#675 – The Expat Files: Challenges of Living in Latin America and Mexico

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border, down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now I wonder Hello there all you expat wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started Today we have some examples of why it's not a good idea to live on the gringo tourist trail It's okay to visit the gringo tourist trail once in a while or even when you first come down because you don't know any Spanish And you want to mix with gringos and sort of cushion the culture shock because you know

[00:48] There always is some of that now if you were one of those geyser gals who did the three month at a time Tourist backpacker thing in Latin America, then maybe it won't be much of a culture shock to you You know what it's all about. I've said time and time again that those blogs and retirement rags and international living Especially international living promote just a tiny sliver of Latin America places They recommend that are always on the gringo tourist trail And if they're not yet, they soon are because well people jump on it and soon enough It's like poisoning a pristine pond or shooting yourself in the foot. The travel writers fringe in mainstream arrive They start writing about it. The media picks up on it They even end up in the Sunday travel section of the Milwaukee Journal in the Cleveland plane dealer and suddenly a whole gringo industry

[01:33] Grows up and engulfs sometimes even suffocates a pristine little Latin paradise. So how do you keep that from happening? How do you keep out the gringo riffraff? It's not easy Once a place catches on it catches on like wildfire just like Columbia and Ecuador these days Meanwhile, there's Costa Rica Mexico and Panama great examples of places that were once pristine and very much Paradise's but in reality there are no deals left The ground floor was filled in 20 even 30 years ago All you've got to choose from now are expensive leftovers But you know if money's no object you could work things out quite nicely in any Latin country So now with over 1.5 million gringo expats living or owning property in Mexico wouldn't you know gringos and gringas living there write me emails all the time and right now the emails

[02:22] Complaining about living in Mexico are running about five to one against the gringos who are saying come on down It's great as opposed to four or five years ago when emails are running about 50 50 pro and con Do note that it's the gringos who came down living on social security or a pension that are doing most of the complaining Not surprising. I don't hear from gringos living there Who've got a lot of dough who've got three and four hundred thousand dollar condos in Cabo? For example makes sense because you see if you got dough You can live in a really nice gated guarded community and the whole area will be pretty much totally gringoized That is high-end gringo stores malls activities Country clubs galore a completely transplanted gringo landia with of course a nicely scrubbed fine

[03:08] Veneer of what Mexico used to be like before the gringos arrived just for local flavor You know grand fiestas parades salsa clubs tequila bars drunk out of tune mariachi bands Aren't they always none of that stuff cheap these days. It's all gringo prices Now all that comes along with a seemingly happy local population though They're completely jaded by the gringo dollar need proof. Think it's hyperbole. Listen to this email Hey, I get stacks of emails from people from Mexico Actually virtual stacks and I'll paraphrase this and a couple other emails I hope to get to today But this is pretty representative. It starts out. Hey Johnny, which show would have found your show five years ago You know, there's a lot of strictly gringo organizations in all the gringo wise cities here in Mexico

[03:54] You know, you got Americans abroad Republicans and Democrats abroad. You've mentioned that but I'm thinking I'm starting a new one It's gonna be called retirement abroad gone bad It'd be for the thousands and thousands of gringos and expats who are totally disillusioned with retirement here in Mexico Those of us who can't wait to get back to the states or other parts south though Many of us are over invested here. So we just can't that means tens of thousands of us for the time being we remain here Sucking it up or complaining licking our wounds. However, luckily there exists that so-called greater fool theory There are so many people up in the states that think Mexico would be the great retirement haven It used to be some years ago So there is in some parts of Mexico a lively real estate resale market amongst gringos

[04:42] But everyone it seems and the real estate market including the sellers are big wires They have to be my advice if you're selling a place in Mexico is not to be there when the perspective buyers come Through let the realtor bring them through. You know what? It's always gringo realtors. Doesn't that tell you something? So why am I advising the seller not be present when the people come through? Because inevitably you're gonna get questions from the prospective clueless gringo buyer. He's gonna ask why are you selling? Why are you leaving and if you tell the truth, you're gonna lose the sale Well, I'm getting ahead of my story now But as you know, there's something like one and a half million expatriates living here in Mexico and many many more are coming There's some great marketing going on. There's so many baby boomers retiring and the US

[05:28] Well, we know what's got problems multiple problems It's not the country us baby boomers grew up in it may be okay for our kids who grew up in the digitized world But not for us, which is why my wife and I escaped in the first place and Johnny I seriously mean it when I use that word escape. However, Americans do believe the hype about Mexico. They're under the false impression that it's far cheaper to live here It's nothing but beaches mountains Margaritas and tacos and they can live better in Mexico than any place up in the first world The real truth is that it's not always less expensive to live here The places gringos want to live are always so gringo wise. Well, you've got first world prices everywhere Truth is if you want to live cheap in Mexico You can live in many of the thousands of middle and lower middle class barrios

[06:15] But you're not even gonna have hot water and at that the cold water will probably only be on eight or ten Hours a day and the crime. Well, that's something else the promoters and marketers will never talk about sure They'll talk about narcos and such as if it's all confined to towns a hundred miles away But it's a country where crime and corruption are rampant and closing in on the gringoized areas, too And now with so many as you call them clueless gringos Johnny. We are becoming the convenient targets We're not only the prey of choice But the authorities ignore our pleas when there is a crime perpetrated and it's funny Johnny how in your previous show you mentioned that Mexicans and latins up in the states mostly illegals Celebrate their country's holidays up there by waving the flags closing off streets having block parties

[07:04] You talk about how they don't want to assimilate and have extreme patriotism for their homeland Well, Johnny, you know, it kind of works in reverse to at least here in Mexico There must have been four or five hundred gringos out on the streets of my Mexican town 4th of July, right? Partying away everyone in red white and blue American flags everywhere people blowing off fireworks hot dogs hamburgers, Texas barbecues So look who's calling the kettle black. Nope. Gringos and expats down here Don't want to assimilate into the Mexican culture either of all the gringos and expats. I know here in Mexico I'd say only two to five percent Speaking of Spanish to have a decent conversation with the Mexican who's waiting on them at the hardware store and tell me why does it seem? like every other gringo I meet down here was in the real estate business up in the states and the other half retired teachers or on

[07:55] A government pension. It's a mystery. I don't get it So you're definitely not immune from having gringos pitching real estate properties and deals to you Keep that in mind when you hear my story now five years ago me and my wife decided to move down to Chalapa things went bad fairly quickly though after seeing the Walmart's the Taco Bell's the chucky cheeses and the all-american strip mall Skyline popping up everywhere. There were so many gringos moving the chalapa even first world hotels and casinos Started popping up result the prices were jacked up on everything even the price of real estate Hard to believe but higher than many states like, Florida, Arizona, Nevada, etc And just when you think the place is way too overbuilt other big projects start breaking ground

[08:42] But I think by far the biggest reason gringos living down here would join my hypothetical retirement gone bad club Is our ongoing and continuing problem with corruption and scams? I hate to say this but I've met a single gringo expat who's been down here for more than a year Who hasn't been ripped off by a salesman a contractor builder lawyer mechanic repair guy? You name it though ripped off would apply most of the time sometimes you just gouged and contracts Well forget about contracts if you have a dispute with anyone you've signed a contract with you're the wealthy gringo Who can't speak Spanish not enough anyway to have read or understood the fine points of the contract gringos I know who've been through this system will tell you the Governments the courts the cops have rigged things in such a way that the locals always come out ahead in a dispute against a gringo

[09:30] And why is it always that the officials or the cops seem to be related to the person on the other side of that contract? By the way, I think a lot of this would simply evaporate if gringos would learn the language And then they wouldn't get themselves stuck in deals like that Worse yet gringos and expats who can't speak Spanish and can't read a Spanish contract They feel calm by the fact that they know they can find a gringo somewhere probably in an expat bar Who'll be glad to help you out man? I can't tell you how many times I've been helped out by gringos and later found out I've been screwed or maybe we deserve it There's a lot of gringos who've been down here a long long time who make a nice living as Middlemen for other gringos who don't speak Spanish well and thus don't quite know their way around It's true that us gringos and expats bring our values with us when we come down to Mexico

[10:20] And we assume there's a rule of law. That's a big misconception. You know, here's a common example of that You might buy a used car or order some furniture and put down a nice deposit The furniture never arrives or you go to pick up the car and it's been sold already. You've got a receipt for the deposit, right? So what are you gonna do hire a lawyer and go to court? The case will come up in three quarters of a year if you're lucky. How about this you contract with a builder He has supplies delivered to the site You pay the bill get the receipt when you're not there Of course you won't be because you've got a life and it's a building site, right? The builder or his cronies come back and pick up the material and move it to another job Like for example, what happened to my gringo neighbor He said there was a giant load of blocks delivered for a project he was doing and every day

[11:10] He noticed the pile kept getting smaller and smaller and the 50 bags of cement Well turned to 40 then to 30 yet Nothing involving cement or blocks was going on at his house at the time things were disappearing But he never caught anyone in the egg and that goes on even though you hide regard to live on your construction site 24 7 That's standard procedure here for whatever your bill even a single-family house And if you notice such things your Spanish better be decent enough to question the guard or you're not gonna get anywhere And even if you can get your point across you're not gonna get anywhere because you know a thief Never admits to the crime that's part of the MO and beware of gringos You know, the weather is nice down here gringos want to stay in that climate So the ones who aren't retired not receiving a pension have to make money

[11:57] So often gringos do have something to sell but beware especially of gringo realtors as mentioned You'll meet real estate people all the time realtors often gringo realtors who say they're part of a US franchise and have the business card to prove it remix Century 21 they're all down here. But remember this is Mexico and the rule of the law Well, you could say in most cases It doesn't exist the real estate franchise company you put your confidence in because you recognize the name from up in the United States Has no real power here in Mexico, even though they're all over the place and they're not on your side They're not out to help you. So if a deal goes bad, there are few consumer protections Nothing like up in the United States There may or may not be someone to sue but the cards are stacked against you at best

[12:47] You'll be able to get on an expat blog and tell your sorted story But there's a million gringo ripoff stories out there on the net So don't expect to get any satisfaction Except for having the satisfaction of getting it off your chest and maybe having a few gringos reply Saying hey that happened to me too. Thank God I'm not the only one if you think especially in the real estate business things work orderly and in sequence like they do up north You're dreaming. I know of a guy who put down a 10% deposit on a $200,000 house contingent on a home inspection he had a gringle friend a retired contractor look over the house and it didn't pass and the Perspective buyer loss is deposit because the seller claimed he had a local Latin contractor and do the inspection and there was nothing

[13:33] Seriously wrong with it problem there that perspective buyer did not have a local Latin lawyer help him write up that stipulation It was way too nebulous too many loopholes The contract should have said a building inspector of my choice So a Mexican lawyer could have protected this guy's somewhat But even so if he'd wanted to take his deposit It would take three quarters of a year to get him in court one. Here's something about Mexican courts They're big on the payment plan So for example, if you did win a case in court against a Latin contractor architect professional It doesn't matter the loser could tell the judge He'll pay $50 a month for the next ten years and the judge is likely to accept that and you know You might get the first five or six payments out of the guy But if he quits paying or just disappears like many of them do can you see the problem?

[14:24] One thing gringos in Mexico must know right away They will get screwed by contractors because they say they're contractors They really pump up their resumes But they're really not certified or registered because there is no such system Same thing with real estate so you can be whatever you like and you as a gringo could advertise yourself as anything you want too, you could call yourself a plumber a writer a tax specialist a palm reader Electrician TV repair guy new age massage therapist land surveyor mechanic air conditioning specialist Just about anything you want save for a physician dentist and lawyer luckily They're pretty strict about that stuff So you might get screwed to a small extent by cement contractors or plumbers But when it comes to real estate and building well, those are big ticket items Then he goes on to say for example the other day I got screwed out of five bucks by Claro

[15:13] That's the cell phone company when I loaded some time into my cell phone being a gringo I probably fretted way too much about it I got pissed off as usual knowing it wasn't gonna help There was a time when I first got down to Mexico I'd have fought for that five bucks But now I know better Do I really want to go down to a Claro phone office in a strip mall stand in line for an hour and maybe Get that five bucks back So if you live in Mexico, you're gonna get ripped off But you have to pick your battles Meanwhile, I have to say a lot of bad things happen when you live up in the States, especially in the big cities Then there's that certain percentage of gringos that complain about everything Then he says, Johnny, I had an ex-girlfriend up in the States I couldn't take her out to dinner anywhere She sent everything back You'll meet a lot of complaining gringos down here who come from that school

[16:02] And I'm not one of those because I recognize that in other people and try not to stand out and be a jerk about things That's not to say us pissed off gringos don't sometimes get together and say to each other What would I have done instead of moving to Mexico? What would I have done differently? Well, first of all I'm a person dead set on having a plan B outside the US If I can ever get rid of the real estate baggage I have here in Mexico get somewhere near what I've got into it I'm going as you say south of south of the border. I'll try Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, South America even But I'll rent yes, I'll rent and I'll keep on renting Meanwhile, as far as my new Mexican retirement gone bad meetup group I'm sure as soon as word gets out, I'll have no shortage of members

[16:48] Hey now, there's an idea. A Mexican retirement gone bad website membership only 10 bucks to join Hey, maybe the bucks will roll in and I won't have to leave Mexico after all I'll have found that gringo niche. You're always talking about Johnny though. You know, I'm kind of a lifelong procrastinator That's why I just came down five or six years ago I was thinking about it 25 years ago But took me that long to get my plan B underway with my luck some gringo with a little more initiative than I have Will hear this on your podcast and beat me to it in the end my advice to people thinking about moving to Mexico That boat sailed a long time ago. If you like endless frustration stress disappointment Some people thrive on that, you know like my ex But me and so many thousands of expat gringos here in Mexico find that the constant scams and ripoffs

[17:37] They get tiring Why is it that so many people up in the states who are sick and tired of big brother and being taxed to death? Think like me that boating with your feet and having a plan B should somehow involve Mexico It's as if there's only one other option south of Mexico. That would be Costa Rica It's like falling off the edge of the earth anywhere south of there My advice and I have a lot of stories to back this up If you're thinking about permanently moving to Mexico or Costa Rica You should have the word sucker tattooed on your forehead and I understand Johnny That's starting to happen in Panama, Colombia and Ecuador too So as soon as I get my property sold and hopefully I won't take a bath i'm out of here Nope, no more on the gringo tourist trail stuff for me. Anyway, Johnny, there's my rant

[18:23] I hope I didn't whine too much By the way, I have on the top of my list to come to your seminar right after I sell my stuff down here However, that depends on how much I lose or get gouged so I can't promise when i'll be down By the way, Johnny to pay back for what you do I'll waive the membership requirement for my Mexican retirement gone bad group As of now, you've got an honorary lifetime membership. No spamos, Johnny Senor Dalton Well, Senor Dalton, it was a really good but sad report kind of reinforces what I've been saying about Mexico By the way when this show first airs, that'll be Sunday, July 9th I'll be deep into herding the cats around at my latest expat insider seminar And as I mentioned on the last show for the next week if you're listening to this show on prn progressive radio network

[19:11] You'll be hearing two golden oldies broadcasts from my 675 shows in the archives. Yep. I'll be taking a one-week vacation, but i'll be back again live. Well kind of live anyway On friday, july 21st Now, you know a lot of the big mistakes gringos and expats make when they move down to latin america When they're setting up their plan b is that they get all their info second hand from blogs and websites And they don't get any meaningful boots on the ground I mean meaningful not in gringo tourist areas like costa rica and cancun That'll get you about zero knowledge of what it's really like to live down here So eventually you have to get boots on the ground and if you just can't right now The best way to organize your own plan b because you know We all have a little different idea of what it's going to be is to sign up for my nine hour long

[19:58] video course called expat essentials You can do that by going to www.expat plan b.com Once there you can download my three free introductory videos And you know quite a few people get hung up while they're putting together their plan b and they give me a call Yep, I frequently do one-on-one phone and skype consult calls. So I invite you to download my phone consultation Questionnaire do have a look at it. It'll give you some good ideas when putting together your own plan b It's free and it'll probably get you thinking about some of the things you may have missed Just go to www.thenewexpat.com All one word and download johnny's phone consultation questionnaire no obligation But if you're putting together your plan b you could find it quite valuable. All right, where were we?

[20:45] Oh, yeah, I get a lot of emails from disgruntled gringos and expats living in mexico In fact these days I rarely get an email that says anything positive about the place Oh sure, well people are complaining. They'll throw in the good stuff like medical care is cheap great weather cheap food in the markets But that's true all over latin america nothing special about in mexico there by the way Just to round things out a bit and play devil's advocate, you know Corruption is rampant in the us as well. I mean you've got crooked builders there ripping people off insurance salesmen lying to you Fly-by-night roofing and cement contractors problems with internet netflix scams and cell phone dealers That don't live up to their contracts lying scumbag used car dealers and mechanics that gouge you In fact, I don't think there's an adult woman up in the states who hasn't been gouged or scammed by a car dealer or repair guy

[21:37] Sometimes, you know when a woman walks into a used car dealership She's got a virtual sucker tattoo on her forehead And how can we leave out those lying thieving pus bag pedophile pervert politicians? You can tell i'm being kind here because i'm leaving out the expletives Just give an equal time here to estate side scumbags now And how do you explain this just a month ago? A friend of mine came down from chicago to visit He'd never been south of tijuana before asked me when he was down if I could hook him up with the dentist I did he told me that he hadn't been to one in the states for a long time and was shocked to find Just recently he was diagnosed with ten cavities Funny thing the dentist here the one I recommended said he only had two cavities Hmm. All right moving on. How about this email about mexico from kim?

[22:23] She says I wouldn't be surprised if the source of all those unrealistic expectations about mexico Come mostly from people who read this stuff from international living I've been on their mailing list for years even before the internet I get all kinds of snail mail reports from them In fact, I looked forward to them offering a glamorous inexpensive tropical lifestyle and all that But I can say from experience that you have to be very cautious about relying on them for true information I mean really true information about the countries they're talking about I found out you have to be careful about doing business with them in general. I was on their mailing list I got so much mail and they pitched me so often that I came down to one of their seminars It was in south america and specifically they were talking over and over how you could live like a king or a queen

[23:11] On twelve hundred dollars a month or a social security income Boy, it was a surprise Since they were pitching how cheap it was to live there and how cheap land and houses were And here they put us up in the most expensive hotel in the area And of course flying for so many hours and going so far south I thought maybe i'd stay another week And I quickly found out That staying at that hotel and all the additional other costs would have cost me with transportation and a guide about $3,000 for an extra week just to get some boots on the ground and explore on my own They gave us the ones that wanted to stay on explore for ourselves. Absolutely. No other alternatives for housing etc There must have been cheaper hotels and bed and breakfast, but no one told us Then kim says I was thinking if the kind of people international living is targeting for

[23:59] These kinds of trips where people who wanted to live on twelve hundred dollars a month You'd clearly never be able to pull that off on the kind of living they were showing us firsthand You know for people who are into digging online and doing research I found tons of complaints about international living a number of people had attended previous events instead The conferences were all about getting people to buy land and houses while there Investments through international living or its associates and wouldn't you know all those real estate deals and investments were at noticeably higher prices According to what gringo is living down there a while claimed were common for the area You know anybody could do a search on the internet for reviews and complaints of practically any organization Yes, there are trolls out there who manipulate forums and I know some people myself who are chronic complainers

[24:47] However, the number of complaints I saw about international living and how easy it was to find them is not a good sign Oh me johnny here again. Listen to this one, johnny You know in a way, I feel kind of dumb while trying to do some investigating of my own on various central and south american countries I discovered quite a few of those so-called informational sites were actually owned by international living or their articles Were heavily slanted by writers who also worked for international living same with the real estate sales people Which to me just gives more credibility to online complaints Okay, here comes the part about mexico kim says i've been traveling to mexico from the us for 20 years now And i've seen a big change in mexico over that period of time. It's changed It really has from a genuinely innocent laid-back loki culture to kind of a subdued nervous tension

[25:39] I assume because of the escalating levels of violence and one more general comment about latin america If you like peace and quiet and solitude, perhaps you're a reader a writer or you're into meditation You should forget about living in the urban parts of latin america though living in the countryside is fine I lived in mexico and other latin countries and there seems to be a constant droning Accented by spurts of noise. It really seems the latin culture needs a certain level of noise and racket to function Mostly caused by kids and adolescents though. They are well behaved However, if you're not used to that stuff, you could have many sleepless nights What with the firecrackers laughter parties aerial bombs? Even if you live in a nice isolated gringoized gated community

[26:24] No matter where you are You're never far enough away from where the locals are living where you won't hear somebody's birthday kinseños or Graduation bombs blowing off at all hours and even if you live in one of those nice gringoized communities with very big lots There's always a rooster within earshot in the favorite time to crow Four in the morning and finally american ladies if you're under 80 be prepared to be routinely harassed with sexist comments and vulgar noises And there's no use complaining. It's part and parcel of the latin macho culture in the united states It would be sexual harassment pure and simple beats me how latin women put up with it, but they do They just shrug it off without embarrassment. Ladies will tell you they don't react. They just ignore it There's no avoiding it. There's no getting around it. If you're walking down the street, it'll happen to you

[27:13] So johnny just some boots on the ground words of wisdom from a gringo who spent some time in latin america Signed carla from flagstaff. Well, thanks carla. I think All right, then for all you listeners thinking about setting up your plan b in mexico Maybe you'd like to rewind this show and listen to it again south of the border This is the expat files living in latin america If you want me to help you out with your own plan b just schedule a one-on-one consult Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to learn how to move forward with your own plan b from right up there in the states Go to www.expatplanb.com and check out my three videos. See you