas such as La Paz and Cabo San Lucas. You won’t have the same humidity that you would find in Quintana Roo. A little bit in between along the coast would be Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, and Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca. In those zones, it’s not as humid as you would find down in the southeastern part, but you do have humidity, Although most of it is perfect when you’re living along the coast or near the beach with the winds flowing by.
Now some people love spring-like weather all year long as close as possible and places like San Miguel de Allende, Lake Chapala, and the capital of Oaxaca.
Some sites are more inland and further North those would be popular areas for retirement. Merida is extremely popular, a hot zone off the coast, so there’s a lot of humidity and heat, but people also enjoy that.
Valle de Bravo is another area that people go to. Some places close to the mountains and lakes can get very chilly in the evenings, during the winter and spring. So much so that most properties have chimneys to keep their homes warm.
Thus, a wide variety of temperatures should be one of the factors you evaluate when choosing where to live and what city in Mexico you want to set up a winter house in Mexico or retire or for investment.
What would be the difference between a new, a presale, and a resale?
Let’s address first the new one. What’s positive about it is that it is brand new. No one’s ever lived in it before, and you get to be the first to use it.
The negative would be that maybe you do have some issues with unseen items that have not become noticed. Maybe a leak has not been discovered and starts showing up after about three months. Those could be a few things you need to prepare for.
The advantages of buying a house in Mexico on a presale are that if you’re the first one buying, you can choose from the different options—for instance, a good location.
Maybe you like the penthouse, a corner unit of a building, or the lot in front of the park. So buying in presale, you have the opportunity to be the first one and to choose the best location within the community.
Another good thing about presale is that, sometimes, you can modify the condo or the house according to your wishes and dreams.
Maybe you just love a huge walking closet, and if you approach the developer at the right time before the constructor starts to put in the walls and furnishings, you might be able to adjust it.