As part of my ongoing research for retirement abroad, I recently went on a trip to Mexico to explore the country, real estate and lifestyle living. This won’t be a comprehensive post but a high level summary of the pros and cons that I documented.
Real Estate
The area I visited is up and coming and has received rave reviews from many expats around the world. The real estate where I searched had a strange juxtaposition of old cinder block houses with new modern high rise condos and apartments. The prices of real estate span from a low of tens of thousands of US dollars to millions of dollars for ultra high end luxury. There is certainly something available at every price range and the low cost condos in new build communities are excellent value.
One thing is clear, there is huge investment being made in this part of the country and large sections of the city are already fully “Americanized” complete with every American storefront from Home Depot, H.E.B., Auto Zone, Starbucks, Dairy Queen, Burger King, McDonalds, KFC, Walmart, Sams, Costco and more.
Lifestyle Living
Beyond the American brands, there are many Asian and European brands everywhere. The population is multi-cultural and multi-lingual. I was surprised to see so many Americans, Indians and Europeans living and working in this part of Mexico.
Pros
The cost of food is about 1/3 the cost of U.S. so that’s a huge win. The same goes for entertainment options although it’s certainly possible to find high prices as well. I passed several high end auto dealerships including an Audi dealer. BYD also had a dealership in the area.
Cons
The largest con for me is the poorly design of the city which requires a car. The traffic was bad and being a forward looking person, in 5 to 10 years the traffic issues in this city will be a total nightmare.
There is no train or mass transit infrastructure being built in the city as far as I could tell and I want to minimize my car use in retirement or not have a car at all if possible.
Safety
Throughout our entire stay, none of us on the trip felt unsafe although we did practice basic prudent postures such as not wearing flashy jewelry and avoiding isolated areas. There was a police presence in most of the city center and most areas were very similar to what you would expect anywhere in the U.S.
There are several areas with ATM hubs which had 5 or 6 ATM machines and hordes of people pulling money and not a single incident of robbery. I was even dumb enough to leave my ATM card at one of the machines and a young man ran after me to hand it back to me.
Summary
Mexico is definitely an option. I will explore a few other recommended areas that included the features we were looking for such as mass transit and closer proximity to major amenities such as shopping, dining and entertainment.
If you’re wondering why I don’t mention the name of the city or area. it’s because it’s an area that is under serious consideration and I don’t want to encourage more people following me down to the area which results in driving the cost of real estate up. I may opt to buy a condo and AirBnB it in the meantime before we move in a few years. If and when we make a final decision, I will update this post.