Category: Mexico houses Page 2 of 5

The first floor window on the valley side of the house up on the hill is taking shape. The whole first floor was dark before the window was punched in–it completely changed the atmosphere of that floor. We were supposed to live there when we move to Mexico in August, but it won’t be complete for a couple more months so we are going to live in one of the apartments in our building halfway down the hill until this house is more complete. Probably it does not make sense to move in up there until one or two more large projects are completed that will create a lot of noise and dust. We hope that happens by November this year so we can celebrate Thanksgiving there, but we think there is about a 50/50 chance of that happening.

The plan is to live one floor up from where this window is located when the house is fully complete. It has an even more amazing view with a balcony. Above the floor with the balcony Lynn plans to build a roofed entertainment area with a kitchen, bathrooms, and other facilities.

We made the hard decision to move into one of the units in the apartment building rather than the first floor of the house up on the hill. We would just get in the way up on the hill and the apartments are completed and ready for move in. We need a place to live in Mexico until this time next year and there is some chance the house on the hill will be ready for occupation before we live, but we thing there is an over 50% chance we will not get to move into that house until a year from this fall. Even then, it might not be complete. We can hardly believe it but, God willing, we will be living in Mexico by this time in six weeks.

Lynn rented the first apartment today in our San Pedro renovation building. The tenants are scheduled to move in on June 23. We hope to have the whole thing filled up by mid-July, but who knows. Hopefully, it will not be too long after that before we can sell it and move on to the next project.

Lynn sent this picture of the upper azotea of the first house we bought in Mexico. The mountains are the same ones we can see from the front of the house we bought further up the hill, but the view of these mountains (Cerro de Las Mitras) is really better from the lower house because you can see more of them and at a little bit of a distance. Both views looking at the valley and the mountains on the other side of the house are pretty spectacular. Honestly, I am somewhat surprised at how nice this all turned out. The only work left on Casa #1 is clean up and a few minor details. Hopefully, it will sell soon and we can start again.

Lynn sent us a ton of great pictures of the final touches being applied to the basement apartment. He has been showing the apartments to potential buyers for a couple of weeks, but this is Semana Santa, so there is hardly anyone in Mexico who could be a potential buyer who is not on vacation. The good news, though, is his whole team has moved up the hill to double the effort on our house there.

This is the view from the lower azotea (there is one up higher) in the first house we bought in Mexico. He has some finish work to do, but it is easy to imagine the setting for carnes asadas. This house is the one that we turned into apartments way down the hill from the one where we plan to live. We can hardly wait for it to be completed.

I am putting this image up for future reference. Tío Lauro took the picture before the front of the house started changing. We should get some great new pictures within the next couple of months as Lynn finishes with infrastructure work and starts adding some finishing touches to the ground floor apartment.

We have been thinking of a good name for the house. We have really never named any of our houses, but it somehow, in the spirit of Grandpa Milo, to give it a good name. La Casa de los Ventanales del Cerro de las Mitras was the first name proposed (by Tío Lynn). We actually kind of like that, but have not really settled on anything yet. We are hoping our friends will help us pick a good name. We might even get a plaque!

Lynn is putting the final touches on the apartments and potential buyers have set appointments to come seem them. The top picture is the base for the stairway leading from the main azotea to the azotea on the roof. The middle picture on the left is the equipment room with part of the hot water heater and two of the air conditioning units. Too its left is the asador on the main azotea and the grill that will sit over it is the bottom image.

Lynn’s construction team should finish putting one of the final touches to the apartment construction: the stairway to the second azotea (roof entertainment area). It truly is turning into an amazing rebirth of what was not a very impressive building. At this point, we are trying to decide whether we want to hang on to the building for a while or sell it as soon as we find a buyer. Either way, we want to rent out the all the apartments so we either have cash flow to build a fund for our next project or to make the sale of the building more attractive to investors. Either way is fine with all of us. Lynn will decide.

Toda la perrada fueron a ver las casas, la foto arriba y lo de abajo a la derrecha del mero abajo estuvieron tomados por el hueco que va a estar el balcón de la primera planta de la casa del cerro. Estamos super animados con todo. El hueco como esta ahorita esta en la foto de la izquierda de abajo. Los que fueron so Rigo y so familia, Grandma Conchita, Lorena, Lauro, y Lynn.

Lynn is working with Lorena on the financial aspects of our little remodel projects in San Pedro and, today, she is going to do a walk-through of both of them. He sent us this picture of the work he is doing to build a balcony on the first floor of the house on the hill. It is going to change the character of the whole house. It completely opens up the first floor, both in terms of the view and of how much light will come in (that is a south facing window). The thing that is great that you cannot see because of the clouds is the mountains above and on the other side of the valley–the famous ‘M’ formation.

The image to the left is of the street or front-of-the-house view (away from the spectacular valley view) side of the house. It should be noted that there is a really nice view of Cerro de las Mitras looking across the street from where this picture was taken, but not nearly as nice as the valley below and mountains across the valley behind this view. When Tío’s Lauro and Lynn took Grandma Conchita to see the house last weekend we arrived at a consensus on a new first floor design that we believe will add a TON of value to the house and make the first floor a much desirable place.

There is only a medium size window in the wall at the back of the second floor. It lets in a good amount of light, but it is not really possible to see out very well. We knew we could not attach a balcony to the back of that first floor because we would be encroaching over our neighbor’s property line. The thing we figured out is that we can build a balcony by tearing down the wall a the back of the first floor, putting up balcony railing (a short wall, actually), adding sliding glass windows to from the top of the railing to the ceiling and then building a new interior wall a couple of meters away from that outside wall. There will be french doors in the interior door that lead out to the balcony. All this means we will have spectacular views of the valley behind the house from the Azotea (essentially a floor above the second floor that is mostly open, but that features a roof, bathrooms, an outdoor kitchen, a hot tub, etc.), the second floor and the first floor. We are working through the structural issues right now, but we think it is going to work great!

It is another beautiful day in the barrio in San Pedro. My brothers-in-law, Lauro and Lynn, took Grandma Conchita up to look at the house on hill and at the apartment building which is still not quite complete. It is getting close, but there always seems to be on other “little” thing to do. The view here is from the second floor balcony looking to the right in the direction of the Huasteca and the location of the new Tesla factory in construction in Santa Catarina. Lauro showed live video of the house and the hill. I am glad he did because we decided, on the spot, to add a balcony to the first floor so there will be more light and a great view out to the valley below.

People are finally scheduled to move into the apartment building in San Pedro by the end of the week. Lynn is still fighting through the endless details. A hot water heater install, checking all the plumbing and rechecking the gas connections, finishing trim work, and endless amounts of cleaning. When everyone is moved in, we will make a big push to sell the property so we can start another. The property is already on the market for sell and we have had a good bit of interest, but Lynn feels like we can get a better price if the whole building is rented and producing income. The Tesla factory construction start is happening on schedule, but the build out schedule has slowed due to market conditions. That plant is an easy commute to our building so it has an impact on property prices. We are hopefully viewing the slowdown as a benefit. We are hoping to get this property sold and another one or two purchased before things really heat up. We would be quite happy for another year or two before the whole thing explodes into real estate activity.