What Expats Wished They Knew Before Moving To Mexico

Introduction

Kat

Hello and welcome to today’s edition of the Live and Invest Overseas podcast. I’m Kat Kalashian. I’m our senior Europe correspondent and I’m based here in Paris, where I am right now.

And joining me all the way from Mexico is Lee, or actually he’s joining me all the way from the western coast of the Americas. I’m not exactly sure where he is right now, but he is a regular Mexican resident. He splits his time between Mexico and California right now and spends the majority, I think, of his time in Mexico. He has been living there for several years.

Lee Harrison is our in-house Mexico correspondent, and he’s here to tell us all about the things that you’ll wish you had known before you tried to make a move to Mexico. Hopefully, if you know them beforehand, you can jump over these hurdles without any issues.

We’re excited to hear your insights.

Lee

Okay, thank you, Kat. I’ll jump right in.

First I want to explain that Mexico is the number one destination for American expats, by far and away number one. It’s a million and a half, the last number I saw, Americans that are resident in Mexico. About 500,000 Canadians are there at least part-time.

So it’s a huge draw as far as Americans with part-time homes and expats living abroad.

I took early retirement back in 2001, and while living in Ecuador and Uruguay and Brazil and Colombia, I just passed over Mexico countless times going to these other places. Didn’t even really give Mexico a thought.

Then around 2015 we had rented our place in Colombia out while we were gone, and the guy wanted to stay another year, so we had really nowhere to live. We went and rented a place in Mexico.

Really what happened is I rediscovered Mexico’s familiarity, or maybe I was really discovering it for the first time. In the past, Mexico had really been too familiar, I thought, to be interesting. But I rediscovered what Mexico had to offer, and we ended up in 2016 buying a home there in Mazatlán and have been really happy with that decision ever since.

I want to go through some of the things, some of the ups and downs of living in Mexico, kind of give you a feel for what you can expect in a couple different ways.

Mexico is a big country

Lee

Number one is that Mexico is big.

That’s something to keep in mind. It’s impossible to generalize about the weather, whether or not you have insects, make judgments on the culture, and so forth. It’s really too big to generalize in most ways that we would love to generalize foreign countries.

When you think about it, using an American example, if I wanted to compare the culture in Maine to the culture in Mississippi, it’s going to be quite different. The weather in Michigan versus the weather in Alabama.

Mexico is really in the same boat. It’s two-thirds the size of the continental United States, so you’ve got to keep in mind there’s a huge amount of diversity there. Lots of options to pick from.

I don’t want to get hung up on one place too early in your process because there are a lot of good options there.

Residency is fast and easy

Lee

Number two, residency is fast and easy, with no background checks and no health checks.

The no background check thing is just a big annoyance that is not going to interfere with you getting residency there.

Something interesting about residency is you can qualify with savings in lieu of income.

I saw this a lot living in other countries where people wanted to come and get residency, and they had significant savings. They had a 401(k), they had an IRA, so they’re not impoverished, but they did not have a normal monthly regular pension, so they couldn’t qualify.

Well, in Mexico you can use your savings to qualify in lieu of regular monthly income.

There is no time-in-country requirement in Mexico. So if you do become a resident, let’s say you become a permanent resident by using your 401(k) balance, there’s no requirement that you spend any time per year in Mexico. You can not go for eight years if you’d like and still maintain your permanent residency.

You can drive to Mexico

Lee

You can drive to Mexico.

I kind of didn’t think much about it when I was living in South America, but it was such a bonus during the pandemic.

Personally, I think Uruguay, for example, is an excellent Plan B location. Over some kind of disaster, Uruguay offers a lot as an alternate location to your home country.

However, during the pandemic I couldn’t get to Uruguay. The flights were shut down, there were restrictions getting into the country, and a lot of flights weren’t flying anymore.

The fact that you could drive to Mexico is super convenient. You can load up your car with stuff you want to take down there, electronics and things you might not be able to find real easily, and just cross the border.

During the pandemic we had things where Mexico was starting to have travel restrictions. We’d jump in the car and drive back to the United States. The next thing you know California is in lockdown, so we jumped in the car and went back to our home in Mexico.

We were able to really create the best lifestyle just by the fact that we could drive and didn’t have to depend on the airlines.

It’s easy to bring pets

Lee

Number four, it’s easy to bring pets, and really everything else, to Mexico.

You don’t even need technically a veterinary health certificate as long as you can prove that your dog doesn’t have rabies.

I prefer to travel with a veterinary health certificate. Any vet can give you one. But you don’t have to go through this certification by your state’s chief veterinarian and all that stuff that you have to do with a lot of other countries.

You just get your veterinary health certificate or your rabies certificate and come on in.

Using Netflix and Amazon Prime

Lee

Number five, different topic altogether.

Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

If you use these popular streaming services in the States, you’ll be amazed that when you get to Mexico and you turn on the TV to watch Netflix or Amazon Prime, it remembers exactly where you were with each episode. It knows what list you had and what episode you were up to and so forth.

That integration worked really well.

What you’ll find, though, is that you won’t necessarily be able to watch the same content.

There are certain shows that, when I go to Mexico, disappear from my list on Netflix or Amazon. It says this is not available in your location.

But the same thing holds true. There are shows that are normal prime-time shows in the United States that Netflix does not stream in the U.S., but they do stream in Mexico.

When you come back to the United States, some of your more popular things may disappear from your list that way.

Both good services, and they work well in Mexico.

Amazon.mx works like a charm

Lee

On a related topic, Amazon.mx is now in full swing.

If you have an Amazon account or you like using Amazon, it’s convenient. It’s got reliable delivery.

In fact, I like the fact that the Amazon delivery guy calls your cell phone before they arrive at your house. He’ll call and say, “Hey, I’m just down the street. I’ll be there in like five minutes.”

I’ll walk out to the street and he hands me the package and off he goes.

I’ve never had a delivery issue with Amazon in Mexico.

One thing I did have an issue with, though, is my Amazon Prime Video account.

What I did was I thought how convenient it was that I could use my American Amazon ID in Mexico. The problem with that is that as soon as I signed on from Mexico, it reset my Amazon Prime Videos and I lost all my saved items and where I was on each episode.

Amazon customer service fixed that for me in just a few minutes.

What I would recommend is, if you’re going to use Amazon Mexico and you use Amazon Prime Video, create a different ID. Use a different email address for your Mexican account from your American account just to keep them separate.

If you don’t use Amazon Prime Video, I would just go ahead and use your American ID.

It’s been very convenient. You can even order stuff from Amazon in the U.S. for delivery in Mexico.

Expat annoyances: locals not speaking English and expats not speaking Spanish

Lee

A couple of things to talk about language a little bit.

There are two expat annoyances.

One is locals, Mexican people, who do not speak English.

You would be surprised. It sounds kind of arrogant, right? But you’ll be surprised how many people are annoyed at the lack of English from some people who are in Mexico.

I saw a guy in a grocery store, this belligerent kind of guy. He was berating this girl who was stocking the shelves because her English was not that good.

There are an element of people out there who will be annoyed by that.

The other side of that coin is there will be expats who are annoyed by those other expats who don’t speak any Spanish because, as soon as their internet goes out and the technician they call on the helpline doesn’t speak English, they’ll be calling you to translate.

The bottom line of all this is some basic language school, some basic Spanish, will really go a long way.

This is not just Mexico. This is any country that you go to.

It will eliminate a lot of roadblocks for you.

All that said, Mexico has more English spoken than anywhere I’ve ever been.

You’ll find way, way, way more English spoken, especially in the areas frequented by expats or tourists.

Many folks go there and never speak a word of Spanish for year after year, and they’re still happy with their choice in Mexico.

Inexpensive and delicious seafood

Lee

Number eight.

Much of Mexico offers excellent and inexpensive seafood.

This is something that I hadn’t really thought about much, but Mexico has a ton of coastline.

We are frequently getting fresh grilled shrimp, fresh salmon, dorado, swordfish, and tuna.

One of the biggest tuna processing facilities in the world is in Mexico.

Excellent seafood, very inexpensive.

If you want a nice grilled salmon dinner with all the fixings for about twelve dollars, equivalent in U.S. dollars, you’ll be real happy with what you find in Mexico.

Mexico has great street food

Lee

Related topic, number nine.

Mexico has great street food.

It may be the best in the Americas.

You see a cart pull up on a street and a family, typically there’ll be a husband and a wife and maybe some kids tagging along because they just had nowhere to leave them, putting on a dinner service somewhere on the street off their cart with a couple little stools out front.

You’ll find some of the best options that you can imagine with this type of street food.

Just walking around the downtown where I live, we may find eight or nine little carts set up here and there just like that.

One of the things that we had a guest here a while ago, actually about a year or so ago now, said, “Well, when can we get some Mexican food?”

It made me realize that what we think of as Mexican food, like chimichangas and burritos and that sort of thing, is pretty hard to find in a restaurant, especially in a nice restaurant.

They don’t serve that sort of thing unless it’s a super touristy area.

It made me think of the equivalent in the United States. If you go to a fine dining restaurant as a foreigner and you know Americans eat hot dogs, so you try to order hot dogs in a fine dining venue, that’s going to be hard to find.

Well, same thing if you want a basket of chips and a chimichanga. That’s going to be hard to find in a fine dining venue in Mexico.

What we think of stereotypically about Mexico, food is one of them.

You’ll find that it’s much more varied, much more high-end and elegant than what our stereotype would tell us based on Mexican offerings that we see in a lot of places in the U.S.

Uber is not in every city or at every airport

Lee

At every airport, so if you have Uber, for example, we have Uber in Mazatlán but they don’t do airport runs, so you have to check to see where that service is available.

If I could generalize a little bit about this, what I find is that in cities like Durango that use taxi meters, where you can go all the way across town for two or three dollars, Uber has never been able to survive there. They don’t have Uber in Durango.

In places like Mazatlán, where you have the occasional taxi driver who wants to charge you five times the rate because they don’t use the meters, Uber is very popular there and everybody uses it.

So if you want to use Uber, it’s convenient. It’s super cheap in Mexico, but do check to make sure that they’re serving where it is that you need them.

There are plenty of opportunities for American or Canadian entrepreneurs

Lee

Mexico has a lot of American and Canadian entrepreneurs.

What you’ll find is it’s not necessarily a super easy place to do business. They have clumsy tax laws and things like that, but there is a ton of opportunity for Americans and Canadians who can serve, in some cases, the Mexican community, and in some cases they’re serving their fellow expats.

There are enough expats in Mexico that you can design a business that caters to them. I’m thinking things like restaurants and real estate. I know expat developers and so forth.

So there’s a lot of opportunity for entrepreneurs in Mexico, and it’s a semi-familiar setting too, so it’s easier to break in there than it would be in places that are farther from the U.S.

Mexico has American big box stores

Lee

Some cities have American big box stores like Walmart and Costco and Sam’s Club. We have a Home Depot and AutoZone and things like that.

You’ll find a lot of familiarity in the larger towns and cities with that sort of thing.

In smaller towns and larger towns you’ll also have your traditional tiny shops and central markets. Things like that are going to be there everywhere, as they’ve been for centuries.

On the bigger towns you can count on the big box stores and a lot of familiar American stores. In the smaller towns you’ll be at the central market.

You can find your preferred brands here

Lee

A lot of your preferred brands are going to be in Mexico.

If you like Skippy peanut butter or a certain brand of cereal, beer, whatever it is, it’s likely you’re going to find those in Mexico.

What I found a lot of times is those brands are made in Mexico. The ones I had in the United States, like in Arizona.

Every country I’ve lived in before, especially in the early days, I always kept a list of things that we wanted to buy in the United States to bring back.

That’s really not necessary in Mexico because you’ll have a great selection of familiar brands.

There will be lots of fireworks

Lee

Mexicans love fireworks.

We have fireworks really for no reason.

Every Saturday night there’s a big fireworks display in Mazatlán on the beach. I don’t know if there’s any occasion other than that it’s Saturday. Sometimes it’s on Friday. It’s always on holidays.

When I first went to Puebla, Mexico, I was surprised that every morning at about five minutes to six there was a big fireworks display.

So if you’d like to sleep a little bit later, forget it, because fireworks would go off.

You’ll hear fireworks for all occasions, all times of the day and night.

Loud and cheerful music is the norm

Lee

The other thing is music.

Loud and generally cheerful music is the norm.

It’s not only at music venues and so forth. It’s coming from cars. If you’re near a construction site you’ll hear music playing all day long and the guy singing along with it.

Music is generally upbeat, it’s ever-present, and it’s usually louder than we are accustomed to.

You can find good local craftsmen

Lee

Mexico offers good local craftsmen with a good work ethic.

If you have this stereotype image of a Mexican dude sitting under a tree with a sombrero, and that’s what you think a Mexican worker is, that was way off base.

I was really positively impressed.

They work harder than I was experienced to working with in the United States.

These guys show up on time and they work hard all day.

We’ve had excellent cabinet work, repairmen come to do different things, construction jobs and so forth.

I’ve been very happy with that.

That’ll be a pleasant surprise, especially the cost.

When you get something done you expect to pay seven or eight hundred dollars and it’s like seventy-five bucks.

It’s just amazing what you can get for a small amount of money.

Mexicans are family-oriented

Lee

Mexicans are very family-oriented.

This is not a good point or a bad point, but it’s worth noting that you’ll find families out and about doing lots of things together.

Multi-generation families.

You’ll see the grandparents and the parents and the children.

You’ll see them at times when you might not expect.

We live right on the boardwalk and we can look out off the balcony and see who’s going up and down the boardwalk.

At midnight you’ll see the grandparents and the parents and little eight-year-olds or six-year-olds or four-year-olds walking along with them.

The family sticks together early and late for all kinds of activities.

Mexico is a trash-tolerant country

Lee

Mexico is generally trash tolerant.

We have a lot of trash thrown around in Mazatlán, but because it’s a tourist destination there are crews of people that go around cleaning up, and the place is spotless after they come through.

That night people leave things on the street or beer bottles on the boardwalk or whatever, and the next morning they’re all gone again.

In areas that don’t have this kind of infrastructure you might see trash alongside the road and things like that.

It’s one of the advantages of living in a tourist area that you’ll have things kept nice and clean.

In a remote area that may not be the case.

Mexicans are COVID-safe

Lee

Mexicans are very COVID-safe.

As far as I could tell, mandates in Mexico are pretty much non-existent or unenforced, but Mexicans were good about keeping their distance during the height of the pandemic, when the fatality rates were high.

They would wear masks in stores and that type of thing even though there was no mandate that required them to do it.

They were very safe anyway.

I’m thinking this might be because the health care system is not quite as robust as the United States, so getting COVID would be more consequential there than it would be in the U.S.

I was surprised to see that level of compliance with safety standards, and that was done without the use of mandates.

Mexican interior design is not what you think it is

Lee

Mexican decorating, and by decorating I mean the way homes are designed and decorated, is not what many people think it is.

The stereotype that we have of what a Mexican property should look like isn’t really favored by Mexicans.

I’ve seen buildings where the whole building was done that way, with bright yellow bricks and orange tiles and little bright colors and piñatas hanging, and no Mexican would buy any of the units in it.

Mexicans who have a level of wealth that would allow them to buy a home on the beach or a second home are accustomed to tasteful, upscale decorations that you would expect from any other culture.

What happens is that Americans will design a home like this and wonder why they don’t get any Mexican renters in their condo.

That’s why.

It’s just another one of several stereotypes that you’ll find doesn’t hold true.

Think about the United States.

If a Mexican person watched a lot of movies about the American West, they would assume that all Americans decorated their homes with deer heads on the walls, saddles, horse blankets, and that sort of thing.

Then they might decorate a home like that and wonder why wealthy Americans from the Northeast don’t find it attractive.

It’s kind of the same thing.

Remember, quote-unquote “Mexican style” decoration is not really favored by Mexicans.

Some people don’t pay the HOA fees

Lee

When it comes to paying HOA fees, you’re going to have some people who just don’t want to pay.

I’ve heard local people make excuses like, “Well, I don’t use the elevator, so I don’t want to pay my HOA fees.”

Another person said they don’t like to swim in a swimming pool, so they don’t think they should pay their HOA fees.

You’ll find this.

Rather than try to guess who will pay and who won’t based on who’s living in the building, what I would recommend is, if you’re looking at property, look at the building.

Look at the hallways, the service hallways, the electrical cabinets, and how the maintenance is outside.

Is it nicely painted, or is it superficially painted and coming apart?

Look at the condition of the building really well.

Look at the hidden interior spaces inside the building closely.

If they don’t look like they’re up to speed, believe me, you’ll get the excuses.

“Oh no, we’re just about to go into our annual remodel,” and all the typical realtor kind of excuses.

If it’s not being kept up, just move on.

Very often that means people aren’t paying and they don’t have the funding to really keep the place in good shape.

You can expect your property’s value to diminish.

Real estate taxes are low

Lee

The taxes in Mexico are super low.

As Kat mentioned, I have property in California and property in Mexico that’s about the same size.

The real estate taxes are 80 times higher in California.

For a house on the beach in Mexico, right on the boardwalk, I’m guessing it’s around 2,200 square feet or something like that.

The tax bill for this year was about $97, and the place is brand new.

It’s only a couple of years old.

If it wasn’t on the water and was back in town, it would be significantly less.

You also get half off for being a resident, which I am.

It’s just a super deal.

The point is that when you look at the overhead of owning a place, electricity is really cheap, the water is cheap, and the taxes are really cheap.

If you’re doing it as a second home, that’s great.

If it’s your primary residence, you’ll appreciate it.

If it’s an income property, you’ll really appreciate the low operating costs.

Taxes are just one of many areas where you’ll see that.

Mexico is cheap

Lee

Mexico is just cheap.

At today’s exchange rate, having watched exchange rates for many years, I tend to think of 10 pesos to the dollar as being the norm in Mexico.

It’s been a while since it was that low.

At 20 pesos plus to the dollar right now, it feels like everything’s half price.

It’s just amazingly cheap at this exchange rate.

If it went back to 10 pesos to the dollar, which could happen, Mexico would be expensive.

Right now it feels like everything is half off.

Recently, one thing that stood out was cheap gas.

We drove to Arizona probably three weeks ago.

Usually I’ll cross the border and there’s a Circle K right over the border in Arizona.

I’ll hold off and buy gas there because it used to be cheaper than Mexican gas.

Now, on the Mexican side of the border, gas was only $3.24 a gallon, and it was about $4.50 a gallon on the American side.

Everybody was crowding into the Mexican gas stations because Mexico is an oil producer and oil prices are high right now.

It’s one of many areas where you’ll really appreciate Mexico’s low cost of living.

Taxes, utilities, and just the cost of everything you do right now is very inexpensive.

There is a sense of freedom in Mexico

Lee

Finally, the one thing I really appreciate, and it’s kind of hard to describe, is the sense of freedom that comes from living in a place without excessive rules and regulations.

Mexico, and much of Latin America, is fairly well unregulated.

I realize sometimes regulations are an advantage and sometimes they’re not.

But you really feel a sense of freedom after living there for a while in a place that is not so overly structured with regulations on needing permits for this and permission to do that.

Mexico is pretty much free of that.

They’re also free of personal injury law.

What you’ll find is that not only are you in a fairly unregulated environment, but you’ll realize how much of our life in the United States is structured around avoiding lawsuits.

The sense of freedom is something that you’ll appreciate.

That’s not something you’re going to feel on day one, but as time goes by it’s going to be one of the more important things about living in Mexico.

Conclusion

Lee

So just a couple of things in closing.

You can look forward to a low cost of living, low-cost properties, easy residency, and the food is great.

It’s unequaled—sorry, apologies to Brazil—unequaled anywhere in Latin America.

The rich culture of the Mexican people offers a lot.

I can now understand why so many people have chosen to make Mexico their home.

I’ve been very happy with that decision myself.

Kat

Thank you, Lee.

You had me laughing there with the Mexican décor point.

I think that’s really funny.

You said, like, piñatas hanging on the walls, and I do have this image of a Mexican watching Westerns and everything is decorated with barrels and horseshoes and hay.

Lee

Exactly.

It’s very much a cliché of culture that isn’t necessarily deserving.

We have a friend that owns a furniture store, and he sells really nice stuff.

We’ve seen that most Americans don’t buy there because they think that’s not Mexican.

He said quietly one time, “We would never buy that sort of thing for our own house.”

Kat

One of the other great things that I loved about living in Latin America, which I’m sure is true of many places in Mexico, is the fact that you can get so much furniture custom made.

You can find these little woodworking villages or artisan craft towns where they specialize in leather goods or wood or wicker or whatever it is.

You can go there and bring your specs.

You can even bring a Pottery Barn catalog.

I’ve actually seen my mother do this.

She says, “Make me this couch.”

Lee

We’ve done that.

Julie used a Pottery Barn catalog to make a bedroom set in Ecuador.

It was a fraction of the cost.

It was $295 for two end tables, a bed, the headboard, the footboard, and all that stuff.

Julie had cut the Pottery Barn page out but cut the price off because it was like $3,200.

The guys said, “Yeah, come back in two weeks.”

We were very happy with it.

I’m sure it would have taken a lot longer than that for Pottery Barn to ship you anything, including the cost of shipping, let alone make it from scratch.

We’ve done the same thing in Mexico.

We’ll spend a day and drive up into the hills.

We had a nice custom-made rocking chair, a nice carved wood rocking chair made that we couldn’t find locally.

It was like $60 or something.

Kat

Wow.

Well, that was an excellent insight into what it’s really like to live in Mexico.

Thank you so much, Lee, for those valuable little tidbits from your life there.

Lee

My pleasure, Kat. We’ll see you soon. Thanks. Bye.