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Mazatlan Online Properties is a searchable database of properties for sale in the greater Mazatlan area. This is a free public service provided by your hosts, Nadine and Henry. We hope you find it useful. Note! These listings may be out of date, and it is up to the sellers and their agents to keep them current. Be sure to contact the seller or agent before making a trip down here! A statistical summary of the listings is available.
There are 127 houses, 74 condos, 23 lots, and 11 businesses currently online
Nadine and I moved here in 1991, and have lived here from November until May since then. During that time, we have built two houses, bought 3 houses, remodelled one house, sold 3 houses and subdivided one house and sold part of it. Thus I would claim to have some experience in the Mazatlan real estate arena. Our experiences have generally been good, though we did manage to sell some properties for less than we paid for them. I never said I was a good businessman. Now for some of our sage advice and observations:

Unlike the United States, (where we bought 7 houses and have sold 6) the real estate industry in Mexico is not quite as evolved. There is no central licensing authority for real estate agents or brokers. Furthermore, because there are no escrow companies or title companies here, the information that is available about a property is likely to be highly inacurrate. For example, in the US, if you want to know how much properties in your area sold for, you can go to the county courthouse and look up the transfer tax records, and compute the most recent sales price. In Mexico this simply isn't possible. This means that it is almost impossible to discover what the real value of a property is, based on comparables. It also means that real estate agents and property owners have a lot of power to deceive if they so desire. It is not uncommon for a property to be listed at a price that is 50% to 100% higher than the owner expects to receive, figuring that a fool may come along and open his wallet. It is also not uncommon for an agent to represent the price of a property as higher than the owner has listed it, hoping to pocket the difference. In the US, this kind of behaviour would result in the loss of a real estate license, but here there are no real estate licenses. The result: Buyer Beware.

Finding the right house

Personally we believe in using an agent. Yes, there are commissions involved, but believe me, they earn them. Furthermore, you are a stranger in a strange land, and getting some expert advice and pointers in the right direction can save you more than the commission is going to cost. You can also drive around and look for for sale signs, which are written as Se Vende in Spanish. There are plusses and minusses to this approach. First, a lot of houses that are for sale do not put up signs, as the owners do not want to be bothered by folks like you. Secondly, this a very common technique used to do a market survey. If a seller is "mildly" interested in selling his home, he will put up a Se Vende sign, and when people inquire about the property he will tell them that it is for sale for, say $100,000 dollars. If they offer him that amount, he changes his mind, and the next people who drive buy he asks for $120,000. This continues until he can't find any more suckers, and then if he sells it you can bet it won't be for a penny less than the best offer he received in the past. Should you find yourself dealing with such a seller, you are in for a world of hurt, and don't be surprised if on the day of closing the price is suddenly increased with the threat of backing out of the deal. This is another reason to make sure the property you are interested in is listed with a broker, and that a listing agreement has been signed obligating the seller to sell the property at an agreed upon price.

Finally, you should know that just because a house looks like it has been abandoned, and perhaps even has a for sale sign on it, it may not be an easy task to discover who owns the property, and what the asking price is. It is certainly reasonable to ask your agent to call the number that you saw on the for sale sign, but if that number no longer exists or the person answering knows nothing about the property, don't expect your agent to track this thing down, it can be an infinite time sink with a commmonly unfruitful outcome.

How can you protect yourself as a Buyer?

Don't be in a hurry to buy. Under no circumstances should you expect to come to Mazatlan for a weeks vacation and plan to purchase a property while you are here. We did exactly that, and we got lucky, but I wouldn't recommend it in general. It is easy to make mistakes when you are in a hurry. If you are serious about buying a home here, plan to spend a winter here first checking things out. Also, if you are planning on living here year round, be sure to spend a summer here before you buy anything to make sure you can stand it. We know of several people here who "fell in love" with Mazatlan during the winter, and after spending a summer here were willing to sell their house at almost any price. Rent a house in the area that you would like to live in before buying anything. Long term rentals are generally inexpensive, and if you need to stay in a hotel for a week or two until you find a suitable rental, do so. Also you will find out whether or not you are living next to any water treatment plants or incredibly noisy neighbors, before you take the plunge.

Deal with a reputable agent. Once you live here for a while, ask your friends and neighbors to refer you to some agents that they have had good experiences with. Once you have met with the agent, ask them for the names and phone numbers of satisfied clients, and follow up with a phone call. This can save you thousands and dollars and a lot of aggravation. We have started Mazatlan Real Estate Agent Feedback Service which permits agents to advertise their services in exchange for their agreement to encourage their clients to post candid remarks online about the agent's performance. If the agent you are considering isn't taking advantage of this totally free service, ask him or her why not. Warning: If you are staying in a hotel, don't tell the hotel employees that you are here looking for a house. You will suddenly discover that all of them have a brother, cousin, or nephew that has a great house for sale that you absolutely must look at. Unless you want to spend a lot of time saying no thank you, or look at a lot of houses that you probably aren't interested in and may or may not be owned by the occupants, keep your home shopping desires between yourself and your agent.

Deal with a reputable notary.The second most important person in a real estate transaction here is the notary. Unlike notaries in the US, notaries in Mexico not only complete a law degree, but are official officers appointed by the government. Their sworn testimony in court is considered fact. They are an essential part of all real estate transactions, and it is their responsibility to make sure that all of the fees and taxes are paid, and that a clear title is delivered to the buyer. You will pay them the closing costs, which they are required to pass along to the various agencies which collect the taxes and fees. Closing costs are typically between 3 and 5 percent of the purchase price. Since there are some fixed costs, the percentage is usually lower the higher the value of the property. A reputable notary will give you a pro-forma accounting of these expenses if you ask for them. If they seem excessive, ask why and get a second opinion. If you have found a good real estate agent, he or she should be able to refer you to a good notary, still it wouldn't hurt to ask other people if they have had experience with this notary and how they were treated.

Get things in writing. Be sure you itemize, in writing, what the closing costs are going to be, what is included with the house, when the payments are due, and any other fine points of the deal. One of the favorite tricks that is sometimes pulled here is that the house is stripped by the seller sometime before the buyer moves in. By stripped I mean the removal of any and all items that can be resold, such as air conditioners, ceiling fans, light fixtures, window coverings, appliances, etc. Just because it is attached doesn't mean that the seller isn't planning on removing it later. The best way to deal with this is to have an itemized list of what is included in the purchase, and to have a provision in the sales agreement that holds back a portion of the proceeds until the buyer has moved in and inspected the property. It is also prudent to specify in your purchase agreement how the final payment is to be made. This is particularly important if the two of you are using pesos instead of dollars. You should clearly specify what exhange rate you are planning to use. In the past, we have agreed that whatever rate given to us by a local bank on the date of the wire transfer is acceptible. Also don't assume that the buyer is going to bring you a certified check or bank draft. Unless you say otherwise, they may just show up with bundles of $20 dollar bills. Another little gotcha happens when the seller doesn't get around to registering the completed sale in a timely manner. In that case, you are still considered the legal owner, and all property tax bills will be delivered to you. No big deal, just don't pay them. But what if someone is injured on your property. Maybe you can convince the judge that it really isn't yours, but do you really want the hassle. Far better is to specify in the purchase agreement that a certain percentage (say 10%) of the purchase price will be held by the attorney until all transfers of title, and utilities have taken place.

Be careful who you make the deposit check out to. It is not uncommon for the agent to pay himself the commision out of the deposit check if you make it out to them. Sometimes this upsets the seller, who is responsible for the commision and you, the buyer, find yourself caught in the middle. One way around this is to make the deposit check out to the seller, but instruct the agent not to deliver it to the seller until a purchase contract has been signed by both parties. Another problem is that the person who lives in the house and claims to be the seller, may not in fact be the legal owner of the property. It is not uncommon for a house to be put in a friends name, or even a child of the actual owner. As long as you are aware of this, it does not necessarily cause a problem, but it is best to make sure the legal owner of the property is indeed planning to sell it. There are several ways of determining the legal owner. Ask to see the registered deed of the property, and a current property tax receipt, and make sure the same name is on each document. You can also request a document from the public registry called a libertad de gravamen. which will disclose any liens, burdens, or encumbrances on the property. It also states that the records have been checked for the last 20 years. The cost of this document is about $25US. A good realtor will have already done all of this, before they agreed to list the property, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Our experience here

Having given such sage advice, I must admit that Nadine and I haven't followed any of it, and we have managed just fine. Why? Only because we had the good fortune to find an agent and a notary who are honest, decent people who we trust. We have let them handle all of the details and have never been burned in a transaction. Actually, that is not quite true. In the first house that we built here, we used the services of a notary who was running for mayor of the city at the time. He later suffered a heart attack and died during the campaign, and it later turned out that he spent all of our money on his politcal campaign. None of the taxes or fees were paid, and we had no choice but to pay for them again ourselves, with a new notary. Of course, I don't know if he would have completed the transaction had he lived, but needless to say at this point we have written off the money that we paid him. The warnings I have listed above are real enough, and are the result of other peoples experiences that were related to us.

Does all this mean that we are down on buying property in Mazatlan? No, not at all. While we did have one bad experience, all the others were good, and we love living here during the winter and watching all those folks in the US and Canada shovelling snow on the Weather channel.

On the plus side

Price. The cost of housing, at least by California standards, is quite low here. If you want to live in the El Cid area, you can buy a brand new (small) condo for under 100K US. Lots are generally around 30-60K and some fixer-uppers are priced at 75-80K. There are many very nice houses available for between 100-200K. Outside of El Cid, there are many nice homes for sale. Recently I came across a 6 bedroom huge house in Lomas for around 80K. There are small houses in some more distant neighborhoods that only cost about 20K. Condos on the beach sell for as little as 90K, and at the other end of the spectrum there are a few mansions on the beach that cost over one million just to build. In general though, prices are much lower than a comparable house just about anywhere in the US.

Labor. The cost of labor here is so low, that you need a new mindset to understand what it means to you. In the US, we are used labor being the largest component of any construction project. Here it is just the opposite. What this means is that even if the house you are looking at seems run down and tired, it might be quite inexpensive to hire some people to fix it up. Since houses here are built out of brick and concrete, they are usually structurally sound if they look like a mess. It's amazing what some patching, paint, and refinishing can do for the appearance of a place, and it costs little more than the price of the materials. Keep this in mind when you are looking at a house to buy. The money you save because it is run down may more than offset the cost to restore it.

More, You want more?

If you've read this far, you must be relatively serious about buying property in Mazatlan. Well, Nadine and I have prepared even more information for your edification, including a sample closing statement that itemizes the fees you can expect to pay as part of your transaction.