All Forum Posts by: Trudy Pachon

@Esmeralda Casas-Silva Right on about South county! My sister lives in an area called Eastlake in Chula Vista and she loves it. Great schools, really nice houses, good prices too. She chose to live there because of the schools, mostly, but she also could afford a gorgeous house there which wasn't happening in other areas. 

Oaxaca is great. We really like it here. Mi espanol va mas o menos. Tengo mucho que aprender, pero lo lograre. We are updating the house and we will rent it out. It needs some serious work, but it's fun fixing it up, sort of! We won't make a ton, but a little money. We have two Air b and bs on the property, so we'll be renting those out when we live there. So far the regulations are pretty lax. We shall see and I will share any new info! 

Hope your container project goes well. I will be following! 

We love the vibe of Oaxaca with the art, culture, and food here. We also love the people here. The climate is pretty good as well. Very warm during the day and cool at night. Not a ton of bugs, and easy to live here with all the conveniences. Water is a problem though, and we'll see how all that pans out. For now, we are pretty happy with it! We don't like the beach and Mexico City is too much city for us. 

We just got done signing our paperwork. The translator literally read every word in the contract for payments for us. Now we're trying to figure out how to fix the place up and get it rented. Mucho trabajo! 

San Diego to Oaxaca Mexico. 2120 miles. We're trying the STR thing in the house here. We're going to live here eventually. In the meantime, hold costs here in Mexico are really low.

We have been self-managing our four units in San Diego for about three years using Tenant Cloud. We bullet-proofed our places before we rented them out, and hardly ever have to fix anything. When we do, we call professionals to fix (water heater went out, had it replaced, stuff like that.). We vet our own tenants personally, because of bad choices property managers have made in the past. Turnover is a pain in the ***, but there are companies that will place tenants for you and manage the move out if you need help with that. 

Tenant Cloud are Cozy are two online systems that are free and make it easy for us. By the way, we are in Mexico currently, and three months ago, we were in SE Asia! 

I would self-manage and if you feel like you need to, you can always hire a property manager again. There's plenty around; they like the 10% they earn on houses in Cali. Seems like you'd only need the PM when you have a tenant move out our have an issue with one, if even then. 

This sounds really interesting! We are buying in Oaxaca, but so far not much to report except the snail's pace on just about everything. 

@Account Closed

Thanks for the question. We want to retire early, and don't want to stress on it, so we had to find low cost and good medical care.

We have been travelling for about one year now on sabbatical and have been checking out places we thought might work for us. SE Asia this time. In previous years we have visited Central and South America and Africa. We kept coming back to Mexico because of proximity to family and friends as well as our deep affection for the country, it's culture, natural beauty, and ease of transition. Oaxaca is a special place where the culture is still intact, despite many foreigners. There are also many Mexicans who vacation here, loads from Mexico City. It's a popular cultural destination, so says Culture Trip! https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/oaxaca-city-tops-list-of-cultural-destinations-for-2019/

@Mike Lambert

Great info! Thanks for your response. 

I can see I need to clarify! I am buying the home in pesos, but converted it for here, so people could understand. It's also not a money play. We are renting it out for the next year or two simply to have someone there and to earn a little bit of money. We had no intention of it needing to follow any rules at all! I put this out there to give a little info to people about buying property in Mexico. I am no expert! I just love Mexico, and hope to share about that. I never see anything about inland Mexico, and especially not Oaxaca. This purchase is going to be my home, and I will also be making a little money off of the STR.

The city center here in Oaxaca is ridiculously overpriced, in my opinion. It's hard to find properties in the city with a nice patio and STR potential for less than around 5 million that are reasonably habitable. We have seen some real losers for loads of money. We scored this one for 3.8 million because it's not in the exact centro historico. I do think it's pricey, but we love it and will be happy there. We can walk to Santo Domingo from our house in 15 minutes and it has a green area in front where we can plant and have a garden. This is hard to find in the city! We plan on making the home as "green" as possible and having an organic garden and fruit trees in front.

I have absolutely no interest in investing on the coast. I spent a lot of time in Tulum and Playa del Carmen in my youth (I'm an old timer!). I backpacked all over Mexico "back in the day". The last time I went to the coast I literally cried at what I saw. Even little Puerto E is getting to the point of being depressing, but I get that things change. It's just the environmental destruction is hard to stomach. It's better for my mental health to remember it the way it was and find new places to play. 

My parents and I used to own a condo in Cantamar, Baja about 35 years ago, way before the fideicomiso system. My family used it for many happy years. We sold it around 2004 after the kids and grandkids were grown and my parents were too old to use it. There were no problems with the sale, and I would say we broke even with inflation.

As far as my house, I didn't have enough cash to pay for it, so I had to convince the owner to carry it for me. She was asking 4.2 million, so I offered the 3.8 with the owner carry for the three years. It was just to buy the property. I couldn't have done it otherwise! I don't plan on selling anytime soon, but I expect with the upgrades the home will hold it's value or increase its value a little bit over time. We will retire there next year or the year after.

Living here in Oaxaca will solve some of our retirement issues since the house will be paid for, and our medical expenses will be very low here. Our living expenses are also super low here, so we can afford a lifestyle here that we couldn't in the states. We love to travel, so we need extra money for our travel "bug" affliction. So, we think it's a good money move for us to have a free and clear home to live in, with a small income from the STR and with virtually zero tax costs. But definitely not a great pure money investment!

Way different goals than you have, but I thought might be worth sharing.

PS Our latest travel blog is at https://gtherewego.com/ 

Thanks so much for sharing! It looks like a nice park. 

@Caleb Richardson

I forgot to mention the weather here. It's one of the biggest reasons we chose Oaxaca. It's very dry, but kind of cool, at least compared to California. We have mountains surrounding the valley where there's pine forest and streams, and then here in the valley, it's warmer but we're at around 1,600 meters, so cooler than other places and not so many bugs (we do have them though!) 

The road to Huatulco and Puerto Escondido is mostly finished, and when it's done it will supposedly take us about 2.5 hours to get to the beach (if it EVER gets done!). Right now it takes us about 6 hours. But the beaches are absolutely stunning! 

We like visiting the beaches but would never want to live there. It's too hot, and too boring. The city life is right for us, and we love all the action here. Movies (actual cinema with indie films, documentaries, etc), art, culture, dancing, fine dining, we even have an opera house! Oh yeah, and the protests and road blocks. There is a lot of civil unrest here, but we support the protesters. It's never boring.