| | |  Puerto Vallarta Real Estate | June 2009 
Guanajuato Real Estate: Buy on Impulse or Rent and Have a Look Around! - Part 4
 Doug Bower - PVNN
The Convenience Factor
Another issue, among many, you have to consider when deciding whether to rent or to buy first is The Convenience Factor. If you impulse-buy the first house that you fall in love with, you need to know something.
Depending on where you live in Mexico, you may have quite a surprise in store for you in terms of convenience.
Where we live, Guanajuato, life is vastly different from life almost anywhere in the United States. Guanajuato is more like a small town in northern Italy or Spain. It was not constructed with the idea of cars and parking in the minds of its builders.
In America, when you want to "run to the store" for a carton of milk, you can just hop into the car and have your trip over and done with in less than 20 minutes. There is a driveway in which to park your car and maybe even a garage with an automatic door opener. There is parking in front of the 7-11. This is what modern America has become.
In Mexico, in many places where real estate is currently very affordable and thus attractive to Americans, you will rarely find this convenience. To "run to the store" for a carton of milk is a major event that can take up to an hour or more.
In the areas of Mexico that seem to be attracting the current onslaught of American Gringos, you will not be able simply "to run down to anywhere." First, there is virtually no parking.
In Guanajuato, we have a newer Barrio called San Javier. There, many houses have driveways in which to park your car. In the rest of the city, the houses are built on the street. You open your front door and you are on the street. If there just happens to be parking on the street in front of your house, then you put you car there - if you're lucky - and never, ever, move it for as long as you both shall live. To do so means the space will be taken and the new car inhabiting YOUR spot will be there, conceivably for years.
Only 20% of the streets of the city of Guanajuato are car-accessible. Otherwise, no parking!
I am not making that up.
Parking is just that rare in areas where real estate prices are the most tempting for potential American expats. If you breezed down here for a week and fell in love with a little place, you may or may not have a place to park your car. And, most Americans bring their cars into Mexico when they move here.
Let's say you buy that lovely little Mexican bungalow. Lo and behold, there is a place on the street in front of the house where you can park your gigantic SUV. So, you are here, moved in with all your stuff, and you decide to "run down to the store" for something. The chances of that parking space being there when you return are next to nothing. The chances of there being a parking place at the store where you are going to "run down to" also approximates zero. Unless you plan on always shopping at the one and only Supermarket that may exist in your little Mexican town, you will find no parking places anywhere close to the store.
You cannot just "run down to the store" to grab something quickly. It doesn't work that way in the towns where you can still get a good deal on some property. If we want to "run down to the store," we have to walk, take the bus, or a cab. To get back, if we are too tired to carry the groceries, we have to take the bus or take a cab.
We know many retired and expatriate couples here in Guanajuato who have cars. No self-respecting American would ever be caught without his or her automobile... right?
One couple has to pay up to $60.00 a month to park their car in one of the few parking lots here. You have to pay to park in all the lots in town. All are very expensive. To go anywhere in their car, they have to walk, take a bus, or a cab to the parking lot. This one happens to be too far away to walk, so they have to take a cab each time to get to the lot. Then, they have to go where it is they want to go, come back, repark their car, and cab home.
What sense does that make is all I am saying!
Suggestions
Learn Spanish. You have the biggest advantage against being "taken" if you can read and write Spanish. Learn Spanish like your pocketbook depends on it.
Be willing to live outside downtown or El Centro.
Don't use just any realtor. Go with someone associated with A.M.P.I. - The Mexican Association of Realtors. This is the equivalent in America to "N.A.R.," The National Association of Realtors or the Canadian, "C.R.E.A.," The Canadian Real Estate Association.
Doug Bower is the author of "A Walk Through Mexico's Crown Jewel: A Guanajuato Travelogue," (available at Amazon.com) and lives with his wife of 26 years in Guanajuato, Gto, Mexico. He can be reached at mexican-living-guanajuato.com. |
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