Building in mexico is very difficult, especially for gringos, partly because gringos project an expectation that things will be done as they are where
they come from, and because gringos have money to lose, there is an epidemic of fraud in building homes for gringos, largely the fault of gringos who
don't manage their projects and payments, fraught with surprises and high stress, especially for the owners, often a couple is put under tremendous
stress that can cause lack of sleep and health issues during the process.
To succeed, you need a building team that is experienced, honest and reliable with the style and method you want to build, willing to work at the
location you want to build, oftentimes, teams are imported, meaning, a builder brings the team to live there full time from a long way away, if they
don't already exist there.
Each worker will have their own family issues, health issues, may lack experience or willingness to learn, may be unwilling to follow instruction,
may become injured, become ill, may have bad attitude, may have addictions, some are thieves who will steal critical expensive materials and tools
etc.
It's really no fun to have a house be built totally incorrectly, bad plumbing and electrical, crooked, cracked, etc. unlevel floors, weak ceiling that
isn't water tight, windows and doors that don't open or close properly, tile that is poorly installed, paint that is falling off before you move it
and worst of all is cement that wasn't properly mixed with high quality materials and poured for the location and weather.
It's an expensive process that requires cash on hand daily, weekly etc. It's more expensive to have architects, plans, engineers, inspections,
permits, building managers and skilled craftsmen, but it's worth it, cheap is never cheap.
If you can find a home that is built and of good quality you will save a ton of stress, unless you enjoy the stress of building in an extremely
difficult environment, where you must be on site 24 hours a day and be hands on never turning an eye for more than 10 seconds, or it will go wrong.
Best plan is to choose a location where you would like to live and go there and rent, begin the process to meet and interview architects, builders,
take time to visit their work, see examples, if work examples don't exist they don't have local experience.
Expect 99 out of 100 that you initially meet and interview to be less than able to do the work and likely to waste tons of materials, time and money
with error prone faulty work. But, there are excellent builders, you just need to find one with excellent references and then work with them to
schedule a time when they are available, could be 1-2 years away, followed by 1-2 years to build, overall 4 years is typical process.
Buy a home that is already built exactly as you would like with all the problems worked out if possible unless you enjoy the challenge and stress of
building, and have the temperament and patience, with thick skin and are able to be on site.
Start with an outline plan of the type of home you want, size, materials, even a basic sketch and begin to get a sense for costs of materials and
labor, then add on management fees and extras, in order to have reasonable budget. You can do search on estimated costs to build in various parts of
mexico.
[Edited on 11-5-2023 by gnukid] |
