Investing In Merida

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Market Overview And Investment Opportunities
Economic Influences and Property Price Trends
Merida's Safety
Top Residential Areas to Consider
The Buying Process Explained
Legal Considerations for Foreign Buyers
Highlighted Listings and Hot Properties

History and Architectural Significance of Merida

Merida was founded in 1542 by the spaniard, Francisco De Montejo. This will become apparent to you by the amount of things that continue to carry his name or a portion of it. It was built on top of the ancient mayan city, "T'ho". The mayans were forced to dismantle their historical city to build this new city, under the control of the spaniards. While larger stones were used for the foundations of the "newer" buildings, smaller stones were sometimes snuck into facade of the newer buildings. Tour guides will proudly point these out during walking tours in Centro. Today, Merida is a thriving city comprised of 1 Million + inhabitants.

Market Overview And Investment Opportunities

Merida is currently experiencing a Real Estate boom. This is due to several factors. One, which will be addressed below is Merida's outstanding record as one of the safest cities in North America for over a decade. While the Media cannot necessarily be relied on for reliable and non-sensationalized news, most would agree that Mexico has become a dangerous place and a corridor for drugs and illegal immigrants. Despite this Merida and most of Yucatan has done an outstanding job of remaining safe, and implementing initiatives for sustainability and tourism.

he most recent development has been that of the "Tren Maya". This train Aims to connect the Yucatan Peninsula to the middle of Mexico by rail. There will be 4 lines as well as a cargo train. Once active, this will lead to a further increase in the Merida Real Estate Boom.

Economic Influences and Property Price Trends

Merida has seen wild property appreciations in the last 10 years, especially in northern Merida neighborhoods as well as coastal properties in Progreso, Chicxulub, Chelem and Chuburna with Sisal and Telchac not far behind.

Merida has always been home to a large population of wealthy Mexicans that made their money during the days of Haciendas and Henequen (Hemp) cultivation. These people have preserved their wealth predominantly through their real estate portfolio in the Yucatan and Miami, surprisingly enough.

Merida's Safety

Merida's safety is in no way ambiguous or something you feel you need to ask about once you've walked the streets at night. Nightlife thrives here and is bunched into multiple locations throughout the city. The main thing they all have in common is the people walking the streets, going from one place to the next. Women walking in pairs or alone laughing and enjoying Merida's nightlife clearly highlights its safety.

If that weren't reassuring enough, one can also base their safety on the fact that it's hard to walk or drive five blocks without passing one or two "patrullas" or police vehicles, be it pick up trucks or cars.

One of the reasons that the Cartels have not come to Merida is due to the Topographical profile of the Yucatan. A side by side comparison of the landscape would reveal a boringly flat state with very little place for a cartels to hide. In other states, while the cartels are present in the cities, they often hide or retreat in the mountains, using the shadows and trees to evade law enforcement. The Yucatan has very few large trees and even fewer mountains.

Top Residential Areas to Consider

Dzitya, Las Americas, Real Montejo, Xcanatun, Temozon, Cholul, and the somewhat distant Conkal are the most prominent new neighborhoods growing at this time. This is by no means an exhaustive list but the areas you will hear about most often.

As a general rule, Merida is growing north, with the nicer Developments being in said area. The further south you go, the more poverty you will find, with many blue collar residents living in places such as Kanasin or San Antonia. Many of the cities factories are also found in the south.

The Buying Process Explained

Some more autonomous home-owners in Canada and the U.S. opt for selling their own homes or buying without a real estate agent, using the MLS and a highly regulated real estate market. This is many times riskier here as the lack of regulations and no MLS service leaves the city rampant with fly-by-night agents and lawyers that are happy to take deposits and run. Additionally, the lack of oversight in building "occupancy permits" allows for certain builders to cut corners that severely impact buyers. Especially foreign buyers that aren't familiar with the local building methods and humidity issues.

We highly recommend the use of a Merida real estate agent to guide you through all of this and avoid expensive lessons that have already been learned by people before you.

Legal Considerations for Foreign Buyers

Seeing as a foreigner cannot purchase a property within 50 KM of the coast or 100km of the US border, properties here are purchased in trust. This trust is a called a "Fideicomiso".

While these Fideicomiso can be a bit of a pain, a good lawyer can guide you through this and is usually able to give you an expected wait time for how long it might take for you to obtain yours. At the time of writing, Aug 20 2023, Wait times are around 2 to 3 months.

These wait times, while standard for foreigners, are not something that many Mexicans are familiar with. Even many Mexican Real Estate Agents, that claim to be familiar, will, at times, get a little nervous with the wait times as Mexican nationals obviously don't have this issue. For this reason and several others, it is important to work with an agent that not only speaks your language but is used to dealing with foreign buyers and sellers, if that's you.

Whether the agent is Mexican or Foreign doesn't matter as long as they truly do have the foreign buyer/seller experience. Many people have gone through sour real estate dealings and will claim that dealing with a Mexican or Foreign agent is better than the other. There is no truth to these claims. Yucatan plays host to both Mexican and Foreign scam artists alike. Spending some time with your agent and knowing which questions to ask in order to get an understanding of her personal code of ethics is important seeing as there isn't a regulation enforced code here as there is in northern neighboring Countries.

Highlighted Listings and Hot Properties

TrustFirst Prides itself on being a relationship based brokerage. Selling Merida Real Estate and Real estate from all over Yucatan is what we do, we pride ourselves on putting the relationship ahead of the deal.

Being a team of young energetic agents, and their being a lack of MLS, we have a system based approach of making 70 to 100 calls every time we get a new listing. This call list is comprised of top brokerages and agents around the city that we've developed relations with.

Using this aggresive approach, we move our listings quite quickly as long as the property is appropriately priced. To see a list of our current listings, follow this link. But for a custom list of homes that will meet your criteria, please contact us directly here.