Newbie! Arriving 4/5 for house hunt!

[AlisaC]

Hello all!

As I write this, I am on my way (via Ventura County) to Guanajuato! We are house hunting, and will be relocating to GTO city (from Arizona/California) at the beginning of June.

So, needless to say, we are very excited - we have spent a good amount of time in the city, and know the different areas pretty well. I will be there for a week, starting April 5, looking around, and hopefully finding a home for us.

Some questions/advice...

* Would love to connect with a few of you while I'm there from 4/5-4/11 - let me know if you want to chat. Maybe coffee or drinks, or lunch? On me!

* Is there a description somewhere of the real estate purchase process. I know that I will need a Notary Public (I have contacted one, but haven't heard back, so any recommendations here would be awesome). Also, I'm guessing it would be really smart to work with a local lawyer. My Spanish is pretty good, but not great with legal language.

* I am working, long-distance with some realtors. Have noticed that some are GREAT at getting back to me - others, not so much. Any personal recommendations you have would be amazing.

* If you know of a property within walking distance to El Centro (up to 30 minutes) let me know. We need room for us (a couple), four dogs and a cat. So, either a small yard or a large terrace.

* How is mail delivered? Post office? To the individual homes?

* How accessible/reliable is internet service in El Centro areas? Marfil? La Presa? How is it connected? Via phone service?

* What's your favorite cell phone provider for a Mexican number - we are getting a Google Fi number so I can keep my US phone number, and for travel outside the US and Mexico.

* If you had to do it over again, what do you wish people told you?

* We are a lesbian couple - any insights on GTO attitudes? We stayed with a young lesbian couple when we spent a month in GTO in 2017, and they seemed pretty comfortable there, expressing no problems. Would love to hear from you, too!

* We "may" have a small sedan, at least for 6 months to help facilitate furnishing things (going to Leon, etc.) Some of the homes we are looking at have parking spaces, some don't. We are looking forward to ditching our car, ultimately. But, in the meantime....for those of you who have a car, but no attached parking space, what are our options?

THANKS in advance - so looking forward to moving to GTO, getting to know some of you, and being happy immigrants in a city and country that we love.

[Victor David]

Hi Alisa -
I've been living full time in Guanajuato for 8 years and hopefully can help with some of your questions. Also, a coffee when you're here would be great. I know the best places :) You can send a PM if you like and take it from there.

When we bought a house, we used Carmen Nieto. Each notary has a number and I believe hers is #19. She's located up on Blvd. Guanajuato. The process was very smooth with her. Very nice person and knowledgeable.

As for real estate persons, we worked with Carlos and Martha at Enco. Very honest and thorough. We continue a friendship. Highly recommended.

Internet can be had via Megacable which arrives on fiber optic. TelMex also has fiber these days, but I don't know details. With Megacable, you can get up to 200mbs download. Their service includes telephone and cable TV. There's different packages; we have internet and telephone for under 500 pesos a month. Telephone includes unlimited calls to all of Mexico, the US, and Canada. Work out pretty well for us since I have relatives in the states. As for cell phones, we use TelCel pay as you go. The service works well, but I don't like their balance expiration scheme.

Mail delivery isn't so great. Many businesses deliver their own stuff (bills, etc) using their own employees. I have a post office box in centro and that's been fine.

Before we bought the house (which has parking), I rented a space in a private garage. I think people are happy to get some extra money if they have some extra room they can rent out. There's also commercial outfits, but it seems many of them don't do monthly rentals. Some might, but I think they get better money sticking to hourly.

I don't know any properties, but if you ask Carlos and Martha, they might have something. Tell them David and Monica of San Javier sent you.

Okay, get in touch via PM if you like. Hope you have a good trip and that I was able to answer some of your q's.

Victor David

[jesm]

Welcome.
Victor has well covered most of your areas of interest. Let me expand on the property purchase issue.
We have lived in Mexico for 13 years, last 8 in GTO, and purchased lots in two widely different parts. We subsequently built homes in both places.
Once you and the seller have arrived at a purchase agreement you will select a Notario, who is a State appointed attorney charged to ensure all necessary taxes,fees are duly collected at time of closing. The Notario is a neutral party in the transaction working on behalf of the government. They are not “ your” counsel looking to protect your interests. The Notario will give you an estimate of their fees along with your portion of any taxes and fees in a closing statement provided a few days before any funds are paid. Upon closing you will revive an escritura, a deed, just as in USA.
While the Notario is an experienced attorney fully conversant in property law and taxes, they do not do extensive research or vetting of the seller and their clear legal right to actually sell the subject property. Many of the heartbreak stories one hears about disastrous real estate experiences in Mexico can be traced to this critical situation. The seller, perhaps unknowingly, or not, is later found to have sold without being legally able to do so. After closing, an unknown party steps forth to dispute the sale then the legal costs and hassle begins.
Title insurance as known in USA, to protect against such incidents, is only just starting to become available, as the risk to the underwriter is magnified by the lack of confirmed records and multi-party ownerships.
This is where an investment in time and money with a reputable real estate attorney, before the closing, can be money well spent. They can undertake a sequential identification of prior owners and offer you great peace of mind as you look to enjoy your new home. A typical fee for such service is around $500 US depending on the complexity of the ownership trail.
Our experiences, all positive, says devoting time, resources and attention before you buy to knowing the history of the property is as important as your plans for its future enjoyment.
PS We too can highly recommend Notario #19 María Carmen Nieto. A wonderful person with long standing connections in the GTO legal community, her English and professionalism are outstanding.

[DonJuane]

I typically get assassinated for my casual opinions but that only inspires me onward LOL. As far as being a same sex couple let me say that it's my experience that not many people pay that much attention. Most women of all ages can be seen walking hand and hand, mother by daughter and a major part of young school girls I've seen do the same, strolling hand and hand everywhere. I think this is because the Latin American culture is a more loving group of people and is for the most part too busy with other things to worry about who is with who and who is touching who where, or actually to hone in on any aspect of anyone's personality. And with the hormones of the young population and with the feverish activity on the park benches at night, it's mostly the Gringo tourists who are thinking "get a room" and more so than the locals even notice. I've found that the people who attract the most attention could perhaps be those with day-glow colored hair, showing a lot of tattoos on areas of the body typically covered, women with shorts up to the cut and perhaps male to male PDA but that is just from one of my favorite hobbies here in Mexico and that is park bench sitting. Not sure why it's so interesting for me to watch people's reactions to others but I find it fascinating.

In other more touristy cities it seems people walking up and down the streets are being sized constantly. The vendors and hawkers have sized you up and tried to figure out what sale you might be vulnerable for as soon as you get in sight. Also in touristy cities there is the "me" component where the tourists obviously run out of something to do and instead or touring any more, they sit around a observe others. GTO doesn't seem quite there yet since the main tourist corridor is a short path by the Union Jardin, there's not as much of this going on quite yet. Here in GTO it sill seems most are in some feverish pace of accomplishing their own assigned area of conventional commerce and are therefore not that interested in anyone else.

Otherwise a simple warning here and that's one I have given repeatedly. I could say to you "good luck and you will love it here" and you'll love me today or I can say something where you'll dislike me today and love me next year, "good luck to you and be sure first that you love it here". Always without argument people moving to Mexico are warned, suggested or stressed to rent for some time, perhaps a year or more before deciding to buy property. If you are an investor and have the disposable income, then go for it, But if you're talking about investing the family fortune, be sure you are doing the best thing for you and your family when you move here by first strongly considering renting instead of buying. Renting provides that "window of reality absorption" that can be a surprise to many who do not understand the entire realm of emotional influences that sometimes cloud the transparencies needed to properly evaluate a new environment and particularly in the Disneyland-like cities that may Gringos lean toward up front. And another thing people fail to realize is that same rush of emotion that has caused them to consider selling out and walking away from everything they have known in life in order to grab hold of the GTO experience, what they don't realize if they've made such a radical move once, that it's even easier to do the second and third time around. In fact many I've met that declared their affection for a city by chiseling it in stone realized too soon that somewhere else in Mexico began shining as a brighter star.

I recommend remaining free as a bird in Mexico. After all, that's likely why you came in the first place.

[DonJuane]

Other answers ....

Cell service:
There is AT&T that is a growing entity and offers a transparent experience out of the US if maintaining a US number is your goal and I highly recommend it over Google Fi (I recommend anything over Google actually due to their privacy policies). If you are stuck in a city and by that I mean you aren't inspired to do the constant cross country travel routine many of us aspire toward then MoviStar is normally a little cheaper and works well in most major cities. In contrast Telcel is usually more expensive and works in the most areas over the mountainous terrain of Mexico. It would be the best in and out of city provider and for frequent travelers. There's now free voice and data roaming to the US with Telcel like with AT&T to Mexico but if you attempt to communicate with Telcel in the US you run into the same "I don't dial a Mexico number" as I will explain in a moment.

I would consider AT&T reception-wise as somewhere between MoviStar and Telcel. AT&T will a lot of times have a free roaming agreement with Telcel towers but most of those alliances are disappearing as AT&T builds out its own network. If you have spent a great deal of time in Mexico, you are probably aware of all this and the only reason I mention is I hope you are experienced traveling in Mexico again before you invest in purchasing property. Also before you purchase property, investigate the reported high taxation rate that will be imposed on you in the event you decide to sell for any reason.

Many people who wish to maintain two separate realms of friend and relative contacts will purchase a phone supporting 2 SIM chips and phone nubers but this depends on your needs and budget. The main driving force in this is making it easy for friends to call you. Most people won't call you from the US if you have a Mexico number or from Mexico if you have a US number. Depending on how you lean, you can port a US number to a Mexico number via a VOIP service that will cost around 2 cents a minute for land line or 4 cents to a Mexican cell phone and that will allow contacting you from a US number (your old number can be ported) and then you use a Mexico SIM chip with local number to begin your new life in Mexico with an Mexico number. This way you actually get calls from people you meet because they believe you have an interest and are not only passing through Mexico. The ported US number to VOIP company can seamlessly transfer your old US number into Mexico but that still doesnt address not delivering a US number on caller ID back to the people you phone in the US. If you go exclusively with a service like AT&T that allows you to retain a US number, no one in Mexico will ever call you on that number, unless maybe if you own them a lot of money. Due to a lifetime of high tolls and surprise long distance fees, people of both countries have been conditioned simply not to call a number outside the country in fear that it will involve some hidden charges. So for the most part if you wish to maintain a business in the US and communicate with friends here in Mexico, for the time being you are going to need to manage two numbers with two SIM chips in something like the BLU or another dual chip phone. And this is even if you go AT&T with free Mexico data and roaming in Mexico or Telcel with free US data and roaming while in the US. You have to pay the money for two chips in order to keep the caller ID straight if you are dealing at the education level of most people and in particular, most clients if you are running a business. You don't want to "cheap out" if your business depends on it and actually the rates for a lost usage dedicated Mexico phone chip is not enough cost to chance that you can't communicate with friends you meet locally.

****** There are also apps tied to US services that will provide a US number for use which can be installed on any smart phone connected to a standard cell or wifi data network in any country, including the phone data plan provided via an exclusive Mexico voice number. This capability even extends via the free wi-fi service seen in restaurants all over the world and provides phone calls for pennies from anywhere in the world to a US number, with the recipient receiving the call as normal with a US callerID number displayed. Such apps installed on a smart phone (or via use of special adapter connected to the router anywhere in the world called home) can be used to maintain a US phone number presence away from the US on a smaller scale than a dedicated cell phone plan with regular SIM chip and dedicated voice number can provide. And in the case outside of "business critical" or minimally "strongly important" this may actually work for some. Typically a very low cost service based in the US with a US number is subscribed to as a VOIP service provider. There are many providers such as Skype MagicJack, etc. The one I have used for decades is callcentric.com?aid=71953 and they have been reliable.

Any of these VOIP companies will provide a portal to the US number you lease or old home phone number you have ported with the understanding that it will only be available to you for conversations when you are somehow connected to the Internet. With smart phones that means using the cell phone's data plan or a linked into a free or known wifi. That same service is also available via a wired connection to a router in a home. On the smart phone side, as long as there is data access and an excellent signal is available, the app will provide a link to make and receive calls in the US using the VOIP service. But the downside is that signal quality, cell network or someone's wifi greatly control the quality of the signal and thus the quality of the call. On the other had the same VOIP service is also available for much more serious-minded use when a dedicated adapter called an ATA is installed in the home. Plugged in one side of this ATA is a standard desk or portable phone while the ATA is wired with a LAN cable into the home's router.

Using this VOIP service either way, via a smart phone app or via a dedicated device in the home provides a cut-rate method to maintain a US number and presence world-wide with low incurred usage fees to boot. And with the home VOIP adapter being much more dependable than a compatible access of the VOIPfacility via smart phone app, conversations conducted on the home equipment are guaranteed to be much more reliable than an app struggling to get an excellent signal via a cell data plan or local wifi source that are both dependent on signal quality. Since the home configuration option is sent over a wired internet LAN connection to the home router, the home setup is therefore not at the mercy of reception issues that are seen with smart phone apps. Still with either, calls can be initiated and received from a US number anywhere in the world which can provide anything from a full business presence is the US with the same quality calls as if you were actually in the US and all the way down to simply supplying US banks with what they ask for rather than dealing with their otherwise imposed hassles forn you when calling from a number not on record and in particular one of foreign origin.

Internet:
Internet comes from city-wide fiber equipped TelMex or the cable company MegaCable at $35 a month and up. The speeds are likely higher than you have in the US. You will likely experience a lot of frustration with everything defaulting to Spanish and some of your favorite TV channels and Netflix blocked in Mexico but you can subscribe for under $10 a month to a VPN service if that's important to you, which will get your default websites back to English and allow access into US-centric entertainment channels.

***** There's also this trend in Mexico to use What'sAp as a boundary-less communication method that almost everyone in Mexico relies upon for most of their friend to friend communication. If you are willing to turn all of the information stored on your phone over to that company, then you can load it as an app and perhaps save some money and always be in touch. Of course if you are conducting business, you'll need to also need to maintain a traditional telephone number and you might consider more carefully such an invasive "free" offering.

[doncoulter]

Regarding Telcel service, I'm not sure what DonJuane means when he writes that "if you attempt to communicate with Telcel in the US you run into the same 'I don't dial a Mexico number' . . ." If he's saying that you can't make calls to Mexico from a Telcel phone while in the U.S., that's incorrect. My wife and I travel to the U.S. a couple of times a year, and we use our Telcel phones both to call each other while there and to call friends and family in Mexico.

[DonJuane]

For clarification, if one was to move to Mexico and have only a Mexico phone number, for example I walk up to a parts counter when I return to the US for supplies and say to the attendant to call me at my Mexico number 011 52 1 415 713 2687 when the part comes in and they at that point respond "yea right". Or drop by your aunt Jane's and say dear Aunt, you can now reach me by dialing (same number) but before you do that and perhaps risk the $3 US per minute charges that AT&T customers without Mexico access plans pay to call me, let's sit down evaluate your phone needs and work out a plan with them where you can call me for a new fee structure and plan and at that point you see Aunt Jane nodding off LOL.

Most people won't do anything that is not easy, and make that VERY easy :-) Well make that free and easy - people only do what is free and easy these days and maybe you need to throw in a good meal with that. And in fact make it a good meal. :-)

I do maintain a single phone number in the US that uses the VOIP service I previously spoke of and I can use their online portal to setup automatic transfer of the phone call to any number in any country I am visiting. I also have their SMS product enabled and when a bank or friend sends a SMS to my US number, it emails the SMS to me where ever in the world I might be. So you have to go to a little more effort to make things easy for people especially when you are out of the country where your friends and relatives reside.

[AlisaC]

You all are amazing!!!!

Thanks so much, and I hope to connect with some of you when I am there later this week. In the meantime, I can't thank you enough for your help.

We are planning on buying our initial property - we'll have many more resources in a few years, so are looking for a property that we can be comfortable in, and either improve in 5 years, or sell, or rent - pretty flexible. We'll be splitting our time between GTO and SoCal on our sailboat in Ventura County. We will also have a boat in the Ixtapa or PV area - so, all are invited :)

Stay tuned, and again, many thanks!!!!!

Alisa

[DonJuane]

I'd personally liquidate all my assets and move my home and the largest of my yachts to St. Barts. GTO is going to be a severe letdown I do fear.