Buying real estate on Isla Mujeres

The first challenge for those who are looking for Luxury Isla Mujeres real estate, is finding such a property; nowadays so much of the really high quality land and property has already been bought over the past two or three years.

Unfortunately, or fortunately Isla Mujeres is a small island and it has more or less run out of land available for quality housing. There is still some land available on the Caribbean side of the island but it is not without it's disadvantages. On the plus side, on very hot days you usually have a sea breeze which also means very few mosquitos.

On the downside windows need to be constantly cleaned because so much salt is carried in the wind, if they are not cleaned daily, visibility is not good. Also any proper landscaping is out of the question; very few flowers will grow, so only the hardiest of plants will stand up to the constant battering from wind and salt; cactus does well as do one or two other plants.

The other aspect is from a visual point of view when you approach the Caribbean side of the island from the town centre, first you have to pass what is known as the Invasion, which is like a shanty town, not that unusual in the Caribbean but some do find it rather unattractive. Then you have to pass the rubbish dump, after that it does become a lot more attractive.

Then you have the main disadvantage, which is if there should be a hurricane, the Caribbean side of the island is very vulnerable. And the properties on this side of the island tend to suffer quite badly from hurricane damage. We are very lucky when it come to hurricanes compared with other Caribbean islands. We had Gilberto in 1988 and Wilmer in 2005 but hurricanes on all Caribbean islands do happen from time to time.

Another area where Americans and Canadians are buying property and land is the part of the island that is known as the Gloria, it is where the locals live and it has a certain charm but luxury it isn't.

The key area to own property is at Punta Sur but sadly there is very little prime property available; we bought most of our land on which we have built in 2002/2003 when demand was considerably less, at the time we built properties without sea views, which we sold for $195,000 USD. The same properties are now changing hands for $500,000 plus.