although it was too short. My friend Denise and I rented an apartment long term. I have thought about renting an apartment before and almost did about 5 years ago. That time it just didn’t work out. A couple of years ago I made an offer to buy a condo but the seller wouldn’t budge on price. Then last year I emailed back and forth with someone selling a house but decided it was too much and needed a lot of up keep. An apartment is perfect for us. If we decide we are done with Isla renting we simply sell our stuff and walk away.
Our apartment is in town, close to shopping and the ferry. It is a very basic Mexican apartment. There are only four apartments in the building. The landlord maintains one for himself for when he comes over from Cancun, our friend Ralph has one and there were two vacant. The landlord was pretty anxious to get the apartments rented especially to gringos who are friends with his one current renter and other past tenants. Our apartment was let go by a couple of friends back in January but the timing wasn’t right for us to rent it. Also at that time the landlord (Don Fernando) wanted to raise the rent.
DF brought in two full size beds with OK mattresses. They will eventually need to be replaced. He put a dining room table and a couple of chairs in the apartment, installed a new hot water heater and is putting up bars on the bedroom and bathroom windows. DF put up a gate at the entrance on the street but hasn’t put the lock on it yet.
Our friend Jeri of La Vida Dulce was instrumental in our getting the apartment at a really good rate. She interpreted and set some expectations with DF for us. Another friend, a local business owner also did his part to negotiate for us. So a big thanks to the man who owns my favorite beach bar hang out for helping us.
Jeri had a futon she wanted to get rid of so that is in our apartment. Denise and Jeri ran into the Morgans who knew Inga was selling a fridge. They went out and looked at Inga’s fridge and said it was perfect and spotless so Denise paid for it. Jeri will hire someone to move it for us.
Things are coming together nicely. Next trip I will pack as much as I can to furnish the apartment, linens, some kitchen stuff and whatever else I end up buying that can be transported down in a suitcase. We will need to make a shopping excursion to Cancun for some of the larger items we need.
Filed under: Isla Mujeres, Mexico, Travel | Tagged: Isla Mujeres, Mexico |
Jackieinpdx's Blog 
Great pictures 🙂 Is “Isla” the only name of the place?
Isla Mujeres, Mexico. It is a small island a few miles offshore from Cancun.
That’s great about the apt.! I think we might do that at some point, too.
Splitting it two ways we couldn’t go wrong. I won’t say what the monthly rent is other than we got a good deal.
congratulations — hopefully we will be there same time soon
So I kind of don’t get it. Rented it long term? So it will be empty while you are back in the US? Can you sub-rent (you know what I mean) to other friends if you want? How long term is long term? This is interesting.
Glad you’re back, welcome home, sorry about these overcast skies. I leave in about a month and a half. Or less. I need to book my air. Gads.
Joyce,
Yes, the apartment will be empty when we are not there but available for friends and family to stay at. The price is really low and it will be nice to have our own stuff. If I decided today to go to Isla in February I would have a hard time finding a place to stay. But with our won apartment all we do is book air and we have a place to stay. With our own stuff we will eat out less and be able to have friends over for drinks and dinner. It beats the options I was looking at for buying a place and having to invest in up keep and security.
That is a really cool idea. I never think about things like that. You are totally free to pick any time you want to go based on airfare and whim. Congratulations on your new depto – now it will REALLY be like going home!
yeaaaa!!! you’ve been tossing it around a while now. I’ll bet you smiled the rest of your entire trip!! new beginnings……..ahhh. And you couldnt ask for a better neighbor (mayor)ha. Good for you Jackie!!!