Best Places In The World To Retire

If you were going to have a new construction in San Miguel de Allende, a good and nice architect would charge you between US $700 to $1,000 per square meter ($65 to $95 per square foot). For $1,000 per square meter ($95 per square foot), you will get really top of the line appliances and exquisite finishing while $700 to $800 per square meter ($65 to $75 per square foot) would give you a standard home, which is like what most people are used to in the US.

 

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If you were going to have a new construction in San Miguel de Allende, a good and nice architect would charge you between US $700 to $1,000 per square meter ($65 to $95 per square foot). For $1,000 per square meter ($95 per square foot), you will get really top of the line appliances and exquisite finishing while $700 to $800 per square meter ($65 to $75 per square foot) would give you a standard home, which is like what most people are used to in the US.

 

There are some architects here in San Miguel de Allende that will charge you administration fees, which is a percentage of the amount that you spent on new construction, which has become an issue here in San Miguel de Allende. It is dangerous because you could end up having an incredible home but it can also be an incredibly expensive home.

 

We have architects here in San Miguel de Allende play the role of an architect and the contractor, too. They will take you through the whole process of construction. I would always recommend Americans and Mexicans to try to get a fixed price contract. If they want to add something to the house, I advise that they get a budget first before they get into doing it.

 

(Home in Rancho Labradores, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, pictured.)

I would say that the over-all cost of living in San Juan del Sur is US $800 per month for a couple, not including a car.

For that much, they can rent a small apartment with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, front terrace and a backyard that would go for about $300 a month.

A loaf of bread is $1.50. A liter of milk is 18 cordobas, which is 67 cents, A dozen eggs cost a US dollar. A six pack of beer is about $4. Fruits are very cheap; it depends on the season. A papaya is about...

I would say that the over-all cost of living in San Juan del Sur is US $800 per month for a couple, not including a car.

For that much, they can rent a small apartment with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, front terrace and a backyard that would go for about $300 a month.

A loaf of bread is $1.50. A liter of milk is 18 cordobas, which is 67 cents, A dozen eggs cost a US dollar. A six pack of beer is about $4. Fruits are very cheap; it depends on the season. A papaya is about a $1.50, a pineapple is a dollar. They sell everything here by a dozen so 12 bananas are 80 cents, at the most. One mango is 10 cordobas, which is aboug 38 cents. A pound of chicken is about $2.50, give or take. A pound of fish is also $2.50. Fish is probably much cheaper in San Juan del Sur, though.

Going out to a really nice restaurant for a meal is $25, or if you add beer, $30.  That’s for two, with an entrée and the main dish.

A meal at a standard restaurant costs 400 cordobas which is about $15 for two.

The cost for water for a month for your house for two people won’t go higher than $10, ever.

Electricity is expensive here. I’m pretty sure a retired person here will have an AC. At the higher end of the cost for electricity, you’re looking at about $200 a month for two. If you have the AC on all day long, your cost will definitely get into that range.

If a couple had $1,500 a month to spend, they would probably have around $750 extra left over so they can do whatever they want.

As a higher priced option, a couple could get a nicer apartment for $500, which would have 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a big front yard, and a big backyard. Then again, your utilities will be higher, especially the electricity, although the water’s almost free.

I haven’t seen any camping in Ambergris Caye and I don’t think a lot of people do camp because it is a tropical island. Right now are the hotter months of the year so you would not be comfortable in a tent right now.  

 

You don’t really go hiking or camping on Ambergris Caye; you have to go to the mainland of Belize to do that.  Fortunately, Belize is a small country, so it doesn't take much time to...

I haven’t seen any camping in Ambergris Caye and I don’t think a lot of people do camp because it is a tropical island. Right now are the hotter months of the year so you would not be comfortable in a tent right now.  

 

You don’t really go hiking or camping on Ambergris Caye; you have to go to the mainland of Belize to do that.  Fortunately, Belize is a small country, so it doesn't take much time to get from one place to another.

 

There are no hills since Ambergris Caye is a flat island, so there is really no hiking here. You can, however, go to San Ignacio (the main town in the Cayo District of Belize), where there are a lot of places where you could go hiking. 

 

You can also go to hiking areas in the southern part of Belize. You can go to the Mayan ruins where you can camp out. If you want to take public transportation, going to San Ignacio is a two and a half hour bus ride from Belize City. From Ambergris Caye, you could first take a 15-minute flight on a puddle jumper from Ambergris Caye to Belize City or you could take a water taxi, which could take an hour and a half to two hours. Once you are in Belize City, you could take a bus to San Ignacio, or you could get a taxi or rent a car. There are a lot of different travel options. Taking the bus would be the cheapest option but it takes longer. 

 

(Pictured: Mayan ruin in Belize mainland.)

The term “land” and the term “lot” mean two different things in the Algarve and Portugal in general. “Land” would be a piece of land somewhere in the interior of the province of the Algarve, where there is a good amount of space. “Lot” would tend to refer to a smaller piece of land in a subdivision or urbanisation.

 

There is a huge variation in the prices of land here. Land can start at € 40,000 (US $...

The term “land” and the term “lot” mean two different things in the Algarve and Portugal in general. “Land” would be a piece of land somewhere in the interior of the province of the Algarve, where there is a good amount of space. “Lot” would tend to refer to a smaller piece of land in a subdivision or urbanisation.

 

There is a huge variation in the prices of land here. Land can start at € 40,000 (US $ 43,800 or £ 29,500) to a couple of million euros depending on where the plot is located and how large it is. At the end of the day, you can calculate what the price per square meter is but people don’t tend to sell their land on a price per square meter basis. The average price per square meter of land could be anything between less than € 100 per square meter (US $ 440,000 per acre or £ 74 per square meter) to € 1,500 per square meter (US $ 6.6 million per acre or £ 1,100 per square meter). That is how broad the range is. Land is sold and bought in the interior and plots would be within what we call urbanizations, which are areas of planned housing development. Just like in the US, the subdivisions are subdivided into smaller plots, which are anywhere between 400 square meters and 2,000 square meters. Those plots would sell for anything between € 100,000 (US $110,000 or £ 74,000) and € 500,000 (US $ 550,000 or £ 370,000).

 

 

A property with about 1,000 square meters (about a quarter of an acre) of land would cost around € 350,000 (US $ 275,000 or £ 185,000) if you have a bit of a sea view (up to €750,000 or more if the sea view is spectacular) but if it is just in a residential suburb, it might cost anywhere between € 175,000 (US $ 82,000 or £ 55,000) and € 250,000 (US $ 110,000 or £ 74,000). A lot located around 20 or 30 kilometers away from the ocean that has a ruin on it that needs to be demolished and replaced by a new building would cost around € 50,000 (US $55,000 or £ 37,000).

 

Not all these properties would be connected to municipal water and other utilities. The more remote properties would be two types: if you are located in a village or town that is close to an urban area, you would either have electricity, sewage, and water already on the piece of land or you would have it at the boundary of your property and you would request for it to be connected. There are properties that are further out, especially in the rural areas, which do not have main sewage so they use septic tanks and they would have boreholes. In Portugal, we use the term “borehole” differently than we use the term “well” in that we refer to a well as a natural structure built some time ago that is basically a hole in the ground that the underground water would fill the well. To build a borehole requires large drilling trucks, which would drill through the sand and rocks underneath in order to find water. Once it finds water, then you would set up the suction mechanism and pump on top of the ground that will suck the water up. Water sources in the Algarve need to be licensed.

 

In the Algarve, you would always be on the grid in terms of electricity but you may find yourself having to use borehole water in some instances, although it is less common now because the water network in the Algarve is very good.

 

(Land and house to renovate with water reservoir or borehole and traditional bread oven in Portuguese countryside,  pictured.)