| Moving Your Family to Playa del Carmen Part II |
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By Michele Kinnon Moving anywhere can be a challenge for any family. Moving a family to a foreign country adds a whole new level of stress to the process. We were fortunate to a bit of a leg up on most people who make the move to Playa del Carmen. Our business partner and his family had arrived two months earlier and were invaluable to us during our "start up" phase. They found and rented a home for us, which we agreed to sight unseen. The arranged our transport from the airport. They hired a housekeeper to look after us temporarily, a woman who ended up staying with us for three years. They even had several hot Dominos pizzas waiting for us at the house upon our arrival! They hooked us up with a Spanish tutor for Connor, their housekeeper's son would become our mechanic and friend, and has helped us out in innumerable ways (including the removal of a ring that had become stuck on my daughter's finger just last week!) and introduced us to many people who we remain close to today.
Our first year in Playa del Carmen would be marked by several critical milestones and events. Five months after our arrival, Rob's sister followed our lead, left the U.S. and moved in with us, much to the concern of her mother and more sensible older sister. At about the same time, we identified and began negotiations to purchase a marina front lot in Puerto Aventuras on which we would build our first condominium complex, Marina Turquesa. Puerto Aventuras, at the time, was a hot spot for development and properties were being scooped up faster than they could be built. Our own buying process, one in which we nearly lost the lot to satisfy a local agent's greed and ultimately ended up costing us nearly $100K more than the initial asking price, we would soon find to be quite typical; the rule rather than the exception to it. We learned the hard way to trust no one and to protect ourselves, our money and our information. We eventually did seal the deal, a gentleman's agreement made one very late night in the men's room of Restaurant Guadalupana. Buy me a few beers and I might share the details with you. This was our indoctrination into the cult of Real Estate in Playa del Carmen. In the meantime, we hired corporate counsel. We hired an architect. We closed on the lot, properly in a notary's office. We interviewed real estate agencies, fired our architect and filed corporation papers. We met with builders, applied for our FM3's and fired our corporate counsel. We looked for a new architect, a new attorney, met with more builders and so it went on. Finally, a fellow expat and hotelier recommended that we meet with his corporate attorney and his wife. Problem solved. All of them. Lic. Echavarria Manautou, or "Chano", and his wife, Leti, took us under their collective wing as if we were their own children. They have provided us with not only sound legal advice, but have assisted us with every aspect of our endeavors. They are our safety net as we teeter precariously on the high-wire of international investment. For this, we are forever grateful.
Hurricane Wilma would prove to be a defining moment in our lives, both personally and professionally. Somewhat inexplicably, the storm marked the beginning of a depression of the real estate market in Puerto Aventuras, the location in which we had so carefully chosen to invest our money and our dreams. On a more positive note, during this time, we secured our position in what we refer to as "the Playa network". We learned the true meaning of the network and its importance, how to use it to our advantage and later how to contribute to its strength and continued success. We have come to realize the value of strength in numbers and that we would only succeed in our ventures with the help and support of our community. No lesson has served us better. Stay tuned for the next two years of madness and mayhem......Click here for Part I Michele Kinnon lives in Playa del Carmen with her husband Rob and their three children. She writes a local interest blog, www.LifesaBeachBlog.com , about living in Playa del Carmen, raising and educating children in Mexico, regional community concerns and issues, and local real estate opportunities. She and her husband are the principal Buyer Brokers for BRIC International, catering to the needs of residential buyers and investors from the United States and Canada. For more information, visit their website www.BuyPlaya.com .
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"I Thought You Were Driving!" ~ How a nice suburban family ended up in Playa del Carmen, Mexico Part II~
Our first year in Playa del Carmen is admittedly, a bit of a blur. Blissfully happy in this strange new land, we quickly assimilated into the fun Playa expat scene. I spent my days studying Spanish, tanning my palid New England skin and drinking ice cold Sols by the bucketful. We tried out every restaurant and bar. We visited Xcaret and Xelha. We hosted BBQ's and pot lucks. We partied like rock stars! Birdie and Cole, then ages 3 and 18 months, learned about Mexican food and folklore in the capable hands of their new, Mexican "Nana". They learned Spanish quickly and easily, the way all children learn to speak and understand, organically and out of need. Our eldest, enrolled in what was, at the time, reported to be the most prestigious private school in the area, did not fare as well. We had anticipated that, at age 11, he would have a tougher time making the transition. He had always been a challenging student, but in the States, I knew how to wrangle him, how to get the work done and done well. This school and its methods were uncharted territory for me. Not only were his assignments posted in a foreign language, but the school administration and teachers seemed unwilling to accept or were uninterested in our input, involvement or assistance. In desperation, in addition to his Spanish tutoring, we hired his teacher to work with him every day after school. Now paying double the tuition, we felt certain we would get positive results. This battle would rage on well into our second year.
No recount of 2005 would be complete without mention of the two "ladies" who came to call on all of living on the Riviera Maya: Hurricane Emily, in July, followed cruelly by Wilma, in October. Safely tucked away on high ground in Playacar, we rode out the Hurricane Wilma with a friend, my sister in law, the children, our pets and a kennel full of wild kittens, captured and brought in to protect them from the elements. Well prepared with bathtubs filled for flushing toilets, plastic jugs or "garrafones" of drinking water, stores of non-perishable foods and coolers of ice, we amused ourselves during the daylight hours preparing meals and watching the palm trees turn somersaults down the golf course and roof tiles fly from neighboring homes. At night, boredom brought easy sleep at the storm raged around us. Many local businesses owned by fellow expats and friends suffered terrible damages. The entire inventory of two popular bars was transported to our home for safe and temporary storage, as soon as the roads were passable, in order to avoid more losses from the inevitable looting. Our home would function as a makeshift meeting place until sufficient repairs could be made and buildings secured. We cooked three meals a day and entertained a steady stream of weary "survivors" for nearly a week after the "all clear" was called. As devastating as these storms proved to be, the sense of community and camaraderie that we experienced because of them changed us forever and cemented in our minds that Playa del Carmen was indeed our new home.
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