You're the plague

It's not easy being a real estate refugee

Moving to Mexico as a not retired person…(notice I didn’t say “young”, just a not retired person,) is not always super mega bien (as my neighbor’s 8 year old says). Sometimes it’s super mega meh.

(Prefer to listen? Click below.)

We’ve established that living and vacationing are different. We’ve said that every day life is different if you’re working online or if you’re just living off your savings or if you’re rich retired with a pension or just retired and hoping for that SS check every month. Is it affordable? Is it more expensive now? Is the peso holding up? Yes, sorta, absolutely. The dollar is flabby, the peso is holding up and that means that my rent went up by $40 last month because I pay in pesos and I was getting 20pesos/$1. Now it’s 17,68. But is my rent still Under $400? Yes. Do I live in a cheap weird area where gringos would NEVER? yes. Is my electric bill $15? Yes.Do I have heat? No. Do I go easy on the AC for only 2 months out of the year? Yes. Is everyone else’s bill in Merida and sexy Yucatan $400? Yes. Are they forced to use the AC all the time because it’s the jungle and the bugs will take you away? Yes. Do I have places to shop? No. Is the next real town 3.5 hours away driving? Yes.

So for me, I chose affordable but I didn’t choose this place. I got dropped here after a terrible car accident where I lost everything including my #vanlife van and all the stuff inside. This just happened to be where that old lady broadsided me. Well it was in the middle of the desert, but this was the next town. It’s on the Sea of Cortez, it has high points. Mostly that I can walk for miles on the shore with dogs and not be bothered.

Anyway you can choose a lot of other places that are cooler and just as affordable. This place is remote so it’s hard to get anything… so anything brought in is marked up in a take it or leave it price point. Like the Bahamas. An ugly, dry, Bahamas. And no Amazon delivery doesn’t come here. I haven’t to get it sent to an address in Hermosillo and courier it in.But to be honest, the ease of ordering shoes to be dropped on my doorstep on a daily just to try on? That seems wasteful and I’m glad I was forced to break that habit.

So social media influencers are making channels about buying houses here, how great it is and some are being a little more real about it and talking about some pitfalls… but the bottom line is most of us don’t want to go back to the US and many of us can’t afford to. Some of us are just passing through as digital nomads and some of us are treading water to see if WWIII pops off.

The other side of the media narrative is that Americans are stealing the housing and that Americans are driving prices up and blah blah blah. Look. Rich PEOPLE will force you out of your rent controlled apartment and gentrify your neighborhood no matter where they go. The Italians who put lofts in wine country outside of Ensenada aren’t my fault. I can’t afford to go there either. But it was empty before. So they’re developers. Not Colonizers. Just relax with it. Who made NYC unaffordable? Wasn’t the Americans that’s for sure. But it’s NOT FOR YOU. It’s for oil tycoons from the Mid East and the kids of celebrities and Chinese game show hosts.

Nice neighborhoods in CDMX, Guadalajara and big metros were always nice. There’s a huge class system in Mexico. The bankers in Monterrey aren’t living next door to Lupe the housekeeper that’s for sure. And there are PLENTY of Mexicans with money that are squeezing out the pobres. And their greedy landlords are there for it. Some are rich from the obvious family empires of Tequila and Corona and trickle down from the cartels, others are famous for the Arts or Music and some have kids putting your roof on in Atlanta or drywalling 5 houses a week and sending money home. That upsets the balance of economy more than a couple gringos renting a $350 apartment. But no one talks about that. It’s because we’re here and stealing all the formerly affordable housing in San Miguel de Allende. Which, by the way, was never a thing. It’s just another way to put a stick in the spokes.

Instagram feeds which talk about how amazing it is to have some fabulous house for $500 with a pool are mostly full of shit, just so you know. They exist but the utilities and maintenance will double that price and it’s still a better value than the US but for sure it’s not how they’re painting it. It’s clickable…that’s all. And it’s usually from someone who will “assist” you in getting your paperwork done for residency. So they’re just bilingual. You’ll not benefit probably. They will. So consider the source. Is the lifestyle more laid back and wholesome? Yes. Depends if you’re living in a big city or a pueblo. Gringolandia can turn out some booze filled drug hound expats acting sort of wild. And where there is drunky smoke there will be cartel fire to traffic the demand. And shifty regular folks who will try to sell counterfeit aspirin or say the apartment has hot water when it so doesn’t.

You’ll miss HomeGoods and wish you had brought your sheets from home. You’ll want unscented toilet paper and cry about not being able to buy a cut of steak at the store for a reasonable sum and you’ll settle for that weird shredded paper thin Milanese. You’ll want more variety in cheese. You’ll wish the pan dulce tasted as good as it looked and don’t get me started on pizza. I just live in a regular town, don’t come at me with all the good wood fired whatever you have in Playa del Carmen. Yes. Where there are Italians and other immigrants of culinary weight, there will be better food. But you may not have the $15 light bill. But maybe you’ll get lucky! It’s worth a try. You’ll always feel a little on the outside and you’ll miss your jokes landing like they do in English. You will definitely be over masa.

Someone commented on something we were joking about on a comment thread the other day and he said in really sloppy English, you are the problem with Mexico. You are the plague. You ruin everything.

Which hurts because I worked for 20 years with Mexican guys and consider them brothers. I thought we were friends. But I know it’s just a troll and someone making blanket statements about someone he doesn’t even know. It’s amazing how different we are and we share such a long border. We like each other in spite of it all, and sort of have a wall up for the shit we just don’t understand. They don’t know why we don’t make a lot of babies but love dogs so much. We can’t forgive the noise, the obsession with firecrackers, the litter or the weird ass candy. Their insanely twisted corrupted government seems to be mimicking our own. You’ll feel that deep down they don’t really like you and you may be right. There’s a long history of Americans not being so above board, so even if you weren’t here for it, you’re gonna pay. But somehow it feels like home, most days. Just not super mega bien.