0:32

My biggest advice to anyone who's the one

0:35

, I guess one sentence would be don't

0:37

buy pre-sale .

0:38

Yeah , right , right , does it might never

0:40

happen .

0:42

Well , there's lots of reasons , but that's the biggest one there is . You know it may

0:44

not happen , but also there's just . There's

0:46

a lot of properties out there and if your expectation

0:49

is to rent it out right

0:52

, it's going to be a challenge .

0:59

Welcome to ExPATs Like Us . A co-production

1:02

with me , vita Margarita , exploring

1:04

the world of US ExPat Life in

1:06

Mexico . In each episode , we'll

1:09

meet new people and hear their stories . We'll

1:11

also learn more about ExPat Life

1:13

and get a few tips on everything from

1:15

making your move to settling in , to

1:17

living your dreams and , most of all

1:20

, having fun . Let's dive in . I'm

1:34

your host , bob Bussey .

1:36

And I'm Chris Kowalski and we are

1:38

friends and expats who , in the summer of 2021

1:41

, sold our possessions , retired from

1:43

our jobs and made the move to Mexico

1:45

.

1:46

Today we're thrilled to be talking with Nolan Clark

1:48

. Nolan is a friend and a real estate

1:50

broker and developer in Riviera Maya

1:53

. He's also an interesting guy who's

1:55

well known in the area for his music performances

1:57

, either with a band or solo . Nolan

2:00

is here to share his experience in moving

2:02

from his original home in Canada to

2:04

living mostly full-time in Mexico and

2:06

adapting to a new life in a new country

2:09

. He'll also give us some insight into

2:11

how real estate markets work here

2:13

in Mexico and some of the best practices

2:15

in finding a home in the area . Hi

2:17

, nolan , and welcome to ExPats Like Us

2:20

Afternoon . Bob , chris , thanks for having me on . Thanks

2:22

for coming . So first thing , tell us about

2:24

your pre-Mexico life .

2:26

So yeah , as you mentioned , I'm from Canada . I grew

2:28

up in Vancouver and I moved to the interior

2:31

British Columbia . I spent about 15

2:33

years there . I had a 25-year

2:35

career in the IT field , doing various

2:37

things , from education at a local

2:39

college to database development

2:42

and application development , things

2:44

like that Things . I moved in the fall of 2015,

2:46

. So I've been here a little over eight years . I

2:49

always had a love affair with Mexico . The first time I got

2:51

here was , I'd say , 1990

2:56

or something like that , and I went to Mazatlan and

2:58

I really enjoyed the culture , the

3:00

people , obviously , the food and

3:02

the climate all things Mexican

3:05

. But I started a family

3:07

early in my life as an adult , and so

3:09

it took a while . And then , yeah , had some tragedy

3:12

happen in my family and

3:14

a divorce happened . So , yeah , that was kind

3:16

of the impetus for me saying , okay , it's

3:18

time to go Check it out and

3:21

what was the process of making

3:23

the move from Canada to here ?

3:25

What was that like for you ?

3:27

Well , it was relatively simple . I had just

3:29

been divorced so I was restarting in Canada

3:31

. I didn't have a whole lot of items

3:33

that I had to sell . I had a home that I'd purchased

3:35

, and I ended up just finding kind of a roommate guy

3:38

who would take care of the place . I sold a lot of my possessions

3:40

and when I got down here

3:42

, I had a house that I had purchased

3:44

in around the 2008 . And

3:47

so it was a relatively soft landing . I

3:49

came down with my backpack with some

3:51

t-shirts and shorts , a laptop

3:53

and my guitar , and that

3:56

was it .

3:59

So did you start real

4:01

estate as soon as you got here , or did you start ?

4:03

music , no . So I started

4:05

. Actually I wasn't sure what I was going to do and I just

4:08

I brought the laptop but I really didn't want to get

4:10

jumped back into the IT environment

4:12

. But someone did offer me

4:14

a position doing some work with their hotel . But

4:17

the rate I was going to be asking

4:20

for was , she said , well , that's what doctors

4:22

make . So it kind of didn't

4:24

. It fell apart . There I could have done some contract

4:26

work for companies in Canada

4:28

that I knew , but I really didn't want to , so

4:30

I kind of held off . I started playing guitar

4:32

at a local restaurant here weekly and

4:35

it was very interesting because

4:37

just about every time I played I'd

4:39

do a set you know nine , 10 songs and I'd put

4:42

the guitar down and somebody would wave me over and offer to

4:44

buy me a beer and ask me well , what are you doing

4:46

over here playing guitar in this little

4:48

, you know sleepy little town ? So I

4:51

would mention that you know I just moved to the area

4:53

and I had a house you know that I'd purchased

4:55

years earlier . And the question was always

4:57

the same Well , what do you know about the real estate market

4:59

? So real estate , actually , just

5:01

it really did fall in my lap .

5:04

So how have you adapted

5:06

your personal lifestyle to living in a

5:08

great question ? It's not a foreign country

5:11

to you anymore , but at the time a foreign

5:13

country .

5:14

So well , things like . You know I don't wake up

5:16

to an alarm . Those are the things that I think are the nicest

5:18

. You know , I wake up when the sun wakes me up , and

5:20

you know the birds . I don't

5:22

commute nine to five anymore , so things

5:24

like that . Obviously , I've had to learn Spanish , which

5:27

after eight and a half years I'm

5:29

pretty good at it . I

5:32

can get by for sure .

6:03

Tell us about the transition to your new

6:05

life in Mexico .

6:06

Well , that was very interesting . My original plan was

6:09

actually to come down here . I earlier , like

6:11

maybe a year earlier , I had gone to Seulita

6:14

, which is a town north of Puerto Vallarta on the West

6:16

Coast , and I kind of liked that town

6:18

. I saw a couple of properties I was interested in

6:20

and my original plan

6:22

was to come down here and fix up my house here and

6:24

sell it and then purchase something over on the other side

6:26

. I ended up doing the renovations . I

6:28

kind of reignited my passion

6:31

for this house . I put

6:33

a pool in and things like that and I

6:35

just started making some routes , you know . So

6:38

getting to know people in

6:40

the area , and obviously the real estate

6:42

, as I mentioned earlier , started

6:44

to kick off . So I just thought , why would I

6:46

abandon this ? It's beautiful

6:48

over here , so there's a lot of pluses .

6:50

Right , absolutely . So during this process

6:53

, did you have any unexpected challenges ?

6:56

I wouldn't say they were unexpected . Nothing

6:58

unexpected , I would say you

7:02

expect to have a challenge with the

7:04

language . I guess maybe something

7:06

was unexpected . Was I missed

7:09

playing highsocky ?

7:11

Oh , okay . Yeah , you really don't see

7:13

a lot of that down here .

7:14

I understand they're putting a rink in , so we'll have some nice

7:16

things soon . I can't count .

7:19

And , from your experience , what are some of the things

7:21

people should consider when they're getting

7:23

ready to start a new life in Mexico Another good

7:25

question .

7:27

So what I tell people is

7:29

you know , try to find out , try

7:31

to think about what's important to you . If it's

7:33

going to be more of a sense

7:35

of community , or , let's say , proximity

7:38

to the beach and access to the beach

7:40

, those things , those are two super

7:42

important things and that's why we're down

7:44

here . Right , it's to be at the beach as often

7:46

as possible . Things

7:48

like access to amenities , restaurants

7:50

, those types of things .

7:52

So Okay

7:54

, and what are some of the things that

7:56

people that

7:58

you think ? Have you seen people that did not

8:00

really think through the process of moving down

8:02

here and what sort

8:04

of things that were they not thinking

8:07

about when they did that ?

8:08

No , I can't say that . I do know . I know that there are

8:10

people who have moved into certain , let's

8:13

say I'll just say it down into Tulum . Let's

8:16

say , 15 years ago they bought some land , they built

8:18

a house in Tulum and Tulum

8:21

has grown up around them . So

8:23

they've been unhappy with

8:25

the changes in that area , and that happens in Playa

8:27

del Carmen . The hats happened in Cancun

8:29

or Cozumel as well . So

8:31

they've wanted to sell and move somewhere

8:33

that's maybe a little quieter . Tulum is very

8:36

I won't say , transient , but there's a lot of Airbnb

8:38

properties down there now . So for

8:40

people in our age category , I'm

8:43

happy to show people down property

8:45

down in Tulum that I like to . It's kind

8:47

of a younger person's town

8:49

Exactly .

8:50

We shared on our expats like us

8:52

Facebook page , I believe while

8:55

back we shared a photo of Playa

8:57

del Carmen in 1989 , an aerial

9:00

photo versus today , I think I saw

9:02

that and it was , like you know , a couple

9:04

little grass , a couple

9:06

little bamboo huts in 1989

9:09

. And now it's hundreds of thousands of people

9:11

. Yeah , yeah . So yeah , you

9:13

got to . You got to plan on there being some

9:15

big changes for sure , potentially wherever

9:18

you go . Yeah .

9:20

So as a well known guy in the area , particularly

9:22

because of your entertainment , your music , tell

9:25

us about the work you did as a singer

9:27

and a musician .

9:29

Well , I was really just

9:31

a kind of camp campfire singer

9:33

up in Canada . I didn't do any

9:35

professional singing at all . I

9:38

jumped in on a couple of open

9:40

mic sessions in Canada . But when I came down here

9:42

I played music in my backyard

9:45

and a few neighbors came by and they liked it . So they

9:47

said , well , Lapa Lapa , which is a local

9:49

restaurant here , they had just opened , taken

9:51

, you know , by new management . So

9:53

one of my friends kind of threw it out there that I

9:55

should play there , and that's really

9:57

what kicked off the music . I bought

10:00

some equipment and started

10:02

playing on Wednesday nights . And then

10:04

, because I had the equipment , someone suggested

10:06

I do some karaoke . So I started up a karaoke

10:08

. That was on Monday nights . There's another

10:10

restaurant that hired me to do karaoke and

10:12

or play and I also did some hermit

10:15

crab races over there which really took off . Through

10:18

all of those events

10:20

I became pretty well known in the

10:22

area and also then

10:24

I would shamelessly promote myself

10:26

when the house was packed . I'd say by

10:28

the way , if you're having a good time , I sell real

10:30

estate during the daytime . So coming here and get a

10:32

card . So I think you still

10:34

do that , I still do that .

10:36

That's a good idea and that's probably the way

10:38

to do it . But , yeah , you're well known for

10:40

for entertainment , but you're also

10:42

known around here to me as the guy to

10:44

talk to if you're looking to buy or sell real estate

10:47

in the area . And how did you first get involved

10:49

in that and what was the process ?

10:51

Well , I've been pretty lucky with it

10:53

. As I said , it

10:55

did fall in my lap , so I

10:57

guess it was early 2016 . I went down to Tulum

10:59

. I talked to a couple of different brokerages and

11:02

all of them told me that I could start the next

11:04

day . So I won't mention which one I ended

11:06

up getting on with , but I worked with them

11:08

for about five or six months . I met

11:10

a gentleman from Dallas who convinced

11:13

me that , hey , you know what you could be doing this on

11:15

your own . So I looked into it . I

11:17

started up a corporation , and that was

11:19

that . I got licensed , and the rest

11:21

is kind of history .

11:23

So what's the licensing

11:25

process like here ?

11:26

Well , it's changed a little bit , it's

11:29

. It was very difficult for me because

11:31

I had to take a 120 hour course in

11:33

Spanish , and that was before . My Spanish

11:35

was very good , so they assisted , they helped , they were

11:37

pretty good , and now it's . You

11:40

can go through a different organization

11:43

called Ampe . So I went through Sinetis and

11:45

now it's through Ampe and they offer

11:47

it in English . So I've actually just taken

11:50

some , I guess , continuing education

11:52

through Ampe , so I'll have that licensing shortly

11:55

as well .

11:56

I've heard in the area , there's a lot of

11:58

people that present themselves

12:00

as a real estate agent but they're not actually licensed

12:03

. Is that something ?

12:04

you see , or that you come across , oh , absolutely

12:06

, I call them the Bicycle Real Estate Agents . So

12:08

when I first would put an ad out

12:10

on a couple of the different pages and

12:12

somebody would call me and say , oh , I've got a property that might

12:14

fit , and I'd say , oh , let's meet at the coffee shop or

12:16

somewhere , okay . And then I'm

12:19

waiting outside and they roll up on their bicycle I'm not

12:21

kidding you . So yeah , licensing

12:23

is required here in this state and

12:25

in Baja California , sir , but

12:28

I think that's it . These two

12:30

, and maybe Mexico State as well .

12:32

So is there a way that one of our viewers

12:34

, if they were looking for a property , that they could make sure

12:36

that they're dealing with the lease Eventually .

12:38

That's what we're trying to move forward with

12:41

. Is actually , you know , requesting . Let's

12:43

see your license , let's move forward from

12:45

that .

12:46

I do remember that when I first

12:48

got the idea of moving down here , we had a friend

12:50

that lives in , have a friend that lives in Playa

12:52

del Carmen , and she

12:55

said oh , if you want me to hook you up with

12:57

a house or something , let me know she goes in Mexico

12:59

, everybody's a realtor .

13:01

Well , that's true too , I always remember that .

13:03

And then so now , when I see people

13:05

who are real to say they're realtor as , I always wonder

13:07

you know , but we know that you're the real deal

13:09

.

13:10

So yeah , and I've been very lucky . You know , like I said

13:12

through just word of mouth in the area

13:14

, it's a small community , it's a very good

13:16

, tight community . So , yeah , I've

13:18

been , I've been very lucky .

13:19

Yeah , very good . So do you sell , or

13:22

is some of your clients , or some of your clients

13:24

, spanish speaking people , or is it ?

13:25

mostly .

13:26

Okay , yeah .

13:27

Yeah , I've dealt with , but it's a small

13:29

percentage . I would say five . Under fewer

13:31

than 10% of my clients have been Mexican

13:34

or Spanish speaking , but there are a few .

13:36

Okay , so what's the current real estate

13:38

market like here in Riviera Maya

13:40

?

13:41

That's a really good question . Right

13:43

now is high season , so it's it's

13:45

. You know it's hot . I guess I've sold five properties

13:48

, four properties , in the last five weeks . So the first

13:50

five weeks of 2024 got

13:52

four properties sold or under contract . Anyways

13:54

, covid was

13:56

kind of weird , so everything just kind of was

13:59

stalled during the COVID years and then

14:01

the year when COVID was

14:03

done , I sold three

14:05

or four times more property than I ever had and then

14:07

last year was a little slower . It was kind of got

14:09

back to normal . So there is a high season and a low season

14:12

. There's a cycle here .

14:13

So right and it kind of mirrors the tourist season

14:16

Precisely .

14:16

People come down , they time they know they're going to buy or

14:18

they're thinking about buying and think

14:21

time their vacation with purchase Okay

14:23

.

14:24

I got a couple of questions about this development here

14:26

that you're currently working on . So

14:28

how does it work ? Are they solar powered ? Is there

14:30

CFP here ? Do they have wells ? Do

14:33

they have ?

14:33

Yeah , so yeah , welcome to Haven Haven

14:36

Executive Estates . Yeah , so it's

14:38

a bit of a I don't know snooty name , but

14:40

so yeah , haven is a Gated

14:43

community seven single family lots

14:45

, good size , 13,000 plus square feet . We

14:47

do have CFE at every lot line brought

14:49

in , each lot has its own well

14:52

as well , and we

14:54

do a very a closed in septic system

14:56

. So the septic chamber has

14:58

five anti chambers or sub chambers

15:00

for water separation . It

15:02

has a biodegester , which is a requirement

15:05

by law , and it has a

15:07

basically just a holding chamber for the gray

15:09

water , the final gray water , with a pump and

15:11

that pumps out into enclosed planters

15:14

, so a planter with a bottom and sides that's

15:16

sealed and it runs , you

15:18

know , several dozens

15:20

of meters . So Basically

15:22

, the water flows out from that , from your house , and into

15:24

, eventually into your planters , and then just gets absorbed

15:27

or evaporates .

15:28

Oh okay . So it's kind of a whole little ecosystem

15:30

.

15:30

Yeah , it doesn't go back into the , into the

15:32

cenote system below .

15:33

Okay what about the water ?

15:35

that you bring into your house . Yeah , so the

15:37

water is pulled up from the cenotes and that's

15:39

why we're very careful with what we put back out

15:41

of the house , right , so we don't want to contaminate

15:43

the water that we're pulling up into the house . So

15:45

describe what a cenote is , because people listening

15:48

to this might not know cenote is really

15:50

just a term for the underground water , but

15:52

you know the sona cenotes themselves

15:54

are typically thought of as the

15:56

openings where the the ground has caved

15:58

in . There's very , very few lakes or Ponds

16:00

here . So cenotes , as you guys

16:02

know , are where the land has kind of

16:04

fallen in and now you can see the water

16:07

flowing . It's crystal clear

16:09

, normally because they get a lot of flow and

16:11

, yeah , it's super clean water because it's been

16:13

filtered . So when it rains

16:15

it goes straight into the cenotes , which

16:17

are probably 50 feet below the .

16:20

Right ground level somebody . I read somewhere

16:23

the other day that Mexico does

16:25

not have any navigable rivers because

16:27

of the landform that's so high in the central

16:30

and it's so low on the site

16:32

on the coast that there's no . You

16:34

know , the rivers are either too fast or In

16:37

like .

16:37

In this area they're underground last year I

16:39

visited Chiapas and I did see a river . There was

16:41

a beautiful that . The valley there is spectacular

16:43

. Okay , you're gonna go on vacation . I would definitely

16:46

recommend checking that out so we

16:48

could have taken the boat tour which actually goes up

16:50

a navigable river .

16:51

I'm worried we could take the road .

16:53

we chose that road and we went

16:55

up and just you know , your 2000

16:58

feet above the like , I don't know , a

17:00

thousand feet , you're way up there anyways , and you're looking

17:02

down and just the views were spectacular , right

17:04

? So yeah , I think there are , but for sure

17:06

, here in the Yucatan , I wouldn't think there's

17:08

any navigable rivers , right yeah

17:10

?

17:11

So as far as the real estate

17:13

market here , tell people what you know , what's

17:15

kind of the low end of a house that you can get and

17:17

what that would cost and and what would

17:19

be included with that All the way up

17:21

to , you know , middle range to the high end

17:23

okay .

17:24

So where I bought my first house

17:26

in Mexico in 2008 was a little community

17:28

called Chanchema wheel . I still have property

17:31

for sale there for 110,000

17:34

and that is a basic two-bedroom , one

17:36

bath house . It's got a front yard , backyard

17:38

. There's no HOA there . The

17:40

house itself is about 650 square

17:42

feet and it would need some work so you

17:45

may be able to pick it up for a hundred thousand us a USD

17:47

. Everything I talk about in dollars

17:49

is are in as far as money goes

17:52

, is gonna be in USD . Yeah

17:55

, and that's kind of the starting point . I would say

17:57

, okay , typical

18:00

sales for me are condos in

18:02

the Tulum country club , where you guys

18:05

you know are your area 200

18:08

to 250,000 for a typical two-bedroom

18:10

, not penthouse , and then 300

18:13

to 350 for a penthouse , single

18:15

family homes anywhere from 350

18:19

to well , this guy's

18:21

the limit you know . So I've

18:23

got a very nice villa for sale for 800,000

18:25

down in in In

18:28

Tulum . I've got a Beachfront

18:31

property for three and a quarter .

18:32

So what do you get for 800,000 in Tulum

18:34

?

18:34

That's a beautiful house . It's Tulum style , which

18:36

means it's got all the kind of the Not

18:40

rough finishing but polished concrete and chacum

18:42

which is the the

18:44

wall finishing . I guess . Okay , three

18:47

bedroom , three and a half bath , plus a

18:49

big pool , plus a guest house , and

18:51

then that's in a gated community as well .

18:53

Okay so yeah , very , very cool

18:55

. Some people , like

18:58

you know , think they're gonna buy places as

19:00

an investment is . Do you

19:02

recommend something like that , or you know , is that

19:04

a good thing or a bad thing ?

19:05

loaded question there's . There

19:08

are some opportunities , but generally speaking

19:11

, People they

19:13

tend to get over . People will

19:15

over-promise the return on investment potential

19:17

and that's what gets people excited and they make

19:20

the mistake of purchasing without really working

19:22

through the numbers . I tell people

19:24

to be very careful . You know , interview

19:26

several different vacation rental management companies

19:29

, because that's really who you're going to hand it over to . You're going

19:31

to buy a property and you're going to give it to a vacation rental management

19:33

company who will be promising you probably

19:36

higher returns than you're going to see

19:38

. Ask to maybe interview one

19:40

or two of their clients as well and

19:42

maybe have them pick them at random if they

19:44

can . It's always better if you can

19:46

augment through your own social

19:48

media or your own networks , through

19:50

work or wherever you know , if you can augment

19:53

the promotion

19:55

of your property . So I think it's a

19:57

realistic expectation to expect

20:01

that your property may be net zero and

20:03

what I mean by that is you'll have enough rentals through

20:05

the year that your HOA , all of your payments

20:08

, you know , will be covered by the rental

20:10

. So HOA and your property tax

20:12

, which is negligible here , and

20:14

your utilities , internet

20:16

, et cetera . So Okay .

20:20

You got anything , chris

20:23

? Is it better for an expat to rent her own ?

20:25

would you say oh , it depends what they want to use

20:27

the property for . If they , obviously . If they're going to come

20:29

down here to live , I would recommend that they

20:31

purchase something for sure , because then

20:33

it's theirs . They can do what they want to it . Do

20:35

you cover any rentals ? I don't do any

20:37

rentals at all . Yeah , but

20:40

I do advise people to come down . If they're not sure , come

20:43

on down , spend a month or two , rent a place

20:45

and make sure that you you know that this is the

20:47

place for you . A lot of my clients have

20:49

visited the Riviera Maya over

20:51

the last 12 , 15 years and they already know

20:53

this is where they want to be .

20:54

So they'll just come down and it's

20:57

my understanding , there's not currently an MLS

20:59

type system here , but you guys are working

21:02

on one . Is that accurate ?

21:03

Yes , that's correct . So , you

21:05

know , somebody wants to look at just a sampling

21:07

. They can come to my website . It's to loomexpertrealtycom

21:10

. There's a big aggregator . You've

21:12

probably heard of point two homes as well

21:14

, so you can look at property all over the world on point

21:17

two and you can , you know , zero down . But

21:19

yeah , there's just .

21:21

Do you find that there's a lot of homes that are for sale that

21:24

are not listed on those sites ?

21:26

Not so many , yeah , but

21:29

there's duplicates and you know this is where it gets a little complicated

21:31

in the Mexican real estate market , where multiple

21:34

brokerages have

21:37

the opportunity to list the same property . So

21:39

you might , I don't participate in those . It's

21:41

called a non exclusive listing and it just doesn't make

21:43

any sense for me to take a non exclusive listing where

21:45

I might work my butt off for to

21:48

try to sell that property and then some other brokerage

21:50

sells it , so it just doesn't make sense . But

21:52

you get these situations where multiple

21:54

brokers have different pricing for

21:56

the same property , or the property was sold

21:58

a year ago but the owner

22:01

didn't tell the other five brokers , so it's still listed

22:03

up there and they use it as kind of a bait

22:05

and switch tactic as well . So

22:07

an MLS is overdue

22:09

. Right , we're looking forward to it , yeah .

22:12

I will say that my personal experience is , when we started

22:14

looking at places , we looked at condos , like a lot

22:16

of people do . We looked in Playa , we

22:19

looked into loom All the ones in to loom

22:21

that the guy took us to to show

22:23

us all they were trying to sell

22:25

it on was return on investment as

22:28

a rental and it was going to be , you

22:30

know , 30% return on investment

22:32

and I don't know a single person

22:35

that's ever seen that happen , that

22:37

actually bought one of those . You know

22:39

, or yeah it's , yeah , that's

22:41

a . That's one of the things I think you got to watch

22:43

out for down here . That can't be

22:45

the reason . The reason has to be that

22:47

you want to have something to do with Mexico , yeah

22:50

, and perhaps live here , probably

22:52

.

22:52

So my biggest advice to anyone who's

22:54

the one , I guess one sentence would be don't

22:56

buy pre-sale . Yeah .

22:59

Because it might never happen .

23:00

Well , there's lots of reasons , but that's , that's the biggest

23:02

one there's . You know it may not happen , but also

23:04

there's just . There's a lot of properties

23:07

out there and if your expectation is to rent it

23:09

out , right , you're

23:11

, you're it's going to be a challenge , yeah

23:14

.

23:15

So what's the best place for people to begin their real

23:17

estate search ? If they've been coming

23:19

down here and they think , yeah , we could live here

23:21

, where do they begin ?

23:23

Well , like I said , they can check my website out . They can call

23:25

me . I'll give you guys my number . I

23:27

don't text or phone call . I use WhatsApp

23:29

almost exclusively , okay

23:32

, but yeah , they can hit me up on the website , that's that's

23:34

it . I'm happy to share the information

23:36

, like . One of the things that I

23:39

honestly enjoy is

23:41

just sharing the information with people

23:43

. I don't have to sell you a house , it's just

23:45

. You know , I'll spend half an hour with

23:47

somebody on the phone and just share the information

23:49

and maybe they'll decide that , hey , this isn't the place for

23:51

them .

23:52

But yeah , well , that's very

23:54

good I was

23:56

going to say so as an expat

23:58

. What are your favorite things about living here and what

24:00

are your least favorite things ?

24:03

I was going to mention earlier Compromante de

24:05

Domicilio . So this is one of

24:07

the things that I

24:10

try to teach people . Compromante de Domicilio

24:12

, you guys probably know , is proof of address and that's

24:14

one of the challenges . And it just seems that

24:16

you know I joke with people that sometimes you

24:18

need to bring your Compromante de Domicilio to

24:20

buy a loaf of bread . That's an exaggeration . It just

24:22

seems like Well , we know how

24:24

that goes right , you're trying to get something

24:26

done and you just don't have the right paperwork

24:29

. Oh , do you have a copy of your passport ? Yep , oh

24:31

, but you need to . Yeah , today you need

24:33

to . Okay , so there are some frustrations

24:36

. I'm not sure . I love

24:38

the beach . My girlfriend and I have a sailboat

24:40

so we go sailing a lot . You

24:42

know we'll hit Cozumel and do things like

24:44

that . So just the outdoor living . You know

24:47

there's a lot to do . The golf course here is fantastic

24:49

. Yeah , absolutely yeah . I can't say that . I have one specific

24:51

that I like the most Not being cold .

24:53

Yeah .

24:54

I guess that's probably it , yeah , yeah .

24:56

That's . I think that's a big attraction for Chris

24:58

and I too . Yeah , yeah .

24:59

I'll never be cold again .

25:00

Yeah Right , I will never shovel snow

25:02

again is what I always say . So

25:05

if you had a list of the top things people

25:07

should consider when making the move either

25:09

just for themselves or buying

25:11

property or whatever what would those things

25:13

be ?

25:14

So I would consider sense

25:17

of community . That's probably number one thing . Do you

25:19

want to be near people ? You know , when

25:21

you wake up in the morning you look across the

25:23

street , or you know the patio

25:25

next door , or walking , you know , down the trail . Is

25:28

that a new face or is that someone

25:31

that you've gotten to create a relationship with ? So

25:34

the transient nature If

25:36

you're buying down in Tulum , you're going to see a lot more

25:38

because there are tons and tons of Airbnb . So

25:40

that's probably number one

25:43

. It's just what's more important to you a sense of community

25:45

, or is that important at all ? Proximity

25:47

to the beach and access to the beach . So

25:50

how close are you to the beach and how

25:52

difficult is it to get onto the beach ? Because

25:54

not all places , even though you may be close to

25:56

the beach , it might be a little

25:58

more difficult to get on it . And then , obviously

26:00

, you know things like amenities . We

26:02

have a great pickleball community

26:05

here , there's tennis courts around here

26:07

, we can go walking and cycling

26:09

, and obviously the golf

26:11

courses that pepper

26:14

the area as well , and the beach , you know , yeah

26:17

. And I guess , lastly would be things to

26:19

do and restaurants . So

26:21

, and price , I guess that's the last

26:23

thing too Right . So in some of those , the

26:25

bigger centers , the prices are starting to go up

26:27

. There there are US prices for sure .

26:30

What do you think , chris ? I think it's been fun yeah

26:32

that's pretty much it .

26:33

Do you have any more questions ? No , I don't .

26:34

I think you've answered them all Well . Thank you so much , Nolan

26:36

Clark , and thanks for joining us on Xpats

26:39

. Like Us . Hey , give us your website real

26:41

quick Okay .

26:41

Yeah , it's toloomexpertrealitycom

26:44

. Okay , and you can throw a www

26:46

in front of that , okay .

26:47

That's easy enough to remember Toloomexpertrealitycom

26:51

. That's right , all right . Well , thank you very much

26:53

, nolan Clark . Thanks , chris .

26:55

Hey , thanks , bob . Thanks for having me on guys .

26:56

You bet All right . In

27:01

each episode of Xpats Like Us , we're

27:03

going to teach you a new Mexican slang

27:05

word . This is something you may not find

27:07

in your phrase book or your online Spanish

27:09

class or your Spanish app or wherever

27:12

you're learning your Spanish . Instead , this

27:14

is a term used primarily by

27:16

Mexican Spanish speakers . Today's

27:20

word is Metiche

27:24

Metiche . I

27:26

have no clue what that means . Can you spell it

27:28

? That is M-E-T-I-C-H-E

27:31

Metiche . Okay , and what does

27:33

Metiche mean ?

27:34

It's a person who has his or her nose in someone

27:36

else's business .

27:38

Okay , very good , don't be a Metiche

27:40

.

27:41

Yes .

27:42

Gracias , erika Kowalski from Mi

27:44

Vida , margarita . We'd

27:49

love to hear your thoughts on today's topic . Just

27:52

look up Xpats . Like Us on Facebook

27:54

or send us an email at xpatslikeus

27:57

at gmailcom . You

27:59

can also see the video version of today's discussion

28:02

and all of our discussions on our YouTube

28:04

page . Follow , like , subscribe

28:06

and leave us a review . Thank

28:10

you to today's guest , nolan Clark

28:12

. Thanks also to my co-host , chris

28:14

Kowalski , and our co-producers , erika

28:17

Kowalski and Sherry Bosse . Most

28:19

of all , thank you for tuning in to Xpats

28:21

Like Us and thank you for interacting

28:24

with us on social media . Next

28:26

time we'll bring you more firsthand information

28:28

about your international move . Until

28:31

then , remember , our homes are not defined

28:33

by geography or one particular location

28:36

, but by memories of dense people and

28:38

places that span the globe .