I'd rather have a trashed vacant lot than the hustle and bustle of a government office. If the vacant lot bothers me that much I can always clean it up. The government office and the things it brings with it.... (ie: protests, trash, noise, traffic, people, political events..etc) can't be gotten rid or or cleaned up so easily.
The lot he's talking about is the one just next to Home Depot. Someone bulldozed it a few weeks back, and then the circus was there for two weeks. So it looks like hell right now, it is trashed. But it's temporary, it will grow back into a jungle in a month.
for my money the best advice here is to contact Carmen Bianca. She will clear up all the confusions and issues you may have. And she will not steer you wrong.
Carmen might be able to work with you on a consulting basis rather than a commission basis, you can ask her that. But she knows what she's doing, she understands this stuff backwards and forwards. And she's an AMPI agent so she can tell you the price per square meter you should pay there.
I offered to buy the apartment I'm living in now. The guy bought it 4 years ago for 450,000 - so I'm thinking ok so he's going to want 650,000 now - no he wants a million! Real estate obviously appreciates very well in these parts! So I went to see a house, 2 bedrooms, broken windows, no cisterna, nothing, basically a blank, run down canvas in SM 45 - I'm thinking 550,000 on a good day for the owner...750,000. I asked why to the agent. "well its because his daughter needs that much money for something, so that's what he wants", "but it's been on the market for a year", "yes but he wants that much" It's just bizarre!!! You know when you try and comprehend that the universe goes on for ever, and you get that 'boggled' feeling in your head and the harder you try to understand it the more fuzzy it all gets...real estate in Mexico!
It is weird I'll agree.. another factor too sometimes is, if the seller knows its a foreigner who is looking.. you know since we're all stupid millionaires and everything... :icon_mrgreen: Anything over the million pesos mark and I'd start looking into a vacant lot to build on... but thats a whole other headache.. and people sometimes think their vacant lots are more valuable than the houses next to them.
Right, right and right. And don't forget they always tell you, and it is usually true, that they report a sales price of less than actual, in order to minimize closing costs, taxes to the seller or whatever. I have not seen a ton of predials but NONE have ever shown a realistic value. Always far less than a real value, which is far less than a seller will ask/consider/take.
The predial on our condo shows the actual market value. The predial for our house shows maybe 1/3 of the value (shhh, don't tell). I know of several foreigners with fideicomisos whose predials show actual price paid. It's not something you see everyday, but it does happen.
Ok...!! I made an offer on the property..... After listening to all the stories here about how different it is to buy property in Mexico.....with the owner having a price in mind...and not accepting 1 peso less than what they are asking..!! I have made an offer which was conveyed by a mexican friend of mine to this owner... The offer was 1.1 million pesos...and the asking price is 1.5...million.... The owner said, "Gracias, por nada...!!" I am planning on making another offer of 1.2 million...!! Is this considered an insult or not..?? How to proceed....???
It might be more "polite" (although I doubt the owner is very bothered about that...) to simply let him know that you "are interested" but "cant afford" what he is asking, and "if he wants to sell his property any time soon", what is the best price he would be happy with... he might ignore that, but its better than just going back at 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 till the 1.5... Personally if he doesn't come down a little that would run me off, because I'll then think that I'm going to get screwed in the closing since he's such a tightwad... but as was explained, people are "weird/stupid/greedy" by American standards here when it comes to property... but do make sure that you have everything checked out before you even think about handing over any money.... I also would be extremely hesitant about any sort of "deposit/down payment".
