Posts filed under 'Living in Mexico'
It’s another Livtopia Contest! This is merely the starter post; we’ll be sending a Livtopia T-Shirt to the person who leaves the number one reason for Moving to Mexico in the comments section below this post.
We’ve posted similar lists of reasons in the past, like the 7 ways Latin America is more Accessible post from way back and the top ten reasons to consider Vergel de la Pena. But this time we are hoping to hear from more readers about what your own personal best argument or justification is!
- Mexican Culture?
- Mexican Food?
- Mexican Investment Atmosphere?
Whatever your reason is -Just spell out a 5 word, 10 word or 50 word reasoning in the comments section. (if you need 400 words that’ll be ok too.) We’ll compile the best answers into a top ten, then we’ll email the very best commenter (judged by Livtopia Customer Service) and they’ll receive a custom Livtopia T-Shirt (L or XL) in the post.
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June 27th, 2008
With the success of the last couple of Mayan Riviera Discovery Weekends, the powers that be decided to add a second weekend to the month of July. July 26, 27 & 28 they’ll be hosting guests from far in the north of Canada and plenty of places even closer at hand.
Cancun is still one of the most affordable places to fly into in all Mexico - from points all over the US and Canada. And this weekend promises to cover territory from Cancun all the way to Playa del Carmen and to show off some of Mexico’s best loved Caribbean beachfront.
There are some new properties - freestanding houses and condominiums - to be announced early in July and a new tour or two. So this weekend is guaranteed to be a lot of fun!
If Cancun is too much, and even Playa del Carmen can’t float your boat, don’t forget our Mérida weekend is coming up in August too. It can be just as inexpensive to arrive there - especially if you fly through Cancun.
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June 26th, 2008
That’s the new graphic from Livtopia’s Discovery Evening Chicago Page! It’s our first Mexico Discovery Evening in Chicago so we’re going a little extra to make it even more special. All you need to do is register and drop off your business card when you check in.
We’ve planned this special raffle at the same time we’ve been re-locating the event to a bigger and more comfortable meeting room at Rumba to accommodate all of the guests. The chosen winner(s) will fly for free to any of our upcoming “On-the-Ground” Discovery Weekends.
We’re making an extra effort to make sure all the current registrants are aware that the venue has changed but there is still time to sign up! This opportunity for a crash course in all things Mexico (plus some of each of our other countries) will be held at:
Rumba
351 W. Hubbard Street.
Chicago, Illinois 60610
In Downtown Chicago’s Beautiful River North District, on Hubbard and Orleans.
CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE DIRECTIONS.
A previous LWOB post with further information is updated and can be read here.
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June 20th, 2008
Cuernavaca might be a difficult city to visit for the first time. Thousands of people do though. I wonder about their first impressions.
Thousands of Mexico City residents grow up visiting Cuernavaca like it is second nature, every weekend, every other weekend, or a few times a year. And they won’t think twice about the first impression Cuernavaca gives. Familiar enough, they know that beyond the billboards and the traffic, there are thousands of tranquil gardens.
For the first time visitor, it’s nothing like knowing what’s behind all those walls. Cuernavaca is a private place - a refuge and a retreat. And it does seem to turn it’s back on the people in the streets. At least at first.
But Cuernavaca is world-famous. For gardens in court-yards, for fountains and private places that teem with plant-life in the most stunning year-round climate anywhere.
Visiting again this past week, I was happy to see what is not only a booming economy, new housing creeping up the hills on the outskirts of town but golf courses and recreation areas and more and more places appropriate for vacationers, investors and retirees.
We’ve lined up a few of these to visit during the next “On-the-Ground” Discovery Weekend in Cuernavaca. It’s coming up on July 18, 19 & 20, and it will include at least two new, easy access developments perfect for those who get the idea. But for first-timers it also includes a number of stunning re-sale homes, complete with gardens and quirks and character. As well as a visit to Tepoztlan and houses there. That’s the character that Cuernavaca is famous for. Come and find out why.
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May 23rd, 2008
Keeping the perfect vacation home can be an expensive and time consuming part-time job in and of itself. And while many developers now offer property management related services now you can have the complete service no matter how large or small is the development, or even if you purchase entirely outside of a development.
Livtopia’s Concierge has packaged the most important services for those seeking a significant rental income, and those who don’t want to fly into Puerto Vallarta every month to collect the rent.
In addition, they’re able to custom design a contract to provide:
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Accounting & Reporting
Leasing
Utilities Payments
Utilities Contracting
Insurance
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Rental Collection
Re-decoration
Pre-Arrival Provisioning
Property Inspection, Cleaning & Maintenence
Emergency Support
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Our Second and Vacation Homes page has a new breakdown on anticipated expenses and rental incomes with a sample purchase priced at US$300,000. Livtopia’s Concierge Property Management is working now to provide similar budgets for buyers and homeowners in Nuevo Vallarta, Bucerias and Punta Mita, as well as all the places in Puerto Vallarta.
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May 19th, 2008
Perhaps that headline is not quite fair. In fact, this International Herald Tribune article says just about the opposite. It’s still a sleepy back-water, an incredible bargain, and exactly what you hope for in any Caribbean location.
[…]Culebra, a tiny island halfway between St. Thomas and Puerto Rico, still clings hard to its peaceful origins. It’s the kind of place where Carnival and Royal Caribbean don’t visit, the Four Seasons can’t be found, and you really have to work hard to spend more than $200 a night on a hotel room.
We’re working double-time on the database that backs up the homes we’re showing in Puerto Rico. We’ve got condomniums in just about the entire island, and on some of the surrounding islands too, but nothing in Culebra yet. We’ll see how the tiny island fares.
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April 22nd, 2008
Be sure to read Lawrence Downes’ piece in the travel section of the New York Times (from which comes the illustration above. My favorite paragraph:
But Manzanillo then was jungle outpost, a nowhere port town on a two-lane road from Guadalajara. It was a place where a gringo — even a famous novelist gringo accompanied by family and friends, an abundant supply of drugs and an International Harvester school bus covered in Day-Glo paint and blaring music from a sophisticated loudspeaker system — could reasonably expect to hide out for a while.
Interest in Manzanillo remains extremely high. People interested in homes in Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta often mention Manzanillo also, along with better known Pacific Coast locations like Acapulco. But Downes’ access to novelist Robert Stone’s memories makes his article extra special and worth the 3 full pages.
“In the moments after dawn, before the sun had reached the peaks of the sierra, the slopes and valleys of the rain forest would explode in green light, erupting inside a silence that seemed barely to contain it. When the sun’s rays spilled over the ridge, they discovered dozens of silvery waterspouts and dissolved them into smokey rainbows. …
“All of us, stoned or otherwise, caught in the vortex of dawn, would freeze in our tracks and stand to, squinting in the pain of the light, sweating, grinning.
“We called that light Prime Green; it was primal, primary, primo.”
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March 22nd, 2008
With the success of our English Language Blog Roll, we’ve been looking more and more at extending the linking capability that Livtopia.com offers.
March 12th, 2008
Believe it or not, Guadalajara is exactly what a lot of people are looking for. A huge city, yes, but a city that never feels like the over-extended and polluted metropolis. It’s a real treat to be visiting and writing about it again!
Sometimes I tend to think of Guadalajara a bit like Queretaro, in terms of sleek world-class infrastructure surrounding a gem of a colonial city center.
But really Guadalajara like the capital in exhile, Mexico’s second big claim to a world class city. It has all of the advantages of a metropolis, but without the indifference that visitors feel in the capital. Guadalajara is visitor friendly and it’s navigable - you can learn your way around, safely take the metro, it’s clean and and people-friendly. There’s some excellent and pretty comprehensive photos of the city of Guadalajara and the surrounding areas here.
And in addition to the excellent health care system and the all the shopping and the culture, you always find a team of cutting-edge designers, dedicated to sleek, modern-feeling craft and architecture. You might put down one of these houses in cities all around the world, but they feel right at home in Guadalajara. You can visit when ever you like.
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March 11th, 2008
The photo is from this USAToday article on Mexico’s newest Pacific coast get-destination. Maybe it’s not the newest, but the Riviera Nayarit is really coming of age at its own pace.
It appears as though you could glance around that outcropping of rock and see old Puerto Vallarta and Nuevo Vallarta just beyond and down the coast. Of course the coast is a bit bigger than that.
The character of the 20 or so Riviera Nayarit locales varies from bustling to sleepy. The coast begins at Nuevo Vallarta, chockablock with big, all-inclusive resorts 15 minutes north of the Puerto Vallarta airport, and ends at San Blas, whose largest hotel has only 50 rooms. In between lies everything from new ultra-exclusive gated enclaves such as Punta Mita; the ’70s-vintage mass-market resort town of Rincón de Guayabitos; pristine beaches that draw campers, such as Chacala; and fishing villages with growing ex-pat populations, such as Sayulita and San Francisco.
We’re not sure when we’ll offer Riviera Nayarit as a destination in its own right though it’s probably sooner than you might think. Right now our staff in Puerto Vallarta is working on more than a few homes there, in the city itself, and to points both north and south. But our Puerto Vallarta “On-the-Ground” is showing an increasing number of homes, starting in Bucerias and up to the beautiful homes and condos of Nuevo Vallarta to more and more places.
Meanwhile, in various places along the coast, villages whose commerce once revolved around taco stands and auto repair shops have sprouted organic cafes, yoga studios — and hotels for well-heeled travelers who demand such amenities. Nineteen lodgings with more than 4,000 rooms are slated to open by 2011.
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March 7th, 2008
In last week’s newsletter, we announced that throughout the month of June we’re highlighting houses in Cuernavaca, Morelos. Next week, we’ll be announcing exactly why, though the photo above may give you a good idea. You don’t find fixer-uppers like this one every day (click on the photo to enlarge), and we’ll provide details on why it’s a terrific bargain, what more it will cost to finish it, and the considerable amount it will be worth on the day you walk in the door.
From the present owners: The designed is based entirely on construction specifications, lay outs, building materials and techniques used entirely by Spanish builders. Every single item and detail has been crafted by artisans from Morelos and Guerrero, and better than 5 years of labor has already gone into it. With the exception of the roof, the building foundation and main structural beams are steel and reinforced concrete, used to secure it’s engineering design. A masterpiece already, the land lots and layouts were also chosen to secure the best views of the always beautiful Cuernavaca Valley where unique weather conditions make it one of the world’s most perfect climates.
A system of natural cross-air window designs allows the house to always be fresh with the air from the Tzempoala forest. The kitchen and most other parts of the structure are made from stone walls covered with stucco which will allow users to always enjoy a fresh, warm environment, depending of weather conditions. Inside stucco applications and iron-work designs are hand made replicas from colonial buildings. Clay pieces were specially made and brought from Cholula in Puebla.
I’ll update this post when we load up some other pages that will highlight this incredible bargain, and the wonderful life it will certainly lend to the new owners.
But remember, we’re also scheduling Private Real Estate Tours in Cuernavaca and just about everywhere, right through June. There’s never an obligation and you’ll see homes all across Cuernavaca and the surrounding areas including the many small towns that make Morelos one of our favorites.
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March 4th, 2008
This is big news in what’s always a tricky story for those who want to import a car to Mexico. Permanently importing your car took another turn for the worse in Mexico. As of Monday, tomorrow March 3, 2008, you can only import a car from Model Year 1998. That’s presumably until next year when you’ll only be able to import a 1999 model.
According to the AP story linked above, 98 models along the border are suddenly the must-have 2008 cars
It’s a tricky story because until this new law was passed, you still couldn’t ever permanently import a car built outside the NAFTA countries. And permanently importing any car seemed like it was probably a bit tendentious a proposition anyway for many of the readers we talk to here. Your author has done it, and standing around the customs department of the airport for 11 hours is not what we recommend. The rules vary widely from state to state, even from office to office, and they do change - frequently.
We’ve mentioned temporary and tourist car imports few times in past posts. And that seems still to be the way to go, whether yours is a 2008 Lexus, or a 1997 Chrysler, the Mexican Import Authorities are going to see the same thing.
That’s why our MexRetire page on permits for auto importation is still only concentrating on Temporary Imports. It might sound like a hassle to need a new permit every 6 months, (though with a residency permit, FM-2 or FM-3, you can renew the temporary permit with your visa.) But this new ruling seems to make permanent importation seem even more possible. Our advice, import temporary, or have some fun shopping the auto-lots in your new paradise destination.
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March 2nd, 2008
Punta Mita is just about the most northern point on the Bahia de Banderas, the beginnings of the new Nayarit Riviera. It’s not exactly Puerto Vallarta, but I thought these couple of photos from one of the places we’ll be going there nicely capture what Punta Mita is.
Hacienda Grand, the resort and condo hotel is planned for that yellow rough rectangle outlined in both photos. But you can see perhaps also that this is not the sort of place with condominium towers leaning out over the beach.
Puerto Vallarta proper is visible as the white developed areas in the photo below, and Vallarta does get criticized for being “over-developed.” But I think you can see from the photos also, that much of this world famous coastline is still rather pristine.
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February 29th, 2008
At one point we were going to try to include Mérida in that list too, but alas it is too far to make it as part of our 3 day Mayan Riviera weekend.
As of now, we’ve got great reasons to check out places all around the Greater Cancún area, including Isla Mujeres, Playa del Carmen and just about everything in between. Quintana Roo appeals to a wildly different crowd of people than our Pacific Coast locations, so this is a great chance to meet people from divergent locations across North America and Europe.
This first free weekend is going to cover quite a bit more geography than we’ve previously covered, so a bus-tour and a boat tour are both part of the fun. And we’ve already listed dates for May and for July if you can’t make the April dates.
Plus we’re expecting some more specialists in the fields of Home-Owner’s Insurance and Mortgages geared not only toward North American’s but toward expectant Europeans as well. There is a rumor that one of the Developer’s is even offering a 4-wheeled incentive, but I will fill you in on that as details emerge.
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February 19th, 2008
Dow Jones reported yesterday that Cuernavaca Airport is expanding service to carry 309,000 passengers in 2008, and then 463,000 in 2009. That’s part of the story of the huge infrastructure investments planned for and by the Calderon administration and that have been making such a buzz in Mexico-US relations news.
Many people don’t realize you can get direct flights to Cuernavaca from Los Angeles, Austin and Houston. We’ll be announcing some terrific Real Estate tours there a bit later this month. So there is more reason than ever to visit Cuernavaca or the state of Morelos. The photo at right is from the Cuernavaca Airport website.
UPDATE: Here is another link in the list of Infrastructure Investment Stories.
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February 13th, 2008
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