Moved to Baja California

[slazenger]

I moved to Baja California (along the coast about 20 minutes drive south of the San Ysidro border, just outside of Tijuana). My reasons were pretty straightforward. In no particular order, I was tired of paying California (property and income) taxes, I wanted to build a house with an ocean view as well as a tennis court in a safe neighborhood without spending $5 million (think La Jolla or Del Mar), and I wanted closer proximity to latinas, my preferred dating partners. I own some apartments in Medellin so I'm there a fair amount, and I've met some women there and they generally can't travel to the US but Mexico is easy, so it's convenient having a place where they can stay for a few weeks if they want to visit. I speak Spanish fairly well (my ex-wife is Mexican) and I wanted my home base to be close to the US, so... Baja made the most sense for me when weighing all of the factors.

[ezinho]

So are you in Rosarito? How were you able to buy land as a foreigner in Mexico? I've looked a little into buying property in Mexico but if you do the math it actually seems cheaper to rent, unlike California where if you have a sufficient down payment it's cheaper to buy. Did you have to get a fidecomiso or whatever its called in order to purchase?

Sorry for all the questions but it's hard to find reliable information on buying property in Mexico. I agree with you that Baja is a logical place to look to buy property if you are from California but not too many Americans seem to be doing it, or at least as many as you'd think.

[slazenger]

I'm near Rosarito. Yes, I have a fideicomiso. It was about US$3,000 to set up and it costs about $350 in annual fees to the bank.

Yeah, it's cheaper to rent in the sense that residential rents are low in Baja compared to property values. But I wanted to design and build my own home in exactly the manner I wanted it and the cost was so low (relative to SD) that the money wasn't relevant. I owned for many years and ultimately sold in CA before moving down to Baja.

I don't know the exact statistics, but my development has a lot of former Californians, many of whom commute to San Diego each day to work (I do not).