[TRANSCRIPTION]

Alma Cecilia Ramírez:

I think there’s a great future for luxury real estate in San Miguel de Allende. We’re looking forward to some great opportunities in 2024.

Maya Rudloff:

Hi viewers. Welcome back to another video. I am Maya, your interview host for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices here in San Miguel de Allende in Central Mexico. Today we’re interviewing Alma Cecilia Ramírez. He is the broker and co-owner along with his business partner Alma of the sole Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices office here in San Miguel de Allende. Hi Alma. How’s it going?

Alma Cecilia Ramírez :

Hey, Maya. How are you? Good to see you today.

Maya Rudloff:

Good to see you. Happy to have you here to discuss today’s topic, which I find really interesting. Today, we’ll talk about unveiling the future of luxury real estate in San Miguel de Allende. So a very, very exciting topic to discuss. I would like you to share, Alma, with us some of the appeal of Mexico’s high-end property market. Well, why don’t you tell us why Mexico is a hotspot for luxury real estate to start?

Alma Cecilia Ramírez :

One of the biggest appeals for a lot of my investor clients or buyers, some of our buyers for second home, some of them are investors from our rental property is our proximity to the United States. A lot of people look at Portugal and Spain and some other places like that, but that’s a full day to get over there, and a lot of people love the fact that we’re just a short two-hour flight to the United States. So there’s a big appeal for people that still have family in the United States. Maybe they still have some business, they like to go back and forth to the U.S. That’s a big appeal.

The cost factor is another really big appeal. It’s very affordable in San Miguel de Allende. Homes are a third to a fifth of the cost that they might run on the coast in the United States, in places like California or New York or Florida. So the affordability is really a prominent reason why a lot of people will look in Mexico and especially in San Miguel de Allende, the affordability. Lifestyle, affordability, and proximity, those are kind of the key. Oh, and climate. Of course, we can’t forget climate. We’ll probably talk about that a little later. But those are the really strong appeals of the luxury real estate market in San Miguel de Allende.

Maya Rudloff:

Yeah, it’s the whole package and as you said, it’s just very, very interesting how people automatically think about the beach when they want to move to Mexico or to just warmer weather, to have warmer weather, and they choose the beach without really knowing what’s like to live there. So they end up kind of wanting to find another option, and that’s where you come in to show them San Miguel. Yeah. And well-

Alma Cecilia Ramírez :

Yeah, I was going to say San Miguel’s in the middle of Mexico viewers. So we’re nowhere near the beach. It’s five hours to the beach. It’s not that far, but we’re in a central highlands here. So it’s a central desert plateau. Much better weather, year round spring-like climate.

Maya Rudloff:

Yeah. I mean, the beach is great, but I can only handle it for a week. After that, I need to come back and it’s like all the bugs and it’s super humid. So San Miguel has fantastic weather, fantastic lifestyle, and also it’s pretty, as you were saying, costs here regarding the lifestyle you would get, like the value you get for every dollar you invest is just, it doesn’t have any comparison. So with that being said, it would be great if you could tell us a little bit about some luxurious properties here in San Miguel, just to give viewers a glimpse of what they can expect and how San Miguel looks like, these properties that you’ve sold or that you have in your portfolio. Can you just talk a little bit about those?

Alma Cecilia Ramírez :

Happy to share a couple of examples and we’ll insert perhaps a few photos in here so you can see what homes I’m talking about, viewers. I just sold a home for $3.2 million here in San Miguel de Allende. It was a three-year-old home, so very new construction. It had every single amenity you can possibly imagine. The owner joked that he could turn the swimming pool on from Paris. It was a smart house. Smart house technology is a little bit rare here in San Miguel de Allende, but this had the full smart house technology. All solar, saltwater swimming pool, elevator, 17-foot ceilings, its own transformer. It had 16 mini splits, which are those units that are in each room that provide heat and air conditioning. So the same thing is having central heat and air all through the house. Every amenity you can imagine. This home sold for $3.2 million and it was only an 11-minute walk to the Jardin that came out to be viewers. This is an important figure for those of you that follow real estate, $317 a square foot.

Now if you’re watching this from California or you’ve been accustomed to California prices, you know that’s probably a fifth to a seventh or an eighth of what you pay in California for the same type of property with all those amenities. So the affordability is phenomenal here, but most people might go, “Well, I can’t afford a $3.2 million home. Here’s another one on a slightly more affordable scale. It’s 1.35 million, same sort of thing. Now, it’s a little further away from Centro, but it is a large property with open views to the canyon, long distance, great green views, huge swimming pool and jacuzzi in the back with a large lawn area, a glass wall gym, dual changing rooms and bathrooms for the swimming pool, four bedrooms, a media room, a six-car garage, and it’s in a gated community.

It’s 1,350,000, same kind of equation there except a lot more affordable. In this particular case, it’s under $200 a square foot. So amazing values like that, lest you think however that we’re nothing but a million dollar market. We of course have homes that will start at about 350. So in our market here, you can still find a good neighborhood, nice home, basic amenities perhaps, so they’ll always have a whole house water filtration system and whatever. But generally your pricing is going to start at about 350. Our luxury market here starts at about 500 and above. So we have lots of good examples of those.

We’ve got a listing, for instance, in one of the great newer golf courses here called Las Ventanas, and that’s a home that’s right at about a half a million dollars. It’s got a wine cellar, it’s got mini splits, it’s got a great little terrace, a brand new kitchen. It’s been fully renovated and on a golf course community, $4.5 million. Now, you’d be hard-pressed to find a condo for that kind of price in most of the United States. So that’s a feel for some of our luxury pricing here in San Miguel de Allende.

Maya Rudloff:

These homes are breathtaking, they’re beautiful. And after looking at this footage of these beautiful, beautiful homes, I guess our viewers would like to understand the Mexican real estate market in more detail. So why don’t you give us just an overview of the Mexican real estate market and the factors that influence it. Make it maybe more specific towards San Miguel, because as you know, San Miguel works very different from the rest of Mexico. So why don’t we talk a little bit about that?

Alma Cecilia Ramírez :

Sure. San Miguel de Allende, Mexico in general probably, but San Miguel de Allende follows the American home market a fair amount. So when the market started to slow a bit, post COVID, the market did nuts. Well, actually even during COVID, the United States market did great. No one wanted to come down in 2020 to San Miguel de Allende, so no one was buying homes in 2020, but we rebounded dramatically just like in the U.S. in 2021 and 2022. Now, as most of viewers know, in the third quarter of 2022, the market started to slow down and we followed suit here in San Miguel de Allende. There tends to be a bit of a lag between the United States and San Miguel. So our market slowed down even a little bit more in early ’23, and this year has been a slower market, mostly more because from the global economic uncertainty, people kind of being unsure of some of the bank closures that have happened, interest rates being high, those types of factors that sort of affect the overall economy and people being a little less uncertain if they’re ready to buy a second home.

Ironically, interest rates, which are really high in the United States of course, and sort of the big deal right now don’t typically tend to affect most of my buyers down here because most of them are buying all cash. For those of you that want a little comparison between the two, this is an interesting point. You can get financing in Mexico, specifically here in San Miguel de Allende. You just need to be aware that financing is going to run about 300 to 350 basis points more than it does in the United States. So your interest rates here in Mexico right now are running about 10.6% to 10.8% on a loan. Most of my clients find that they can get money cheaper either with a HELOC, an equity loan in the United States or with a marginal on their investment account.

So that’s kind of where we stand on the market right now. It’s a little slower. It’s a great opportunity for buyers coming in because there’s a little more negotiating room. Homes tend to be on the market just a little bit longer, so sellers are negotiating a little bit more. We’re kind of at a good balance between a seller’s market and a buyer’s market. I wouldn’t call it completely a buyer’s market because it’s still very popular here, but much better for my buyers coming in terms of being able to negotiate a bit more.

Maya Rudloff:

That’s incredibly interesting. Thank you for sharing this. And well, now that we have talked a little bit about the past with the COVID pandemic, would you mind discussing a little bit what trends are expected in 2024 regarding the real estate market in San Miguel de Allende?

Alma Cecilia Ramírez :

I think we’re going to continue down the path that we’ve seen for most of this year. I don’t think we’re looking at a quick rebound in 2024. I think we will continue to have good values in San Miguel de Allende, not quite the same high level of appreciation that we saw in 2021 and early 2022. Historically, you can see appreciation rates of about 18% to 20% in parts of Centro. In other words, closer to the Jardin, the popular areas of town.

We’re not seeing quite that same level of appreciation, and I think in 2024, it’ll be the same. The appreciation will have kind of leveled off. So again, a good opportunity for buyers probably throughout most of 2024 because the values will continue to be good. We won’t see the market drop. It’s more of a pause in the market, not really a drop, it’s just sort of a pause. So you’ll see better opportunities for purchasing, not having to often fight multiple bids like you have in the United States where you’ll have three or four bids on one property. We don’t tend to have that here, and I think you’ll find the same in 2024. A little less competition for properties, better values and better negotiation ranges for probably most of 2024. A good opportunity for buyers to come down.

Maya Rudloff:

Yeah, that’s only great news. So I am sure our viewers are eager to know how to find luxury properties here in Mexico, so it would be great, Alma, if you could share some tips on how to search for and well, identify high-end properties in Mexico and San Miguel de Allende.

Alma Cecilia Ramírez :

San Miguel in particular is a unique market. We don’t really have a viable MLS system here like a lot of my clients are accustomed to seeing in the United States. The MLS that we have here is sort of a basic repository. It doesn’t give of listings, it doesn’t give time on the market or average sales per square foot or average sales for a particular neighborhood. It’s simply repository of listings. So it’s really helpful for clients to find a very detailed website that provides as much information about not only real estate, but about the market, about the city, about the neighborhoods here. And one of the nice things about the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, our website that we’ve created, we cover all the information that you might want to find about San Miguel as a city. For instance, we have 50 or 60 articles on San Miguel de Allende just as a city, as a destination.

So a lot of my viewers that aren’t familiar with the city can research the popularity, why we’re such a popular market. But then again, you can also look on the website and learn about the neighborhoods. So we have 13 different neighborhood profile videos so far, so the viewers can learn about every single neighborhood in town and kind of compare, and then sort of know what neighborhoods might fit their parameters and their lifestyle better than other neighborhoods. So I think finding a very comprehensive website that provides a lot of information for you is very helpful.

Another way to sort of identify these properties is when you communicate with my company and on Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, your first response back will include a Q&A info handbook that we always send you, and it identifies the different areas, the values in different parts, the process of purchasing, the process of looking for homes. So it’s a very comprehensive 15-page booklet that helps walk my clients through the process of looking for an investing in homes in San Miguel. It needs to be an educational process because many of my clients are unaccustomed to purchasing in Mexico. It’s a different country, and especially in San Miguel de Allende where we are in the middle of the country. So you do own fee simple here. It’s a very different process than buying a condo on the coast because you actually own fee simple, just like in the United States, but my booklet will walk you through all that. So that’s important, the key I think is to finding a real estate website and a company that’s very informative for people when they’re coming from the United States.

Maya Rudloff:

Yeah. And what about the significance of working with a reliable local real estate agent as well?

Alma Cecilia Ramírez :

Yeah, picking a specific agent is really important. So here’s one of the key factors that I would look for, viewers. You’re going to want to work with a realtor that has these certified international property specialist designation. That’s always very good. Or at the very least, work with a brokerage that’s run by someone with that designation. That’s a National Association of Realtors designation that one has to take a special series of courses for and get a special designation for. Those are the types of realtors that are accustomed to working with international buyers. So an American buyer coming to a foreign market like Mexico will want to work with someone that has designation. That’s a very good designation.

The rest of this would sort of be the same caveat that you would have in the United States. Work with someone that’s very knowledgeable about the market, work with someone that’s had a lot of sales experience, preferably more time, someone that will work to represent your interest. I know a lot of my clients are a little confused about, well, should I call the listing agent directly and work with them? And of course, I always educate my clients, it’s better to work with a buyer’s rep, work with someone that’s going to represent you and protect your interest in the process of looking for a home and actually negotiating on that home if you find something that you like.

A buyer’s representative is going to know the different markets, the history of the property, what’s been going on in the market, and they’re going to educate you about that and help you get the best opportunity for any home that you might be looking at. So that’s really the important part of researching in a foreign market like this is work with a very educated and experienced realtor that’s actually licensed also. Some of the people in San Miguel de Allende and many parts of Mexico are trying to sell homes and they’re not even licensed. So that’s another important feature. That sounds kind of funny, doesn’t it? Because in the United States, everybody’s licensed, but that’s not always the case in Mexico.

Maya Rudloff:

Yeah, and that’s something very important to take into account when looking for a home here. And well, it’s very, very valuable information. Now let’s talk about the paperwork involved, all the legal aspects because I think viewers also want to know about that. It might be the most stressful part of this whole process. So why don’t you discuss the legal aspects of buying a property in San Miguel de Allende, including foreign ownership laws? I think that’s important.

Alma Cecilia Ramírez :

Yeah, it is really important, especially because we are in Central Mexico so that’s the important thing to know. When you’re investing in real estate along the coast or along the border, you don’t actually own the property. You don’t actually purchase the property. You have the property through a bank trust called a miso. However, when you’re in Central Mexico like San Miguel de Allende, it’s very much like the United States. In honesty, the ownership process is just like the United States because you own it, fee simple. The deeded is in your name. But really the whole process of going through the purchase process and the ownership process is very much like in the United States. We use contracts that are based on boilerplate language from the United States. We use escrow companies that are just like in the United States. My company in particular uses an escrow company that’s insured and bonded just like in the U.S. Believe it or not, that’s a rarity in Mexico. So ask your agent if the escrow company that they’re using is insured and bonded. That’s kind of an important point.

But the biggest thing again, is to stress the fact that you’re owning it fee simple here. So the deed is in your name. Nobody can take the property away from you, and it’s just like owning a property in the United States. We walk you through that process, so you understand that all the way through closing and are right there with you even behind after the closing process to help you with the rest of the process of getting a property manager to help you manage the property, how to pay your taxes, your property taxes, those kinds of things.

Maya Rudloff:

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Alma. And would you mind maybe walking us through the process of purchasing a property and the paperwork that’s involved in more detail, please?

Alma Cecilia Ramírez :

Sure. When you find a property that you like working with one of our realtors on our team, you might go back and forth, just like in the United States, on bids. It’s interesting, a lot of my clients go, “Well, where I come from, there’s an asking price and you have to bid above that.” Especially that was true during the pandemic, maybe a little bit less so, but a lot of the coastal properties are still like that. You have an asking price and you have to bid above it. In Mexico, it’s just the opposite. You have an asking price, and you’re typically negotiating off that asking price. So you’ll typically go back and forth on a couple of offers. Finally, reach a mutually agreeable selling price between the buyer and the seller. You’ll sign an initial offer contract.

From there, we’ll open up an escrow account, you’ll do an inspection on the property, and this is the nice thing to think about for all your viewers that are wondering about the process, there’s no money that exchanges hands until you’ve done an inspection on the home. So we typically have 7 to 10 calendar days to do an inspection. You’ll see if there’s anything that needs to be done to the home. You can negotiate that with the seller. Once that’s all done and you’ve said, “Okay, seller, I want you to fix this, or that needs to be done.” Typically, there’s not a lot of negotiation on that. I might point that out. It’s a little different from the United States from the standpoint that homes here tend to be sold on an as-is basis. So most of the negotiating that happens after the offer has been agreed upon is for items that can’t be seen. So if there’s an old gas tank or something like that that’s beyond its lifespan, you might negotiate on that because that’s something that you haven’t been able to see and know about in advance.

So once you’ve negotiated any points with the seller, you then remove the inspection contingency, and only then are you putting money into an escrow account. Now again, we use a licensed and bonded escrow account that’s based in the United States. If you’re a buyer coming from the U.S., your money goes from a U.S. account to another U.S. account. That’s the escrow account, and typically the seller is American. So your funds never leave the United States. It’s a very easy process. It’s a wire transfer that goes from one domestic account to the other. That’s a typically a 10% earnest money deposit that goes into the escrow account. You then will be applying for what’s called an SRE permit, and that’s a permit to purchase property as a foreigner in Mexico. It’s a very easy process. It’s a rubber stamp process that everyone gets typically very quickly. And then we have about a 10-day, a lag time until the final closing.

And by the way, I guess I didn’t mention this yet, the total timeframe from the time you get an accepted offer until closing is generally 30 days in our market. So it’s a little bit faster than the United States. Again, that’s because it’s generally almost always an all cash transaction. So it’s a relatively short closing period here. You’ll be funding the last 90% of the purchase price into escrow about three days before closing, and then you’ll also be wired transferring those closing costs that you’re going to see.

Now, there’s another little difference here between our closing cost in Mexico versus the United States. Viewers, remember, your property taxes are super low in San Miguel de Allende. The way that the government sort of adjust that is there is an acquisition tax. Some places in the United States call it a transfer tax. Down here, we call it an acquisition tax, and that’s 4% of the purchase price. And then there’s another about 1.1% of the purchase price that are your typical closing costs like you would pay in the United States for the escrow company and the title company down here that goes to a guy called the notario, it’s the legal team called the notario. So your total closing cost of 5.1% will also get wired transferred with that last payment to escrow, and all those funds get dispersed at closing.

Again, very much like a U.S. process. One of the other differences that viewers need to be aware of is there has to be someone physically present at closing. So if you think you may not be able to come down, I will often do a power of attorney where one of the attorneys on my legal team gets named as the power of attorney. And in case you can’t come down for the closing or something happens, you have a family emergency and you can’t actually physically be here, the power of attorney can sign for you. So that’s one of the important differences, and we’ll often set that up pretty early in the process shortly after you sign the dual signed purchase agreement. But it’s a relatively easy process. There’s always someone here to walk you through each step of the process.

When you’re working with one of my team members, you get a little booklet that explains every single step of the process all the way through. So we make it very easy, even though it’s a foreign country and a few things are different. We’re here to hold clients’ hands all the way through the process, and we have lots of written information to help you through it as well.

Maya Rudloff:

I’m sure this will be very, very reassuring to anyone who’s thinking about moving to San Miguel de Allende. And something else we’d like to touch on is investment and return on investment, investment opportunities. Why don’t we talk about the potential return on investment in San Miguel de Allende’s luxury real estate market, if you’d like to share some of that, Alma.

Alma Cecilia Ramírez :

Certainly. We’re a very tourism based city here. The last statistic I saw for a little town of 150,000 people, we had three million visitors in one year. That was pre-pandemic. So we have a lot of visitors that come here and what that means, it’s a great opportunity for a rental property. Now, a lot of my clients, they’ll buy a home here and they really do plan to come down and they spend time here, and sometimes they might even spend two months or three months a year here, but they end up wanting to rent the property for the rest of the time. That’s a great way to not only cover all of your expenses for carrying cost on the property, but you’ll also earn a return on your investment. It might be a little lower one if you’re still staying in the property two or three months of the year versus buying something purely as an investment property.

I have a number of clients that will come down, they’ll buy their main home here, and then they’ll buy one or two other properties in San Miguel purely as a rental property. They just do nothing but rent it all year long. They never stay there, they just rent it. Now, in some cases, you can get double-digit, low double-digit ROIs, which is almost unheard of. That’s a very difficult statistic to earn in the United States. So you’re getting a great return on investment because of our tourism here. We have a lot of a higher occupancy and a great nightly rate for rental properties just because of the demand. I mean, once you’ve been named the number one city in the world nine times, a lot of people want to come and visit, right? So that has to do with a great rental return.

Another great statistic that a lot of my buyers don’t think about though is what’s called an internal rate of return. Remember, I have an MBA in finance, so I’m a little bit more numbers oriented than some realtors in town. And the IRR is really the true number that you want to look at if you’re looking at a property down here as an investment, because we have great appreciation. So you’ll have a good ROI from an annual basis of renting a property, but your appreciation is what really makes that IRR, that internal rate of return great over your holding period of let’s say 10 or so years. As I mentioned a little earlier in today’s video, you might get as much as a 15% to 20% appreciation rate. So great investment opportunities for anybody that wouldn’t want to rent a home that they’re still living in part-time or purely investing in something purely as a rental property. Both of them can provide good ROIs.

Maya Rudloff:

Fantastic. That’s fantastic. And now that we are at it, why don’t you highlight maybe some of the areas with the highest growth potential in San Miguel?

Alma Cecilia Ramírez :

Sure. In my little booklet, in our booklet that we send off to clients that inquire, as soon as you land on my website, you’ll have the chance to inquire and request the Q&A info handbook and one of the things that I talk about there is property values in San Miguel de Allende and rental rates. Therefore, your rental income are based on your sideline and your walking distance to the Parroquia. That’s our iconic Eiffel Tower of San Miguel. It’s right in the very heart of town. It’s right on the Jardin, the town square. So all of the popular places, all the restaurants, the theaters, the live music venues, the art galleries, they’re all working their way out from a concentric radius from that Parroquia. So all of the property values are based on your distance away from the Parroquia. The further away, the lower your appreciation rate and the lower your rental rate.

Typically, most properties within a 15-minute walking radius are the most popular and therefore have the most appreciation and the best rental rate. Once you get beyond that 15-minute walking distance, and it’s kind of a pro rata figure, you’ll drop maybe something like $25,000 in value for every 30 seconds further out. And that might sound sort of nitpicky, doesn’t it? And I’m saying 30 seconds further out, but this is a very walkable community. So remember, a lot of my buyers love to look at buying here because of the walking distance factor. So if you end up purchasing a home that’s 25 minutes walking distance, most people don’t really consider that to be a normal walking distance. Within 15 minutes is more of a normal walking radius, and those properties are the ones that are going to see the higher appreciation and the better rental rates from a rental perspective.

So Centro being one of those, if you go on our website, you’ll take a look and see the 13 best neighborhoods. But of those that are very popular and have the better rates of return on appreciation are going to be Centro, Guadiana, parts of San Antonio, parts of Obraje, the lower parts of Balcones, some of those kinds of neighborhoods that are closer and within that 15-minute relatively flat walking distance to the Jardin. So those are the neighborhoods to kind of concentrate on. Of course, you’re going to pay more for property there, but you’re going to have better appreciation and better rental rates.

Maya Rudloff:

Yes, of course. Who doesn’t want to just walk everywhere, right? So now that we’re at it-

Alma Cecilia Ramírez :

Yeah, that’s very popular.

Maya Rudloff:

Exactly, exactly. So now that we’re at it, we should maybe talk a little bit about the lifestyle and amenities of San Miguel de Allende. And maybe Alma, you could share with us some insights into the culture, the lifestyle that makes San Miguel de Allende just a very attractive destination for luxury home buyers.

Alma Cecilia Ramírez :

Sure. We just talked about the biggest lifestyle factor, I think, which is that walkability. A lot of us think, me included, I live within a 12-minute walk of the Jardin. I love that I’ve lived within walking distance of the Jardin almost my entire 14 years of living here. We all love the fact that San Miguel de Allende is like a little European village where you can walk to everywhere, so you’ll hardly ever have to use your car. As an example, I have a year old car that only has about 3,000 miles on it because I seldom have to drive. So it’s a very walkable community. We all love that we can roll out the door and be in a restaurant. For instance, I can be in six restaurants within 60 seconds of my home. If I want to walk another seven or eight minutes, I can be at another 100. And if I want to walk 10 to 12 minutes, I can be within about 200 or 250 restaurants.

This town has 550 restaurants on TripAdvisor. So for a little town of 150,000 people, we have an amazing culinary experience here and the majority of those are very high-end, very nice restaurant dining opportunities. A lot of them celebrity chefs from other countries. One of the examples I love to share is one of the chefs here in town, he’s a Mexican chef, but he had a very successful restaurant in London for 20 years, and when he decided to move back to his home country, he said, “Well, where shall I go? Well, San Miguel de Allende has become the culinary capital of Mexico. I’m moving back to San Miguel instead of back to Mexico City.” So a lot of that has occurred here. We have a lot of Mexico City restaurants that have opened a second destination here in San Miguel.

I also tell a lot of my buyers when they’re asking about the lifestyle here, that San Miguel de Allende has the largest social and cultural English language infrastructure of any destination anywhere in Mexico, truly. I mean, when I say that, I mean that from a theatrical standpoint, music, opera, you name it. We have more of the English language operas, obviously not in English, rarely at least, is it? But you’ve got at least subtitles. You’ll see the supertitles up at the top that are in English, and you don’t find that in other parts of Mexico. So our social and cultural infrastructure here is great. We have a lot of organizations that are easy to meet people. We have a lot of venues here that have weekly or monthly events, like our organic market here has a weekly event every Saturday and about a thousand of us gringos all go and meet and greet, and you have farm style seating where you’re seating with other people you don’t know, and there’s an entertainer singing and people making breakfast and lunch, and it’s a great way to meet people.

And then the Fabrica Aurora is a big art gallery complex of about 43 art galleries. The first Saturday of every month, for instance, they have the art walk. And so 2,000 or 3,000 of us locals will go and meet and greet and have a glass of wine and listen to the band and walk around and see all the art galleries. So this city has a phenomenal opportunity to meet people if you want to become active and really get involved, even if you’re retired. We have 120 nonprofits in town. They’re always looking for people with some good experience that want to put their heart where their cause is. And so if your cause is educating women, there’s Mujeres en Cambio and Jovenes Adelante. If your goal is to help kids get a good nutritious meal so that they can learn more at school, there’s Feed The Hungry. If you care about healthcare for children, anybody under the age of 18, there’s Patronato Pro-Niños, for instance. I’ve been on the board of Patronato Pro-Niños and really support them.

There’s a lot of great organizations as well, and they love to have volunteers to get involve. Casita Linda is another good one, for instance. And when you talk about the cultural infrastructure here, a lot of these organizations have a fundraiser. So once or twice a year, they’ll have a big fundraiser and it’s just like in the United States, but instead of paying $5,000 a ticket, you’re only paying $250 a ticket or something like that down here. So it’s a much more affordable way to support a good cause and go to a good event and have a fun time.

The lifestyle down here is what draws my clients and me. I’ll live here the rest of my life. I’ve lived here 14 years and it’s because of the lifestyle. I absolutely love it. I know you do too, Maya. And this though, viewers, while we’re talking about lifestyle, so one of the things I’d love you to do, by the way, if you’re watching this on YouTube, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. We have a couple of them, but please subscribe to the YouTube channel you’re viewing this on. You’ll see a lot of other lifestyle videos on there as well, though, the things that talk about the lifestyle. And then a very important one I think is please go on our website.

When you go on the website, there’ll be the opportunity to sign up for this Q&A booklet that I talked about, so it’ll cover in a lot more detail what we’ve briefly sort of touched on today. I think you’ll find it very informative and very helpful, and from there, you can kind of explore a little do on your own, ask for a little more help if you like, but just do some early exploration. But make sure, again, subscribe to YouTube so that you can get our ongoing videos that come up and then go on the website and explore. There are some great things to find on our website. It’s not just about real estate, it’s about lifestyle. We’d love to have you come on down. Come join us.

Maya Rudloff:

Thank you so much, Alma. It’s been a fantastic conversation. I am really happy to have talked about all of this with you. And well, we’ll see each other on our next video.

Alma Cecilia Ramírez :

Let’s do it again soon, Maya. Talk to you soon.

Maya Rudloff:

Bye, Alma. See you soon.

Alma Cecilia Ramírez :

Viewers, thanks for joining us.

Looking to purchase a home in San Miguel de Allende?

We are the only direct US franchise of the prestigious brokerage Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices in San Miguel, and we are experts in high-end real estate properties and luxury homes in San Miguel de Allende. Our listings at the moment consist of in-demand properties, including estates, single-family homes, and condos.

Whether you want to buy a vacation home, invest in a rental property, or simply want to diversify your real estate portfolio, the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Colonial Homes San Miguel team will be there to guide and assist you every step of the way.

Interested in checking out homes for sale while you’re in town to experience the best San Miguel de Allende festivals? Call us at 52.415.153.3598  or contact us here. You can also email Broker Alma Cecilia Ramirez to schedule a consultation.