How much would it cost for a 30 y/o gringo to retire in mexico?

Public Comments

1. $3.50! Cheers :)
2. $.10
3. not much. but you can't own anything there.
4. like to live like boss 3.000 dlls a month and yes you can bye properties and everything
5. Say you want to be the most conservative person, so you might as well stick your cash into US$ denominated fixed income securities. Make it a good blend of government & corporates with different maturities. Let's assume you can make 4% adjusted for inflation, so that's your yearly income. Now for your question: Decide where in Mexico you want to live. Mexico City is MUCH MORE expensive than your average US city in terms of real estate, dining out, cars, etc. It is a tad cheaper for groceries. Multiply your living standard say in Houston or Atlanta by at least 1.25. So if you want the equivalent of a $50,000 income in Mexico City, you'll need $62,500 a year, which multiplied by 25 (remember your 4% annual yield) gives you: US$1.5 million. Beach paradises such as Los Cabos and Cancun are also very expensive if you want a house on the beachfront (a minimum of US$500K for a small two bedroom) and rents can be as high as US$5,000 a month. General living expenses would be the same as in Mexico City (1.25 factor). Other beach places like Acapulco, Ixtapa, Puerto Vallarta would be a bit cheaper with beachfront real estate from the $200Ks. In these places you can get very good housing for about US$1,000 a month or $150K purchased but they'll certainly be a few good miles from the beach. Retiree towns such as Ajijic and San Miguel are slightly cheaper so you'd need as much as you would in the US. So for a US$50K living standard in your average US city, you'd need about a cool million just to live on your income. Smaller cities inland would probably run at about a .7-.8 factor of the costs in the US mostly owing to the cheap real estate. So, back again, for a US$50K / yr. living standard, you would need say about 35K a year in Guanajuato (about an hour from San Miguel and very pretty as well). You would need a nest egg of US$875 to make it there for the rest of your life. Good luck!
6. If you really want to retire in Mexico and live the good life w/o tons of cash, your best option would be to move to a rural community, where the price level is really low; a good choice would be to move to a beach community in Oaxaca and live w/ the locals (I actually know a European surfer guy who did this): living conditions aren't exactly optimal, but if you don't mind living in a palm hut w/o running water (and perhaps electricity), you can probably eat, drink and be merry w/ about $150 USD a week, which amounts to about $8000 USD a year. Calculating your life expectancy at 80 years, and assuming the real interest rate in Mexico will average 2% over the next 50 years, you would need roughly $150 G to retire.
7. not much, my uncle bought property in Rosarito with a 30 year contract.(ITS NOT HIS AFTER 30 YEARS, EVEN THOUGH HE BOUGHT IT) US citizens cant own property in mexico. the government down there has Contracts,business owners do too IT IS HARDER FOR US TO OWN DOWN THERE THEN THEM OVER HERE