# Advice on buying property in Puerto Vallarta as a US citizen



## smoyopdx (Nov 11, 2021)

I have been curious about buying a property in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for the first time a lot recently. I have been traveling to Puerto Vallarta for vacation over the last few years and have been thoroughly enjoying it. That being said I have been obsessed with buying a property there. The challenge for me is there seems to be an abundant amount of information much of which is very contradictory. I was hoping one of you here may be able to share some experience in regards to that our possibly point me in a solid direction as to here I can start doing some of my own investigation. Primarily I am interested in buying a beachfront condo or something that is relatively close to the beach.

Thanks in advance I know posts like these are common but I have struggled to find one that has some recent activity. If there is a featured thread I should be referring to instead i would love to be directed to that all the same.

Thanks again, cheers!


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## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

Do you speak Spanish? How fluently?
Do you have Mexican temporary or permanent residency? (I'm guessing not, if you've just been coming on vacation you probably have been using tourist visas).

The following is my personal advice and opinion:

The property sales process is different than the US. Real estate agents need no legal training, and can get you in trouble quite easily. I would avoid them if possible, they're taking a big commission for what little advantages they provide, which is much less than in the US. That said you have to find a way to tour interesting properties somehow.

There is no standard offer process like in the US. Making an offer to buy, and having it accepted, is a custom legal process, and you'd best have an Abagado involved representing you to keep you from getting in trouble. Once you make an offer, and supply earnest money, that money is _very_ difficult to get back if the deal falls through. Your only hope is having an abagado help you write a purchase agreement contract that gives you 'outs'. Escrow companies are generally not used. 

You can buy property along the coast. Mexican law requires you to set up and own the property through a bank trust, called a fideiscomo. (sp?) I'm sure it's possible to do that with temporary residency, but I'm less sure that it's possible to do it without temporary residency (i.e. when you're only on a tourist visa). It may be. It will depend on the bank you use to set up the trust, some banks might say no while others say yes.

The trust will cost you a few hundred bucks to set up and a couple hundred bucks a year to maintain (bank fees). Should be under $1000 to set up, including a fee to the govt to approve it, and under $500 a year for maintenance fees, depends on the bank.

My best advice is to start the process of getting temporary residency in the US, move to PV, rent a condo in the kind of building you are interested in with a one year lease (try to find a furnished apartment), and learn the 'gotchas' for that particular building. How noisy is it? How many AirBnB deplorables traipse through? How's the maintenance? How often do the elevators break and how long does it take them to get them fixed? etc etc. Your future happiness depends a lot on knowing how well the condo building administration works, and you can only find that out by living there.

In many cases you can negotiate a one year lease down to pretty much nothing above the carrying cost of the apartment - there are so many vacation properties that sit empty most of the year that if an owner can rent to a good renter and break even they'll take that deal, figuring to make something on the property's price appreciation.

I bought a condo in Cancun, in a building I rented in, and avoided pretty much all condo surprises. I actually rented for 4 years because I liked the rental unit and eventually got a good deal on an apartment that the owner wanted to sell in a hurry. 

Lastly, property is much much harder to sell in Mexico than it is in the US. Consider that it might take a year or two to find a buyer who's willing to pay a fair price for your apartment. You need to be _really_ sure you want to live there forever.


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## smoyopdx (Nov 11, 2021)

Wow, excellent advice, thank you so very much! I speak Spanish at b2 level (expect to be c1 by this time next year) while my wife is from Cuba and thus is native level Spanish speaker. I don't have have Mexican temporary or permanent residency so, that is good to know. I'll start looking into that right away. Thanks for the tips as well in regards to the getting a lawyer to set up a purchase agreement contract with 'out' clauses I am sure that can be quite a hassle if not set up correctly.

What a surprise as well about the real estate agents. I have now heard from a few sources that they should be avoided entirely and I should just be using a lawyer primarily instead.

Really great advice, thank you again! 🙇‍♂️🙏


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## LoggedIn (Nov 21, 2017)

Vacation only?


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## MangoTango (Feb 8, 2020)

As usual - my experiences differ somewhat.

We used a big name international real estate company in our property search. Our realtor was Mexican/Canadian (spoke excellent English - but was an engineer not a salesperson). Everyone liked him (he's back in Canada).
We looked at perhaps 200-300 properties together. I would find places and he would gain us access. When we finally walked into the house I am living in now it was and immediate WOW. We had not seen another house like it. To have him include it in our search list I had to raise my max limit a little. But the seller's really came down on their asking price for us. We negotiated the price quite a bit. I guess that is a regional thing. 

We did rent another house for a year prior. It was in a nice area and we took a 10% discount for paying the entire year up front. 

We had no lawyers involved in the purchase process at all. Only at closing. I did have the house inspected by a local 'expat' expert. In the end - that was a waste of money.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

Buying in land and buying in restricted zones are different. Having the house checked at closing is a waste of time better have a contractor look at it before making the offer but even then you can have surprises here...


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## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

I agree with citlali. In the US there's a standard 'inspection contingency' clause in the standard purchase and sales agreement and if you want to make your offer contingent on a good inspection you just check the box. Nothing like that in Mexico.

There's no such thing here as a standard P&S agreement here at all. If you want an inspection, the best thing to do is negotiate it with the seller (separately) before you sign anything at all. Get it done, and then make your offer based on what knowledge you have and what you know you don't know. Your offer will be basically a hand-crafted one-of-a-kind contract between you and the seller. It's my impression that pretty much _any _contingency you might put in the contract can lead to trouble if you try to exercise it. It's difficult to write an iron-clad contingency that the seller has to honor. Any seller can refuse to honor the contingency, regardless of the written contract, and you'll have to go to court to get it resolved if your lawyer can't negotiate something with the seller.

The quality, or lack of quality, of the purchase contract only becomes apparent when the deal goes south. If everything goes smoothly, the purchase contract doesn't matter much. If you let a real estate agent pretend to be a lawyer and write something up, and the deal goes through with no issues, you're lucky. As long as the buyer doesn't try to back out, most deals will go through without big issues. It's trying to get out of a deal you discover is a bad deal that is problematic. That's when you find out if your lawyer is any good.

If you are going to want to see a hundred properties, like Mango Tango, I don't see any effective way you can avoid dealing with real estate agents. In that case they are earning their money by arranging so many viewings. In my case I saw exactly one property and bought it, the person who happened to know it was for sale and happened to know I was interested collected US$20k for around 8 hours of work, total. When I viewed the property, the owner's wife was there, and she did the showing, not the "agent", who had simply inserted herself in the middle to collect a commission for being in the middle. Since the "agent" had no signed contract with either me or the seller, we could have cut her out entirely, but I felt honor bound to pay her the commission. It came out of my pocket, the seller wanted to stiff her. She claimed that same seller had stiffed her in a prior sale.


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## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

Oh, and I'd agree with Mango Tango's decision to go with an agent from a big international real estate agency - a serious professional agent. As far as I know there's nothing in mexico that stops anyone from calling themselves a real estate agent. Unlike the US, there is no trade association, no training, no licensing, no code of ethics, nada (at least not that I've heard of). So if you are going to deal with an agent, you want the best you can find, not an amateur wannabe.

So I wouldn't advise everyone to never use an agent, it depends on what kind of search you're doing. I basically did a sit-and-wait, renting for years until I got a lead on a sale in the same building. If you want to tour everything in town, that's an entirely different approach.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

An agent can be useful to find a property ,but buyers have to remember the agent is responsable for nothing so it is buyer beware even with reputable companies.


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

citlali said:


> Buying in land and buying in restricted zones are different. Having the house checked at closing is a waste of time better have a contractor look at it before making the offer but even then you can have surprises here...


Just wondering. Have you had any "surprises" when purchasing a a house in Mexico?


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## MangoTango (Feb 8, 2020)

Lots of topics brought up here...

We had the house 'inspected' before we ever committed to purchasing. The guy who presented himself as an inspector (perhaps in a previous life) did not even detect that neither of the two hot water heater functioned. So we moved into a house with no hot water (for example). But they say don't speak ill of the dead.

Our 'realtor' was the son of the franchise owner. We really worked him to death (within reason). He has been gone a few years now but even today (literally) when people refer to our transaction they say 'Mauricio' sold them this house and everyone is happy. Our area is possibly the most 'prestigious' place in the area - but far from the most convenient. 

Today - I am attempting to sell the house again. I am actually using the exact same real estate firm who sold our house for us in Florida. That was an interesting situation... for perhaps 2 years (during the peak of the Florida real estate craze) we had our house listed with the premier firm in the area. Nothing. We switched to this other 'international' company and a new very 'green' agent had the house sold in like a month.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

Isla Verde said:


> Just wondering. Have you had any "surprises" when purchasing a a house in Mexico?


we bought a tear down so the surprise was not great but could have been as there were no foundations..


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

citlali said:


> we bought a tear down so the surprise was not great but could have been as there were no foundations..


Yikes! How can a house be built without a foundation?


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

Isla Verde said:


> Yikes! How can a house be built without a foundation?


Does any old house in Mexico have a foundation. My adobe house is over a hundred years old. I am pretty sure the adobe walls are just sitting on the ground. Like many houses here, I get a lot of moisture wicking up into the first meter or so of the walls. I assume that is due to the lack of any foundation, but I wasn't around when any of these houses were constructed, so I don't really know. I have been in this house for more than 10 years and I am still learning new things about its construction.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

Some of the walls were adobe so yes the no foundation is the rule...


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