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by the staff of International Living
For the second year running, Mexico wins our annual Global Retirement Index.
With rapidly rising fuel, health care, food, and travel costs, it’s nice to know there are still places where you can live well without burning through your retirement nest-egg. And Mexico is one of those special places. In Mexico, you can still enjoy a lifestyle that’s probably all but unaffordable for most people in the U.S. and Canada.
Mexico offers the perfect mix of centuries-old traditions and contemporary lifestyles. It’s easy to get a residence visa. And the services, amenities, and discounts offered to retirees here are just as bountiful as in Panama, with its famous pensionado program—as are the overall cost savings. Plus, Mexico is closer to home.
Moving to Mexico means you can still have all the comforts you are used to north of the border: cable TV, high-speed Internet, and modern home appliances. And if you prefer, when you move to Mexico you can even bring all your favorite things with you without paying import taxes.
Goods and services cost less, so you can afford the kinds of luxuries only the wealthy enjoy up north: a maid, a cook, and a gardener, for example. Whether your vision of the ideal retirement involves shopping, fishing, sunbathing, diving, biking, mountain climbing, parasailing, collecting crafts, visiting archeological sites, partying, going to concerts, attending the theater, or fine dining, in Mexico you can engage in all these activities, and many more.
This country is so diverse that everybody can find exactly what they want: beautiful, warm oceans, crystal-clear tropical lakes, fertile farmlands, temperate-but-majestic mountains, starkly gorgeous deserts, small towns or sophisticated cities.
And because of its geographic diversity, you can also choose your favorite climate: from warm and dry to warm and sultry to spring-like temperatures all year in the Colonial Highlands.
And if you’re looking for the home of your dreams, you can find it in Mexico—for much less than it would cost you most anywhere in the US or Canada. The real estate market offers endless possibilities for your retirement. You can own beachfront—not just ocean-view property—in Mexico for less than $100,000.
Mexico is a big country. So, for your convenience, we have chosen our top three retirement havens, offering you three different areas of Mexico. These are: Merida, Manzanillo, and Xalapa. First up (and in no particular order) is Merida.
Weather and climate: 7
Health care: 10
Overall attractiveness: 9
Housing availability: 9
Housing cost: 9
Accessibility to an airport: 10
Cultural activities: 10
Other activities: 9
Communication infrastructure: 9
Daily living cost: 8
TOTAL: 90
Merida is a “people city.” A few months ago Mexico City’s leading La Reforma newspaper polled the country’s citizens and asked them to name the most livable cities in Mexico. Merida ranked second, behind Colima, near the Pacific coast. Every night of the week you will find live music of a different variety in a different plaza around town. The food vendors will be there…grab a freshly made hotdog, hamburger, or taco for a buck or two, and for dessert, a cone filled with homemade ice cream will set you back another buck.
During the day, you’ll often find students in these same plazas (Merida is known for its fine high schools, technical schools, colleges and universities), some diligently tapping away on laptop keyboards. The mayor of Merida is installing free wireless Internet service in 50 locations around the city, including parks. The most popular gathering spots are already wired.
The city has also allocated 60 million pesos (about $6 million) to beautify its central historic district. Workers are busily restoring and painting building facades, and removing overhead power lines and placing them underground. Some city streets will be inaccessible to bus traffic.
“Merida is like the French Quarter, but cleaner and safer, like Santa Fe but cheaper, and it’s what Key West used to be,” says real estate agent Eric Partney. “There is a lively street life here, and that gives the city a bohemian feel.”
Merida is the best of genteel, easygoing Old Mexico, yet it offers the sophistication you’d expect of a city with nearly 1 million inhabitants. You’ll find Mexico’s largest shopping mall here, the Gran Plaza. Two more mega shopping malls are now also being built. The city offers a lively cultural life, with several theaters where you can take in a play, the symphony, or the ballet. There are also several excellent health care facilities, including the Clínica Merida and the new Star Medica, featuring state-of-the-art laboratory and diagnostic equipment.
As for the property market, if you’re interested in renovating, there are plenty of colonial homes for sale in Merida. In Centro, you’ll find small fixer-uppers of 1,000 to 2,000 square feet for as little as $30,000 (although there aren’t as many at that price as there used to be). Labor and construction costs are low, too—the average construction laborer makes $85 to $100 per week. Spend just a little and live in a comfortable humble home or spend a bit more and turn your pumpkin into a palace.
Keep in mind that there aren’t as many of these old homes at rock-bottom prices as there used to be. Prices for colonial-style homes in need of complete renovation run from about $30,000 and up. Renovated homes typically start at about $100,000, although occasionally you can find them for less.
You can still find old haciendas, too, if that kind of property appeals to you. In the city limits of Merida, just minutes from Centro, one is currently offered for $250,000. On 2.4 acres of land, it has been somewhat restored and features a large living room and dining hall with a beamed ceiling. There’s even the requisite chapel.
What about the suburbs? You can find a well-built modern home in Merida’s suburbs for $60,000 and up. In the most elite neighborhoods, including Country Club and Campestre, you will pay much more.
Weather and climate: 9
Health care: 8
Overall attractiveness: 9
Housing availability: 8
Housing cost: 8
Accessibility to an airport: 10
Cultural activities: 7
Other activities: 10
Communication infrastructure: 8
Daily living cost: 8
TOTAL: 85
Manzanillo—along with Puerto Vallarta, which lies about 165 miles north—is one of the biggest beach resort cities on this part of Mexico’s Pacific coast. But where Vallarta is sleek and chic, with great shopping and high-end restaurants, Manzanillo offers a more casual lifestyle. Here there are great (but simple) seafood restaurants, scuba shacks, and great beaches. The city boasts two five-mile stretches of beach, on two bays that are separated by a peninsula.
One of the nicest, cleanest beaches is at Las Brisas, in the Bay of Manzanillo. This area tends to be more residential, with condominium complexes and the occasional small B&B. It lies right beside a naval base, and on some mornings you can hear the naval band or see teams of naval recruits and officers exercising on the beach. (Their presence may also account in part for Las Brisas’s reputation for safety.)
Transportation connections are good, too. It is well connected by road with communities up and down the coast and with cities in the interior. Manzanillo has an international airport, with direct flights from Houston and Los Angeles. In addition, the large international airport at Guadalajara is only three hours away by highway.
To keep you busy in your retirement, the area offers many sports-related activities, including sport fishing, golf (there are five golf courses in the area), hiking, horseback riding, and boating. Swimming, surfing, scuba diving, and snorkeling, of course, are popular, and the equipment is readily available. Plus, Manzanillo also has several spas and gyms for indoor workouts.
Real estate in Manzanillo, even for beachfront property, remains surprisingly affordable.
Single-family homes right on the beach are much rarer here than condominiums. We did recently view one 4,000-square-foot house on the first line of beach, however. It sits at one end of a double lot, with 132 feet of frontage, so there is plenty of open space to build on. (There’s even space for a second house or guest quarters.) The asking price is $500,000.
Once you get away from the first-line beach, property prices begin to drop and can be dramatically lower even a few blocks inland. Lot size, as a result, can go up. Single-family homes become both more affordable and more available. Many of the gated communities fall into this category—offering sea views but no direct beach access. For example, you can get a single-family house in a gated community from $150,000 to $200,000.
In addition, many small subdivisions are being built on the inland side of Manzanillo, often with small parks and pools as amenities in the public areas. Small two- and three-bedroom modern houses in these subdivisions sell for anywhere from $55,000 to $100,000 each, with many falling in the $60,000 to $80,000 range. Houses at this price and in this area can command monthly rents in the $800 to $900 range.
There’s a lot to like in Manzanillo: a warm climate; attractive beaches; friendly population; scores of restaurants and hotels; and still-affordable real estate.
For real estate information for Manzanillo: Property Pros (Susan Dearing and Carlos Cuellar), tel. (52)314-333-0642 (office) or (52)1-314-358-5042 (cell); e-mail: propertypros@gomanzanillo.com
Weather and climate: 8
Health care: 8
Overall attractiveness: 8
Housing availability: 9
Housing cost: 9
Accessibility to an airport: 10
Cultural activities: 10
Other activities: 8
Communication infrastructure: 9
Daily living cost: 8
TOTAL: 87
In Xalapa, the roads wind among lushly green hills and ravines, where rivulets and small waterfalls are a common sight. In spring, coffee bushes in bloom, their tiny white flowers scattered like snowflakes on the green leaves, grow in every ravine under arching banana trees. This is the heart of Veracruz State’s coffee-growing region, where the foothills meet the mountains.
The air here is rich and moist and the temperature mild, though you may need a light jacket in the evening. It’s hard to believe that you’re only an hour from the coast, with its temperatures in the 90s. But in that hour’s drive you’ve gone from sea level to 4,000 feet, and from Veracruz’s black-sand beaches to this capital city nestled in the hills.
With a population of about 400,000, Xalapa is no longer a tiny capital.. But it still gives the feeling of a small city that you can easily escape into the countryside. From the city’s heights you can see green hills in almost every direction, blending into blue-tinged mountains. It’s no surprise that Xalapa is a hub for mountain sports, especially eco-tourism and white-water rafting on the area’s many little rivers.
For many people, though, Xalapa’s cultural life is the main draw. This is a city that exudes creative, intellectual energy. Known as the “Athens of Veracruz,” Xalapa is home to three universities and arguably the best music school in Mexico. Chic coffee shops and bistros fill during the day with shoppers and into the evening with students, academics, and writers, their conversations a roar over the tinkle of wine glasses and coffee cups. Walking through the city center, you see placards at almost every corner announcing concerts and plays. Xalapa’s symphony orchestra is considered the best in Mexico—but there are all styles of music here, from rock to jazz as well as classical. And if history is your passion, you’re in for a treat—Xalapas’s anthropological museum is widely considered the best in Mexico after the one in Mexico City.
If you’re looking for a medium-sized inland city with great amenities, Xalapa (sometimes spelled Jalapa but always pronounced ha-LAP-ah) could be a good fit. From film to theater to music, it offers as many cultural activities as a city twice its size.
Housing and overall cost of living are remarkably inexpensive. There are plenty of properties for sale for less than $150,000. And there are lots of options on where to buy—city neighborhoods where you can walk to shops, gated communities with expansive green areas, and nearby villages that offer colonial charm and are within an easy drive of Xalapa’s cultural amenities. One modern house recently for sale offers the advantages of city living and all the space of suburban life. It’s just a few minutes’ drive from Xalapa’s colonial center and is in a gated community. There are parks, a small supermarket, and other shops practically next door. Even better, there is an open-air vegetable market three blocks away where you can also get freshly prepared, handmade tacos hot off the grill. ..
The two-story, three-bedroom house has more than 2,100 feet of construction on a 1,600-square-foot lot. Price: $150,000.
Just 10 to 15 minutes by car outside the city, there is a three-bedroom home for sale for $95,000. The house has a large balcony offering mountain views.
For colonials and rentals in the Xalapa area, contact: Bienes Raices Xalapa
For real estate in general, contact: Cassa Bienes Raices (Ileana Cruz), e-mail: informes@cassabienesraices.com
Editor's note: Our rating system for our three favorite Mexico retirement havens, above, is entirely subjective. (Note that these ratings are not the same as our rating in the overall Retirement Index, where we rate countries as a whole.) We assign points based (from 1 to 10 with 1 being dismal and 10 being excellent) on our perceptions of what is most important to us. As for housing costs, if we think they are extremely reasonable, we give the location a 10 ranking. This, too, is subjective, as housing costs in resort areas can be expensive yet still reasonable based on the fact that it is a popular destination where prices are likely to continue to appreciate.
Total points available for any one destination: 100.
Real estate: Countries where real estate prices are low and the purchase of real estate is relatively easy receive the highest scores. We use our own experiences plus reports from our contributing editors and real estate contacts around the world to rate each country. Weight: 15%
Entertainment, recreation, and culture: This category considers the number of newspapers per 1,000 citizens, the number of museums and cinemas per capita, the number of university students, the literacy rate, and the variety of cultural and recreational offerings. Weight: 10%
Cost of living: This score is based on statistics from the Indexes of Living Costs Abroad, Quarter Allowances, and Hardship Differentials, published by the U.S. Department of State, and on data published by Business International. We also use our firsthand experiences living and traveling in these countries. The lower the score, the higher the cost of living. Weight: 20%
Safety and stability: This measure of unrest in each country is based primarily on Interpol data and State Department statistics. It also takes into account the civil liberties and political rights granted by each government. Our own experiences and reports from expatriates living in these countries also influence the safety scores. Weight: 5%
Health care: Considered in this category are the cost of a typical visit to a general practitioner and the cost and coverage particulars of health insurance. Weight: 20%
Climate: Countries with temperate weather throughout the year, moderate rainfall, and little risk of natural disaster come out on top in this category. We use data representing each country as a whole instead of favoring one region over another. Weight: 5%
Special benefits: This category considers government provisions that make moving to and living in each country easier and more affordable for foreigners. Taken into account are property rights for foreign residents, property tax rates, duty-free imports on personal belongings, currency controls, employment restrictions, voting rights, and transportation discounts for seniors. Weight: 20%
Infrastructure: This section considers the number of cars and telephones per 1,000 residents, the length of railroad track in usable condition, the number of airports, the quality of the country’s road and highway network, and the availability of telecommunications. Weight: 5%
Mexico Insider
Sign up for our monthly online publication Mexico Insider to make your dreams of living or retiring in Mexico a reality. You’ll learn everything you need to know to safely and affordably buy real estate in Mexico, a country with the best lifestyle and climate we’ve ever experienced.
Mexico: The Owner’s Manual
Let us take you as close as you can get to your retirement in Mexico without buying a plane ticket and hiring an expert. Once you finish reading our brand-new 2008 edition of Mexico: The Owner’s Manual, we think you’ll agree that Mexico deserves its top position as the world’s top retirement haven.
Live and Invest in Mexico seminar
Join us for our Live and Invest in Mexico seminar this Nov. 6–8 in Merida, Mexico, and see for yourself why we’ve chosen this country as the world’s top retirement haven.
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International Living's expat network is your key to a new life in a new country. Get real, honest advice from people just like you. Discover the tips, tricks, shortcuts, and strategies you can use to cut through red tape and improve your life overseas right away.
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Where to Find the World’s Best Quality of Life in 2008 It’s no easy thing to quantify something like quality of life. How do you attach a figure or a ranking to the experience of spending time in a place? You can’t.
The number of hospital beds and physicians per capita…the number of airports, the length of railway track, and the volume of cell phones, measured against the population…the gross domestic product and the average per-capita income…how much do these things have to do with “quality of life”? If your appendix bursts, sure, you hope the local hospital has a spare bed for you…and if you’re planning a weekend getaway, you appreciate a nearby airport. But are those things real measures of your life experience? Indeed, should you choose your place of residence based on tax rates, the cost of living, or the strength of the local economy? We’d say no and we base that on nearly 30 years of data collecting and number crunching. That’s how long International Living has been producing its annual Quality of Life survey.
You’ll notice as you review this year’s Index that the places International Living normally recommends you think about living or retiring fall nowhere near the top in the final rankings. Ecuador’s economy is a basket case and has been for as long as anyone can remember. Nicaragua’s tax rates aren’t particularly appealing for the foreign resident. Uruguay has zero miles of usable railway track. And, in the interior of Argentina, you could travel a long way in search of a hospital bed. On the other hand, Switzerland, for example, boasts 40 miles of railway track per 10,000 people over which the trains run quick and on time. Its GDP per capita is $34,000. And its female citizens live to the ripe age of 83 years. Should you contact your local Swiss Embassy to see if you might qualify for residency? We don’t know, but realize, before you do, that most of these details, when considered individually and out of context, are nearly meaningless. So which country wins this year’s Index? France and it takes this honor for the third year in a row. According to IL’s 2008 Quality of Life Index, France is the best place in the world to live. France has much to offer…the world’s best medical care. ..fast trains and its Eurostar service across the Channel. Paris blooms with too-many-to-count museums, cafés, galleries, antiques shops, restaurants, boutiques, jazz clubs, theaters, bakeries, and cheese shops, as well as her multitude of parks and gardens, some growing and tended for hundreds of years. Three capital city airports provide easy and cheap air access to the rest of Europe and the world beyond. And what’s not to like about the country’s four seasons, none too severe? On the other hand, France can be a very frustrating place to live and do business. Good luck opening a bank account without a letter of reference and bonne chance getting local cell phone service (the secret is to bring a local utility bill, preferably an electric bill). To apply for a visa or even to rent an apartment (legally), you’ll have to prepare an inch-thick dossier, notarized, sealed, stamped, witnessed… All those things are inconvenient and frustrating. But, just as a healthy gross domestic product and a lot of cell phones in circulation don’t necessarily translate to a good life, neither do an abundance of administrative red tape and restrictive systems for doing business necessarily mean a bad one. What, then, does make for a good quality of life? You’ll have to answer the question for yourself, and, when you do, here’s what we suggest: Place a premium on the things that can’t be plugged into a spreadsheet. A country (or a city or a region) may make great sense on paper but appeal to you not at all when you visit. And vice versa. What is it then that makes France, and particularly Paris, so special to so many people? Simply put, it’s beautiful. No city anywhere is as pretty as Paris. At all times of year, any time of day, in any weather, central Paris is lovely. Walk along its river, wander the twisting cobblestoned rues of its Latin Quarter, while away an afternoon watching the city pass you by from a café perch…and you’ll see what we mean. And no one can deny the cultural offerings of Paris. It’s a museum city, and its displays, in all directions, are world-class. Those who live here say that the longer they’re here, the less certain they are that they know the place. Paris is a tease. Like a lover savvy enough never to reveal too much too quickly, they say, Paris shows you a little leg, then covers up coquettishly, leaving you smiling and anticipating the next encounter. You may think you know Paris, but we promise you, there’s more to discover. Editor’s note: Dan Prescher and Suzan Haskins in Merida, Mexico Here in Merida, the streets are clean. The stores are well stocked. Cafés and restaurants abound. At night in the city parks, bands play free concerts under the stars. Dinner can be had at a local café for $5. It’s safe to walk home after midnight. A visit to the doctor’s office costs $30, and the doctor takes medical histories himself. The doctor provides a personal phone number and says to call immediately with any questions or concerns…and means it. Just about everything necessary for a quiet, happy life is within walking distance or a $2 taxi ride away, and there are taxis on every corner, all the time. This may sound like life in a typical U.S. town in the 1950s, but this is our home in the old central district of Merida, capital city of Yucatan state in eastern Mexico. Merida is a prosperous middle-class Mexican city that works. With a population of about 800,000, it’s large enough to have everything I need, and small enough to be completely manageable. Merida has an international airport with regular direct flights to Houston, Miami, and Atlanta. High-speed Internet, satellite and cable television, first-run movies, and modern shopping malls exist here alongside ancient churches, hand-pushed ice cream carts, historic haciendas, and indigenous craft markets. Many of the people on the streets speak Mayan as their first language. The summers can be brutally hot…well into the 100s for weeks at a time during July and August. But just 40 minutes north of town on a modern highway are some of the best beaches anywhere along Mexico’s gulf coast. Summer temperatures at the beach average 20˚ F cooler than in the city. Restaurants there bring cold beer and freshly grilled fish right out to your table under a palapa in the sand. A long summer afternoon by the sea with a cool breeze, a lunch of the day’s catch, and a few drinks runs about $15…for two. The other nine months of the year, a ceiling fan is the only climate control needed in the city. Property around Merida is still affordable compared to U.S. prices, and taking into consideration the low taxes and other day to day costs, we can live here for about half what we lived on in the U.S. Mexico has problems, and poverty is foremost among them. Mexico’s wealth, though, is its hard working and generous people. Whenever we’re away, we can’t wait to get back home to Mexico. |
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