{"id":35968,"date":"2017-08-03T13:36:19","date_gmt":"2017-08-03T17:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/?p=35968"},"modified":"2017-08-03T14:20:35","modified_gmt":"2017-08-03T18:20:35","slug":"house-hunting-considerations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/house-hunting-considerations\/","title":{"rendered":"House Hunting Considerations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I thought some of you might be interested in my house hunting considerations. There is a lot to consider and I know that my first place won&#8217;t be &#8220;perfect,&#8221; but I at least want to be comfortable for the first year!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Location<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Where I know for sure I don&#8217;t want to live:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Where other expats congregate, like the Santiago neighbourhood in Centro. Expats drive up rental rates and attract businesses and services with inflated prices. Plus, I came here to live in\u00a0Mexico!<\/li>\n<li>To live in one of the gated American-style car-oriented suburbs north of the Perif\u00e9rico, like La Ceiba (was shocked to learn I could afford to rent there) or Las Americas or in one of the newer subdivisions within the Perif\u00e9rico, like Gran Santa Fe.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I would consider living in any neighbourhood that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Is within the Perif\u00e9rico.<\/li>\n<li>Is easy to drive in and find parking (pretty much excludes Centro).<\/li>\n<li>Can let me walk to (in no particular order): a tortiller\u00eda, poller\u00eda (chicken stand), produce stand, small grocery store, beer store, larger supermarket, a wide range of restaurants, a bank that would have me as a client, and a cinema. A mall with a Chedraui or other hypermarket, an Office Depot, and other big box stores (like Las Americas, Macroplaza, City Center, or Gran Plaza) within walking distance would be a bonus.<\/li>\n<li>Has good bus service.<\/li>\n<li>Is economically diverse.<\/li>\n<li>Is not near a nightclub or party hall.<\/li>\n<li>Is not near the airport (pretty much eliminates anything south of Centro).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Neighbourhoods that I have looked at and like, but are in no way the finite list are: Las Haciendas, Las Fuentes\/Pensiones, Itzimn\u00e1, M\u00e9xico, Chuburna de Hidalgo, Altabrisas.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The House<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Must-haves:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>At least three bedrooms and two full baths, ideally with one bedroom and bath being on the ground floor for guests and the other two upstairs.<\/li>\n<li>Private outdoor space.<\/li>\n<li>Older house built for this climate that will stay comfortable (to a point) without AC.<\/li>\n<li>A non-scary electrical panel.<\/li>\n<li>AC units in all the bedrooms (window or mini-split doesn&#8217;t matter).<\/li>\n<li>Working doorbell if I have a front gate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Would be nice:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Two stories.<\/li>\n<li>A half-bath for visitors.<\/li>\n<li>A pool.<\/li>\n<li>Rejas (bars on doors and windows) and\/or fully enclosed house (not worried about my personal safety, but I had bars on the windows of the houses in Mazatl\u00e1n and Almer\u00eda and loved that I could go out for the day and keep the air circulating).<\/li>\n<li>Built-in closets with organisers (super common!).<\/li>\n<li>Traditional Mexican kitchen with only a ceramic countertop and maybe a few shelves &#8212; I&#8217;ve yet to see a single house with cabinets where the cabinets are logically installed. I&#8217;d rather design my own European-style kitchen with freestanding furniture.<\/li>\n<li>Window screens.<\/li>\n<li>A bright exterior colour or other distinguishing feature that would make my house stand out on the street and easy to find.<\/li>\n<li>Intercom if the front door is a mile from the front gate if I have a front gate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Things that I&#8217;m flexible on:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The neighbourhood.<\/li>\n<li>Having gas in the house. I&#8217;m shocked to say this, but I would now be okay with not having a gas stove as long as my electric range is the kind with the glass\/ceramic top, but with manual controls. My parents have one of those and they make cleaning so much easier!<\/li>\n<li>Aesthetics &#8212; I would like a house with some architectural charm, like colourful tiles and dark wooden doors, but am ready to rely on paint to add personality.<\/li>\n<li>The layout of the bedrooms so long as the guests are separate from me. I rejected a house where my office would have had to be on the ground floor because of the lack of light and limited air circulation, but that might not be a problem in another house.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Not quite deal breakers, but will give me pause:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Brand new construction that looks good but isn&#8217;t designed for this climate\/will require AC to be comfortable.<\/li>\n<li>Houses with laminate cabinets (kitchen, bathrooms, closets).<\/li>\n<li>Super grungy tile grout (for some reason, grout is rarely sealed in\u00a0Mexico and with there being so much tile in most houses, cleaning or replacing grout would be a huge undertaking).<\/li>\n<li>Very dark ground floor (problem with the closed in houses).<\/li>\n<li>Scary electrical panel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Price:<\/p>\n<p>I literally have not found a house I would want to live in that I couldn&#8217;t afford, other than the huge colonial mansions that would require a staff to maintain. So price is really not much of a concern. Based on what I&#8217;ve looked at so far, I expect to pay $5,000 to $7,000 a month. Less than $5,000 would mean I got a hell of a bargain and more than $7,000 would mean that I found a really special place worth splurging on.<\/p>\n<p>Lease length:<\/p>\n<p>At least one year, but since it costs so much to set up housekeeping and and it takes at least six months to get to know an area, I&#8217;d be willing to consider a two-year lease if I got a deal on the rent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I thought some of you might be interested in my house hunting considerations. There is a lot to consider and I know that my first place won&#8217;t be &#8220;perfect,&#8221; but I at least want to be comfortable for the first year! Location Where I know for sure I don&#8217;t want to live: Where other expats [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,895,14,635,3,894],"tags":[45],"class_list":["post-35968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homemaking","category-merida","category-mexico","category-north-america","category-travel","category-yucatan","tag-moving-to-mexico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35968"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36212,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35968\/revisions\/36212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}