We designed our dream home in Mexico for $270,000. It was cheaper than buying in the US but came with extra costs we didn't expect.
My husband and I moved from the US to Mexico because we were worried about our financial future.
We bought a fixer-upper for $50,000 and spent $220,000 to turn it into our dream home.
We ended up going slightly over budget, and it took two years to move in, but we're glad we did it.
My husband and I happily live in our dream home in Mérida, Mexico, but getting to this point took time, patience, and some extra costs we didn't anticipate.
In 2016, we were nearing retirement age but lived in NYC and were worried about our financial future.
We were looking at buying a small place in Brooklyn but couldn't find anything for less than $500,000.
Our prospects changed when we started looking abroad.
We settled on the city of Mérida over Thanksgiving weekend in 2018, and by early 2019, we found our new home, which we purchased for $50,000.
We didn't move in until two years later, however, in July 2021.
How we found our dream fixer-upper
Finding a home was relatively simple. Buying it took more time than a typical sale in the US.
After emailing several real-estate agents and choosing the most responsive one, we scheduled a time to fly from NYC to Mérida and meet in February 2019 to look for homes.
We wanted a cheap fixer-upper in the city's historic center. Our agent assembled a list of 15 homes, and we didn't even have to visit them all.
We found our home about halfway through the list, and our offer of 1 million pesos, or about $50,000, was quickly accepted.
But it then took three months to close. Much of that time was because of a quirk of Mexican law.
Foreigners aren't allowed to purchase land within about 31 miles of the coast — a zone that includes our house — and so it was necessary to create a fideicomiso, aka a Mexican bank trust, that technically owns the property. It's a simple process but it does take some time.
We had to get approval before renovating our home
The house had potential, but it needed some updates. I wanted to add a roofed patio and guest room. We also needed to restore the house's two main historic rooms.
My husband, Marc, is an architect and worked on the initial designs for the renovation and expansion with a local contractor who helped us navigate the approval process and construction.
Because the house is in Mérida's historic center, we needed to get Marc's designs approved by the federal agency that protects many of Mexico's historic districts and archaeological sites.
It took eight months to get approval and begin construction.
We went slightly over budget
Construction lasted about 16 months. We spent the first six months in NYC and communicated with contractors over email and video calls. For the final year, however, we moved into a rental in Mérida so Marc could check in on the site more frequently.
One of the last additions was nine solar panels, which help keep our energy use and bills low. It cost us $4,850 to install the panels, and they'll soon have paid for themselves.
Our original hope was to build the house for about $200,000 — including the cost of the house plus renovations.
The final cost was closer to $220,000 because of some changes that we wanted to make during the construction process.
One of the main lessons I'd pass on to anyone planning on undertaking a similar project is to have at least 10% to 15% extra for contingencies or unexpected design changes.
One expense we didn't anticipate
Because the home was built according to our design, and we were present for most of the construction, there have been no notable surprises.
But we didn't anticipate the tropical climate's harsh effect on houses here.
While we enjoy having a mortgage-free home with small utility bills, the maintenance of the house, including resealing the roofs and repainting the facade, is a larger expense than we expected.
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