Chapala Rental Market - Should we buy first?

Should we rent or buy a home when we move to Chapala? We heard Riviera Maya homes are hot now and double in value every five years?

Thanks again for all of your replies to our questions about bringing our dog to Mexico! We think we're going to drive instead of fly (both had pros and cons) so we're going to need to research driving across the border as well as across the country (future podcast/post).

This week we're trying to figure out if we should rent or buy a place in Chapala when we get here (hoping for September).

We have a real live interview this week with an expat living in Chapala and picked his brain about Lakeside rentals:
www.jonlooker.com/the-prepat-podcast/episode-3-rent-vs-buy

As always, any and all feedback is more than appreciated and we hope you have a great weekend!
-Wenny & Jon

if you haven't visited mexico frequently or done very little research like you have been doing on this board,don't buy.
we bought our house in the first week here and have been in it almost 9 years but i did a ton of research over about6+/- years before the move,including talking to quite a few people on my vonage phone chapala,mazatlan,df, and taxco,etc. and as tourist since '78 and wife since'85.when i was checking the hunting situation i even found that there is a mexican ducks unlimited. ya can't do enough research.

The Chapala area is NOT the Riviera Maya; that's on the Yucatan. Doubling in value does not apply to property around Chapala.

Gamina wrote:The Chapala area is NOT the Riviera Maya;  that's on the Yucatan.  Doubling in value does not apply to property around Chapala.

i missed what ya said there[lo siento] and yes ya got a lot more research to do before you even think of coming here even to just rent. i would at least just visit once for about 2-3 weeks and without putting your dog through any sort of trauma. riviera maya and here is like venus and mars. mexico is a big country with diverse climates. i don't think you're ready.

Pedro wrote:

Gamina wrote:The Chapala area is NOT the Riviera Maya;  that's on the Yucatan.  Doubling in value does not apply to property around Chapala.

i missed what ya said there[lo siento] and yes ya got a lot more research to do before you even think of coming here even to just rent. i would at least just visit once for about 2-3 weeks and without putting your dog through any sort of trauma. riviera maya and here is like venus and mars. mexico is a big country with diverse climates. i don't think you're ready.

Hi Pedro thanks for the reply! We've already enjoyed Lakeside for about a month now which is why we're pretty sure it's the place for us :) And as to your comment, "i don't think you're ready", well we agree and that's probably why we created a podcast to learn more from friendly locals and expats like you. gracias!
-Wenny

Well the bottom line is you should always rent before you buy with any major relocation such as this. Once you have decided that living in Mexico and living around Lake Chapala is right for you then you can decide which community around the lake is the best fit. After that then by all means buy a place if that right something comes along.

Venus and Mars are alright tonight.

This thread is clearly IMHO just a promo for their website and podcast.

i don't see any website,just a podcast with practically nada on it. so what is clear other than that these people don't seem know much?

CanuckBob wrote:Well the bottom line is you should always rent before you buy with any major relocation such as this. Once you have decided that living in Mexico and living around Lake Chapala is right for you then you can decide which community around the lake is the best fit. After that then by all means buy a place if that right something comes along.

Thanks CanuckBob! This is exactly what we're looking to find here in the forums although I suppose it could be confusing for some... my fault for not explaining.

After the second time my wife and I visited Chapala, we knew we had fallen in love with the people, place, climate, quality of life and made the goal to move to Chapala by the end of this year, following my dad who moved to Lakeside last year.

And not wanting to offend anyone or rush into something we know little about, we wanted to learn as much as possible on the following subjects before coming down:
Primary Topics:
Health Care, Cost of Living, Safety & Security, Housing, Transportation, Pets, Entry Requirements
Secondary Topics:
Eating, Volunteering, Shopping, Language, Currency

And these forums are such an amazing way to ask experts and learn so much we really are quite lucky this resource is here (thanks again CB). Furthermore, being an info-nerd and a web designer, I thought I'd sum up what we learned on my website so that: 1) others could comment / correct them in case we're missing something and 2) since most everyone was so nice to share this info with me, I thought if anyone else could benefit from it then that would be a great way to pay it forward. Considering that this is the commencement of our monumental journey, it's a very astute observation that there's not much there... yet!

We sure are looking forward to more discussions with any and all expat friends and hope some of what we share might help also help someone else. I've summed up the data learned from this topic in a simple infographic below... They just help me get an impression of the overall mood of a topic.

Thanks again and take care,
-jon and wenny

Nice work.

Thanks for sharing.

zenwoodle wrote:Venus and Mars are alright tonight.

And the more Venus drinks, the better Mars looks.

Wenny &Jon:
We were among the 20% who came to lakeside and bought... We couldn't be happier.. We had a clear understanding of what we wanted and when we found it, we bought... Having said that one's decision should be partially based on one's history... We lived overseas for 20 years in places similar to lakeside... We even spent two year on the Aegean where we were the ONLY English speaking people in the entire village... We loved it there...

I have noted that prices have come down since we purchased... We bought at a fair price so we are within the present market range... If you decide to buy make sure you get a competent Realtor... There are a lot of people here that think they know the market... Just a word to the wise...

There are very few good RE agents here. They are here but best to ask around.