A subject of some interest

I noticed on one of the threads on TOB, which got shut down as usual, a couple of very interesting comments regarding people leaving lakeside, and then subsequently returning.

After thinking about it for a while I came up with a small list of people who had actually done that, and wondered if anyone else had noticed the same phenomenon?

On my list are two couples and one single woman.

My list is short, but does include one couple who came for 6 months, the moved to Baja for a year and then returned here.

I know of two couples who have left, for good.

It would be more interesting to know why they left and/or why they came back.

We'd probably still be in San Miguel if December, January and February weren't so cold there. We'd probably still be in San Pancho if the summers weren't so hot there. Now we're here...and hope it's juuuussst right.

We have good friends in ABQ who want to come here but can't sell their home.

The folks that tried Lakeside then Baja first thought Lakeside was too low-key. They found Baja too hot and too touristy. Returned her and came to love it. I know people who've gone north for medical reasons and wanting to be closer to grandchildren.

Mainecoons wrote:We have good friends in ABQ who want to come here but can't sell their home.

Our newest neighbour is from ABQ. We are good friends. It took them almost 2 years to sell a most gorgeous home and they practically gave it away. I know of no one selling or moving back.

One house near us, not in our Community, just went on the market last week, because they want to downsize, spend 6 months here and 6 months in CA.

John, aren't you selling and going back?

This is an interesting subject. We don´t know anyone who has left Mexico recently because of current trends in crime or the drug war but, in 2006, we bought a home in the Chiapas Highlands with the intention of probably leaving Lake Chapala for Southeastern Mexico which we then and now prefer to Jalisco for several reasons having to do primarily with the local culture, historical interest and great natural beauty. Now, in 2011, we have decided we will not leave the Lake Chapala area for a permanent home down there also for several reasons.
* I had my gall bladder removed when at death´s door in a repulsive hospital in San Cristóbal de Las Casas and thereby gained a fresh new appreciation of having a home near Guadalajara with its excellent health care system and accomplished physicians. This is a hell of an important factor for me as I approach 70.
* In our opinion, despite the fact that various parts of Southern Mexico can have splendid weather, that weather is variable and often unpleasant for many reasons ranging from too damn cold and rainy to miserably hot and rainy often with debilitating humidity. The weather at Lake Chapala, on the other hand is splendid nearly all the time with seemingly endless days of sunshine and pleasant temperatures. The hot season of April and May some complain of here at the lake is a joke compared to most places we have ever lived including even coastal California where Californians bitch about the heat in their usual September heat wave. I sentece all bitchers to unbearable Texas or Louisiana summers until they have reformed and fled back here with their tails between their legs.
* Even if we wanted to sell our home at Lake Chapala, this would be a lousy time to attempt to do so due to a number of factors including the endless and grotesque drug war, an alarming increase in local crime over the relatively tranquil Lake Chapala we moved to in 2001, the economic woes in the U.S. which supplies Lakeside with so many of its potential homebuyers including the continued collapse of the U.S. housing market in regions that once allowed homeowners the luxury of cashing out of homes up there with enough cash out to pay relatively high (for Mexico) prices for homes at the lake. Oddly enough, these negative factors including the inceased violence and U.S. economic woes have had little effect in Chiapas because most foreign buyers are European and Latin American and the region also attracts well-to-do Mexicans from such places as Mexico City. We think that, either at Lake Chapala or in Chiapas, one will be looking at a hard time selling anything with a formerly high value without deep discounting the earlier anticipated asking price so we´ll stick around in both places since we don´t seem to have a choice. Hey, at least we´re not stuck in Houston or some other part of (shudder) Texas.

It seems ta me folks is overreacting... Chapala Region has always had some degree of violence ... it comes and goes

One thousand years ago... one tribe would jump the other tribe and bash their brains in, then steal their grub and all the broads...

500 years ago, The Spanish would jump the tribes and steal all their gold, their grub, and all their broads...

Ever since, The Catholics, have been jumpin them, in an attempt to save the dumb heathen bast@rds, they have stolen all their gold, their grub, and all their little boys....

Times they are a chang'n....

I have so many friends who left recently, three leaving within the month, and many trying to sell and leave. I have lost count. One friend was planning to move here full time, changed her plans due to violence and will continue to rent 6 months instead.

Hock, I love that post. Now THAT'S historical, hysterical perspective.

The rest of the posts above are the truth, too. Ferret will probably find, as we have, that this is a "goldilocks" climate and even in May, there's nothing much to whine about.

I froze my tushie in San Miguel for three winters and breathed the polluted air. This is not generally mentioned by their tourist or real estate interests, but ther many local brick making enterprises just outside the town fire up the furnaces with old tires and plastic. "They say" it will be corrected. Yup. Then there's the thosands of cars, buses and taxis circling the streets at 10 mph, spewing fumes. The place is in the bowl of an extinct volcano, so the bad air collects in town, you know.....like Los Angeles.

Ashholes, wannabees, border promotees, and general dumbkins exist everywhere in Mexico. There is no escape, so dawg's and others' issues with their fellow residents around Lakeside are easily solved by just ignoring those people. There's also plenty of courteous, considerate and intelligent folks to hang out with here. They tend to find each other.

Crime? It's everywhere. "Appointment in Samarra" anyone? Where in the world can anyone go where there isn't any crime? I suspect some of those leaving are deluded, but reality will hit soon enough.

I know of two couples who just recently have gone back to the U.S. for good, but it had nothing to do with crime; both cases were health-related.

One couple was renting in Roca Azul and they moved to Waco, Texas, because of his health issues.

Another pair owned a house in Riberas del Pilar and took a huge loss on house and furnishings. One of the partners has a heart condition that precludes the atmospheric conditions here at Lakeside, due to the altitude.

Another couple from Canada are trying to sell their house in Riberas del Pilar and do not plan to return, also for health reasons.

[quote="hockables"]It seems ta me folks is overreacting... Chapala Region has always had some degree of violence ... it comes and goesquote]

Well, Hocks, I am so relieved to find someone unconcerned about today´s level of violence at Lakeside. Dawg´s ancestors left Scotland where they were being persecuted and kept as poor as church mice, ended up in South Alabama where they stole indigenous lands and sent them off on the death march to Oklahoma - Oklahoma for God´s sake - enslaved Africans to perform all of the unpleasant field work, considered periodic lynchings to be high community entertainment, established Jim Crow laws to keep those same later freed Africans servile and in destitute poverty and sharing shotgun house accomodations with white tenant famers who paid the rent with a signiicant portion of their crops and built textile mills where they kept all the workers in indentured servitude with charge accounts for exhorbitantly priced basic staples at the company store. By the time Dawg was born, all that historical plunder provided Dawg a fine roof over my head, a ´57 Chevy and all the Pabst Blue Ribbon and RC Cola I could drink. As all those brilliant people who threw that "Gringo" real estate seminar ostensibly to quell the local violence hurting home prices last week told the participants, let´s look to the future and not the past.

You and I must forget the past and look to the future, Hocks and, since, as you stated above, "...violence comes and goes.", let´s bet on its going and you can buy my Lake Chapala house and sit on the veranda and watch the violence go at your leisure while you and Itch write your restaurant reviews. After a while you may be able to get in most of them without reservations. Dawg will give you such a deal. Cash (no Loonies or Confederate Bills) on the barrel head, of course. If you have any complaints after that, my phone number in Chiapas is unlisted.