 |
|
|
Why didn’t we buy in Ajijic when we lived there? We’re still asking ourselves the same question. Instead of renting for a year, we should have bought immediately, even if we weren’t planning to spend the rest of our lives there. In hindsight, we believe that just a year later we could easily have sold almost any presentable property we’d bought in Ajijic for at least a 10% to 20% profit. Instead, we threw our money down a hole paying rent. Live and learn. Looking For The Dog House After deciding on San Miguel for our first purchase, we had another consideration to take into account—Jack, our large Labrador, with the personality of a precocious 5-year-old. Aside from a burning desire for our almost constant, undivided attention, he also needs a big yard to roam around in and protect. That eliminated the downtown area of San Miguel, where yard space is hard to come by at a reasonable price. Fortunately, there’s a lot more to San Miguel de Allende than El Centro. We started our search in the outlying neighborhoods where properties with large outdoor spaces are more common. It took only three days of searching before we found what we were looking for. Our friend and real estate agent, Lane Simmons, took us to Los Frailes, a colonia (neighborhood) on the southwest side of town. Los Frailes has its share of enormous and elaborate showcase homes, but most are inhabited by middle-class Mexicans and expats in solidly constructed contemporary family homes. Los Frailes isn’t within comfortable walking distance of downtown, but it’s quiet, well maintained, spacious, and offers some reasonably priced properties. We found our house on a street called Privada Candelaria. Lane told us it had about 5,000 square feet of land inside the walls and a house of about 2,500 square feet of construction under roof. (Like many Latin American countries, square footage of construction means everything “under roof,” including carports, patios, storage areas, and permanent palapas.) Before we entered, Lane also told us the asking price—US$155,000. For that much space at such a reasonable price, we didn’t know what to expect. We had visions of a large patch of overgrown grass and a dilapidated “money pit” that would need serious renovation. As soon as
we walked in through the street entrance, we knew we’d found what we were
looking for.
A Blank Canvas Lots of yard—this house had that. We could see Jack having a good time running around the pomegranate, lime, palm, bamboo, and other trees and plants the previous owner had added to the yard’s landscape. And they looked good—they had been freshly planted and looked tiny in the huge yard, but Lane assured us that in six months they’d grow so much that we wouldn’t recognize them. The house was solidly build in the local style—a framework of poured, rebar-reinforced torres or towers, floors and ceilings, with walls filled in with brick and mortar and faced with concrete. The classic Mexican clay tiles on the roof were more for looks than weather proofing—it was truly a three-story concrete-block house, solid as they come. Inside was a blank slate waiting for us to rearrange it to our liking. A large porch led into the main living/dining room and smallish kitchen with a separate storage room behind it. Stairs then led down to two bedrooms with a shared bath, up to two more bedrooms with a shared bath, and up again to a third bedroom with it’s own bath. Five full bedrooms, three full baths—Suzan and I could each have an office, and we’d still have two bedrooms left over for family and friends. We could tell there’d be some rearranging to do. Many kitchens in larger Latin American homes are surprisingly small to U.S. eyes (because it’s the housekeeper or cook, not the lady of the house, who typically spends most time there). That would have to be expanded and rearranged, since Suzan and I are used to spending as much time cooking and entertaining in the kitchen as anywhere else in the house. The porch needed a roof, which would expand the useable year-around space adjacent to the living room by almost 50%. Tiles needed replacing, walls needed painting, and the permanently installed concrete bed platforms had to be removed…but as a first project, the house was an almost perfect blank canvas. We made an offer on the spot. $152,000. The seller accepted the next day. Then it was time to practice what we’d been preaching. It was time to buy a house in Mexico. Tune in next month, when we’ll tell you about the ins and outs of our property purchase…and our renovation process. We’re holding our next Live and Invest in Mexico Seminar July 18 to 20, 2005, in our hometown—beautiful San Miguel de Allende, the heart of Mexico’s magnificent Central Highlands. We’ll spend two intense days giving you the knowledge, information, and contacts you’ll need to make your Mexico dreams come true. For more information, e-mail Patricia Goltry at confrerences@internationalliving.com. Your man and
woman in Mexico
|
RETIRE
OVERSEAS - Learn about the world's six best
places to live or retire. - Live like royalty on $17 a day. Own an exotic
beachfront getaway for $35,000. Or romantic pied-a-terre for under $60,000.
Enjoy fine restaurant dining for $7 per person. Employ a maid or gardener
for $2 a day. Buy comprehensive health insurance for $20 per month. Get
the details in your FREE report now.
