Archive for December, 2006
We’re seeing a real flurry of Real Estate property listings coming into MexLiving.com. In part, we think this is attributable to the changes that are expected in our system after the new year. But don’t worry, these are improvements not restrictions and we’re sure that both buyers and sellers are going to see a lot more properties, and a lot more ease-of-use from the MexLiving.com listings.
In this kind of post, we sometimes like to highlight the absolute bargains that are still available - houses under $150,000 - because we like thinking about them and we’re sure they’re not available anywhere else. The fantastic condos in the picture here run for just about $270,000, but what a fantastic location, and really, what would you pay for such a home in southern California or Florida?
We’re still polishing our Querétaro pages, but the listings are piling up right now in the San Miguel de Allende section. We’ll move them over to the Querétaro section just as soon as it’s ready but we’ll also be adding a whole slew of new properties as this exciting market starts to heat up. The exciting property pictured above is straddling both markets, a short drive from beautiful colonial San Miguel and just a stone’s throw from cosmopolitan Querétaro. US$160,000.
That’s just the beginning too. We’ve been looking at houses and the whole market, and part of what we’re still working on is the fact that there is so much to see in and around Querétaro. The property at right, also just outside Querétaro is again just US$160,000. More photos are available in the listing.
As we wrote above, we’re excited about this new Featured Location and about a bunch of others coming in the New Year. We’ll be adding, Acupulco, Manzanilla and Loreto over the next several weeks. But we’re also making it easier for Home-sellers and Builders to get information on their properties out to you. If you have any questions about these properties or about Moving to Mexico generally, just drop us a line. Of course, we’ll be happy to hear from you.
December 29th, 2006
The staff at Livtopia sends wishes that your holiday weekend was pleasant and peaceful and that the rest of the week and the New Year to come are also. Moving to Mexico, many of us realized long ago, has a lot of advantages and among these is the incredible stress-free lifestyle that so many of us and our Mexican neighbors enjoy. That’s why this article from the Associated Press was no real surprise.
When asked, “In general, how often do you experience stress in your daily life?” just 15 percent of Mexicans answered “frequently” — a far lower stress level than in the other countries polled: Australia, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, South Korea and the U.S.
The authors speculate on some reasons, but we suspect it is Mexico’s fantastic beauty and sensitivity to the good things in life that make life here worth investigating. And we just keep investigating. We hope you’ll join us in the New Year.
December 26th, 2006
The staff at Livtopia, MexRetire.com and MexLiving.com would like to wish you the very best this holiday season. We appreciate your visiting our web-pages and taking the time to let us hear from you over the past year. Christmas in Mexico, perhaps like Christmas everywhere, is a time for togetherness and families and also a time to reach out and wish the warmest to everyone you meet and everyone you know. And frequently, we are surprised and delighted to see the better side of humanity, not only on display, but put good to use with acts of generosity and kindness that are only too rare in today’s world.
We’ve been talking to people all year about the benefits of relocating to Mexico and the warm, congenial atmosphere and the memories that Mexico helps to evoke in so many of us. Often times, we hear that Mexico celebrates Christmas the way a lot of us used to celebrate. Sure, there are lights and parades, but Mexican Christmas just won’t shake its many traditions. And a lot of us find that especially comforting when so many of our other traditions are swept up in the news of the day. Without much snow, and with very little ice, the Mexican holidays pass with festivity that is purely Mexican, heartwarming and that reaches out to you no matter where you are. And that is what we’d like to do, too.
We’re excited that the New Year will allow us to bring news from new and different places all over Mexico, like Querétaro, Vera Cruz and Loreto. We’ll even be going to Panama and tackling a whole new set of questions and answers about one of the world’s best loved retirement destinations with a whole new web-site.
And the more new homes we help people settle into, the more Mexico feels like home, a home filled with excitement and joy for the coming year, and with thanks for the year gone by. We hope you will visit MexRetire.com again and let us know your interests and your hopes for the coming year. With thanks for all the kind words we’ve received, for all the confused inquiries and excited hopes we’ve helped with, we’ve been grateful throughout the past year to hear from all of you.
December 22nd, 2006
We’re going to file this one under humor. The South African Independent Online is reporting, or re-reporting news from the Archdiocese of Guadalajara’s Semanario newspaper, that the Archodiocese is not happy with Santa’s habits around the holidays. According to the article the archdiocese is asking:
“What happened to his mitre, his sacred vestments and his consecrated hands blessing the devoted?” […] Today, he is represented “as a fat clown, with the chapped cheeks of a heavy beer drinker, the big stomach of a bon vivant, the nose of a drunk” and the “boots of a gendarme”, the article said.
The article concludes with quotes from a few children of the diocese who confirm that Santa has not replaced the true meaning of Christmas.
For the record, retirees to Mexico should be forewarned that in Mexican shopping malls one is far more likely to stricken by the relatively campy appearance of young men trying to depict the Three Kings of biblical lore. Shamefacedly making their way about shopping malls wearing long dresses and fake beards, it is they who hear the wishes of Mexican children and not any fat beer-guzzling Santa.
The image above is available as a figurine from Christmas-Treasures.com.
December 21st, 2006
We’re putting the finishing touches on Querétaro, the next of our Featured Locations of terrific places to Retire in Mexico. And there’s truly lots to be said about Querétaro as a retirement location. Querétaro is one of those unique, relatively big cities that could almost fit somewhere in Arizona or Nevada. For many visitors, at first sight, it is the last thing you’d think a Mexican city might look like. From a distance you might spot a colonial church spire, but more likely your eye will be caught by the shiny, almost brash, modern shopping centers and office buildings that line the near perfect inner-city expressways.
Still this is not Tucson. Your editor was once turned away from the tortilla line at a Querétaro Mega supermarket on Christmas Eve, with hungry family in the car. Just too many people buying tortillas. Right outside though, an independent tortilleria was quickly able to load us up with a good kilo of tortillas, still warm, wrapped in clean paper. At 9:30 PM, Christmas was saved.
Querétaro is relatively new at welcoming foreign retirees, vacationers and second home seekers, but it has been one of Mexico’s largest recipients of internal Mexican migrants. They, like plenty of people, are attracted by the city and state’s rock solid economy, high-tech businesses and the sound management of the city that keeps it clean with good working schools and services. We’ll be writing more about Querétaro as the next few weeks pass and we get ready to start talking about the amazing real estate. You won’t believe some of the houses springing up there.
December 19th, 2006
Flores de Noche Buena, or Flowers of the Holy Night. Most of us have known them all our lives, and they are just one more of those special things that come to us from Mexico. Like a lot of those things, like the word “mustang,” or even chocolate, their origin is something we might take for granted or hardly think of. Once we get to thinking about Mexico, though, it is hard not to see how its beautiful culture and history affect us every day.
The Paul Ecke Ranch, one of the US’s leading growers, have both a concise history and a version of the legend of these beautiful flowers that have come to be such a big part of Christmas all over the world. Their origin, of course, is in the very south of Mexico and in places further south in Central America, though they grow now from Africa to Hawaii.
Lots of good information is available for those who’d like to investigate this seemingly mysterious Christmas guest a little further. Start with the facts page at the Poinsettia Pages, and continue with their excellent FAQ page for some tips on care and keeping Poinsettias. Getting Poinsettia’s to bloom again next Christmas is trickier than it looks, and requires totally darkness between 5 PM and 8PM between October and the end of November. And don’t worry, they’re not poisonous.
As Poinsettias are named, in the US, for the first American Ambassador to Mexico, Joel Roberts Poinsett, we hope this year, at Christmas, you’ll consider them just one more of Mexico’s Ambassadors - to you.
December 19th, 2006
The launch of Livtopia-Panama, we’re pleased to announce, is on schedule for mid-January of 2007. We’re putting in all the same hard-to-get information and styling the site after the two sites we have had so much success with; MexRetire.com and MexLiving.com. Livtopia-Panama already has loads of up-to-date information on the best communities and existing developments, homes and condominium across Panama’s nine provinces. To retire in Panama, you should have inside scoops on how to take advantage of Panama’s generous deals for retiring seniors. These deals, special visas with terrific tax status and discounts are making moving to Panama easy and affordable. In fact, Panama is quickly becoming one of the world’s top destinations for retirement. We’re working right now at programming and Q-&-A-ing the site so that everything is perfect for the big launch in just a few weeks time.
Never heard of it? Never gave it a thought? We’ve been back and forth between HQ and Panama City and locations across the isthmus a dozen times, turning over the minute details of the best places and the most relaxing, fun and adventure-filled locations. We’re putting together stories on islands that cost less than a Miami condominium, and working with lawyers to make sure that you get the best information, clean and easy to understand. Panama’s currency is the US dollar, and it won’t cost you one of them to get a head-start with the Panama Tourism Institute. They have a lot of great pictures and ideas for planning your vacation or exploratory trip (they lent us the picture below), and of course, you can call on us at Livtopia if you’d like a few secrets for planning a trip even before we launch next month.
December 18th, 2006
According to the US State Department website the rules are set to change:
Beginning January 23, 2007, ALL persons, including U.S. citizens, traveling by air between the United States and Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda will be required to present a valid passport, Air NEXUS card, or U.S. Coast Guard Merchant Mariner Document, or an Alien Registration Card, Form I-551, if applicable.
So for those of you who will be buying airplane tickets to visit beautiful Mexico in the next few months, make sure you have a valid passport too. If you’re driving, well you’ve got another year before things change, but it is always safer to have one.
December 14th, 2006
Just a quick note today as we have a lot lined up for the next week and a half. Mexico Highlights has a nice succinct list of differences of social and business interaction which is very useful for those considering retiring in Mexico, or for those interested in spending time in Mexico. Greetings and Tipping and how late to show up for lunch are covered. We’ve covered a lot of these differences at one time or another, both at MexRetire.com and here in the blog, but this quick list makes review and comparison easy.
Keep an eye here, as the Mexican Christmas festivities are just getting started.
December 14th, 2006
Tomorrow is one of the most important feast days in all of Mexico. The Virgin of Guadalupe is much more than a saint or even a religious figure, but is the true symbolic mother of all Mexicans, religious or not, in Mexico, and all over the world. To understand her role in Mexico, is to understand a great deal about the Mexican mind, ethos, and understanding of the world.
As the second in our series about Christmas celebrations in Mexico, we wanted to share with you a couple of good articles on the celebrations and on the Virgin of Guadalupe herself. The first is this excellent summary from Antencion San Miguel by Maria Teresa Valenzuela that provides back-up on the pre-hispanic goddesses and celebrations surrounding them and those surrounding the Virgin and the celebrations of today.
Click on Cuernavaca also has a nice summary more specific to their area, and to the Mexico City basilica that has become a huge site for pilgrims. And clear to the south the Working Gringos at Yucatan Living have an excellent post (from which comes this photo) on the altar building, bicycle processions, promesas and feasting that make this part of Mexico so special and unique.
Brenda and Roy have written a more down to Earth account of what your experience of the celebrations might be like, complete with more stunning photographs of some of the happenings in and around Guaymas, Mexico. And that reminded us a little of this quote from the incomparable Octavio Paz:
The solitary Mexican loves public celebrations and meetings. Everything can be a reason to gather. Any excuse will do to interrupt the march of time and celebrate with parties and ceremonies, men and facts. We are a people of rituals. […] During the days before and after December 12th, time stops its race, makes a stop and instead of pushing us to an always unreachable and lying tomorrow, it offers us a round and perfect present, of dancing and parties, of communion and eating with the oldest and deepest of Mexico. Time stops being a continuous and returns to be what it was, and is, originally: a present where past and future finally reconcile.
December 11th, 2006
This is the first in a series of surveys we’re doing over the next several weeks to bring you the best web sites concerning Mexican Christmas and the many traditions and wonderful festivities you’ll find all across Mexico.
VisitOaxaca is a hotel industry group that’s put together one of the most comprehensive pages on the whole range of festivities and celebrations that follow through the end of the year in Oaxaca. Oaxaca is famous for it’s unique culture and the many traditions, rituals and processions that make the city and state among the most beloved, not just in Mexico but the world over. Although, the “Calenda” already began on December 6th and 10th with announcements of the festivities to celebrate the Virgin of Guadalupe, the variety of things to see and do won’t stop until December 31st with the The Night of the Petition, or the “Noche del Pedimento.” They’ve also included a list of church services. As the Christmas in Oaxaca page puts it: “…one of the reasons that people travel to Oaxaca during the season; not to escape Christmas, but to find it.”
December 10th, 2006
Writing a blog about Retiring in Mexico and Retiring Abroad is not always an easy task. Sometimes we find ourselves in the tough position of trying to speak the truth in spite of a lot of strong misconceptions. There is no shortage of negative and often downright false information about how Mexico’s economy is holding up. So it is a big shot in the arm when we see news like this article from the LA Times. According to Dickerson:
Indeed, Mexico is enjoying glad economic tidings in 2006 unlike anything it has seen in years. Core inflation and interest rates remain relatively low. The peso is stable. High oil prices have left tax coffers flush with extra cash. The economy is projected to expand about 4.5% this year, the best showing since 2000. […]
Services and retail have performed well this year, but one of the most watched industries is manufacturing. Although Mexico’s maquiladora export factories have been battered by stiff competition from Asia, the sector has rallied this year, adding nearly 77,000 jobs through August, government figures show. […]
A government-led mortgage program has spurred home building on the outskirts of Mexico City and other big metro areas. But it’s not the only factor fueling the rise. Pent-up demand for upscale housing has triggered an explosion of loft development in Mexico City as well as vacation homes for U.S. baby boomers in the coastal areas. Billions in construction contracts poured into Cancun this year to rebuild the Caribbean resort, which was pummeled by Hurricane Wilma in October 2005.
Tom Budniak, a realtor in the Mayan Riviera area, wrote a very reassuring assessmnent of the overall political situation just a few days ago and that, too seems well worth a read. His sense was that the stability of the country held up very well even under considerable pressure and hasn’t affected the market in slightest.
Driving around any of Mexico’s cities or resort and tourist areas, the number of cranes silhouetted against the sky can be overwhelming as construction strives to keep up with demand. And all of these areas are filled with people doing the building, people laying the roads and selling the houses. We see our part as just another in a vibrant, growing, changing economy, where your investment will be as stable and solid as any you make in the US or Canada. In Mexico, we see hope paying off everyday.
December 7th, 2006
It’s no secret that Guanajuato is among our favorite Featured Locations, and one of the most under-rated retirement destinations anywhere. A truly gnarled, magical city, it has more nooks and crannies and crooked alleys than anything this side of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. It’s also affordable, fantastic and well worth serious consideration by those who want to re-invent themselves in a second home or a retirement that is guaranteed to re-invent the retiree.
So we’ve been wondering when Doug Bower’s column would resume at the American Chronicle. This week he is finally back with on-the-ground knowledge of the many fascinating neighborhoods of Guanajuato, just the kind of information that has made his writing an invaluable guide to the area. Here he takes to the task of delineating and exploring just about all the neighborhoods of the city most popular with foreigners, recommending some that are much less well known, and telling point-blank the advantages of each. Frankly, we’ve not seen a more concise and thoughtful guide to living in the city anywhere in print or on the internet. He even extends his reach into the surrounding towns and nearby cities such that sublime, isolated Guanajuato seems not so alone after all.
One thing to consider if you’re planning a visit, do bring lots of film. Or if your camera is digital, take along some extra memory. Guanajuato is a riot of picturesque corners and plazas and houses that pile on top of each other. Really, it is unlike any city in the Americas.
We can hardly get through a blog post without loading up a few more photos, just to try to give you an idea. To the right is one of Guanajuato’s exemplary, odd street corners. These are the kinds of places that can fill every day with poetry, and make any life a lot more exceptional. Guanajuato is affordable, beautiful, and perfect for the contemplative and the adventurous. Exotic without ever being too much, or too far away.
December 5th, 2006
Finding the right Medical Care in Mexico is not nearly as difficult as you might imagine.
One of the biggest concerns we hear about from people considering retirement in Mexico, or pretty much anywhere, is how to find the right doctor. Like anywhere else, retirees and those with second homes in Mexico rely first on word of mouth and personal referrals. “But I don’t know anyone!” Of course, at MexRetire.com we’re happy to find English speaking caregivers right in your new area. We can usually do so in a matter of minutes and we’re sure you’ll be happy with the results.
We realize, also, that many, many of the retirees we talk to get involved in the email newsletters and internet groups that allow residents and those planning a move to exchange information and keep an online database of truly useful local knowledge, all of it compiled by people in the area. Almost every city in our Featured Locations has a community of people using the internet to exchange information of the most important kind, and sometimes to make new friends and just settle in, at ease with the knowledge that plenty of people are going through the same things. We’ll be happy to refer you to what we consider the best of these user groups, if you’d like to start getting to know the people in your area, and to tap into their considerable knowledge. Just drop us a line at the Customer Service window. Most of these groups have a searchable archive of information, and allow you to query members in your new area. You’ll almost always receive a handful of personal, informative and concerned replies.
Of course, we also help all the time with personal health insurance, providing quotes from our insurance broker, and a good deal of the MexRetire.com website is dedicated to easing concerns and providing general information on finding a doctor. We survey a lot of information and news related to retirement in Mexico and are always pleased that the availability, quality and affordability of medical care is nearly always high on the list of advantages to retirement here. This Time Magazine piece from last weekend is no exception:
Does Medicare coverage follow you there?
No. But Mexico has–perhaps surprisingly to Americans–an excellent medical system. Medical care can be a tenth of the price of care in the States. Doctors make house calls. They give you their cell-phone numbers. I had skin cancer, and it was treated completely and professionally for $60.
We try to make all the information we pass onto you as personalized and useful as possible. To that end we’ll refer you to Brenda of Brenda and Roy Going to Mexico, writing on her Visit to the Doctor. Brenda reflects perfectly the light-hearted and easy going nature that is so much a part of life in Mexico. Always a gardener first, her blog is a real pleasure in allowing the reader to witness first-hand how good is life in Guaymas, even while blogging about the minor upsets, life’s challenges, and the differences between a doctor in Canada and in Mexico.
December 4th, 2006
We’re working on adding more information on Real Estate in Huatulco, buying condos or houses in Huatulco and information for people hoping to move to Huatulco. In the meantime, check MexRetire.com for more information, and for the most wonderful properties in Huatulco, check MexLiving.com.
December 2nd, 2006
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