Moving to La Paz, Mexico: One Broker's Honest Story

Why I Left a Corner Office in Miami for a Fish Taco in La Paz — And Why I'd Do It Again Tomorrow

In March 2020, I made what most people would call a terrible decision. Six years later, I'm a licensed real estate broker, an AMPI Board Member, and the co-founder of a fully licensed Brokerage that I am really proud of. Here's why the naysayers were wrong.

Let me set the scene.

March 2020. The world is shutting down. I'm in Miami, where I've spent ten years leading a sales and marketing department for Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises (and over 20 years in the industry) — an industry that, within about ten days, ceases to exist as a functioning business. The corner office I'd worked a decade to earn has just become a Zoom rectangle.

My parents are in Baja California Sur, Mexico. I drive from Miami to La Paz to check on them.

I tell myself it's temporary. It wasn't temporary...in fact, it took just a few weeks before I seriously started to consider leaving everything behind and starting fresh in this place which immediately felt like home.

That was six years ago. I now live in La Paz, Baja California Sur, with five rescue cats I did not plan to adopt, a real estate brokerage I founded, and a professional standing I couldn't have built anywhere else: I am one of a very small number of formally licensed American/Canadian real estate brokers operating under Mexican real estate regulation in La Paz — and I sit on the AMPI Board of Directors for this municipality.

I sold my first home here a few months into this "temporary" arrangement, just week into dipping my toe into real estate. I have never looked back. Not once.

What I Expected vs. What I Actually Found

I expected Baja to be a stopgap. Help my parents, see a whale shark, eat some tacos, and return to real life within a few weeks.

What I found instead was a city of 280,000 people on the edge of what Jacques Cousteau called "the world's aquarium" — a description he arrived at not as a tourism slogan but as a marine biologist making a scientific observation. The Sea of Cortez has more species of marine life than almost anywhere on earth. The water is the specific shade of turquoise that makes people stop mid-sentence.

I found neighbors who brought food when I moved in, who waved from across the street, who invited me to events before they knew my last name.

I also found, against all prior planning, that I was genuinely good at helping others do what I had accidentally done: navigate the legal and logistical realities of building a real life in Mexico — and come out the other side with something better than what they'd left.

That's the work I do now. And this blog is part of it.

Why My Background Matters to You Specifically

I want to be transparent about something, because I think it's the thing that makes this blog worth reading rather than the dozen others that cover similar ground.

Mexico does not legally require a license to sell real estate. Anyone can call themselves a real estate agent, print business cards, and start representing buyers. This is a fact that surprises almost every American or Canadian I meet, and it's a fact that has cost some of them dearly.

I chose to pursue formal state licensing under Mexican real estate regulation — a more demanding standard than AMPI membership alone. I also serve on the AMPI Board of Directors for the municipality of La Paz, which means I'm not just operating within the professional standards of this market; I'm helping to set them.

I tell you this not to collect a compliment, but because it changes the weight of what I write here. When I tell you that the fideicomiso structure gives foreigners genuine, legally protected ownership rights in Mexico's coastal zone, I'm telling you that as a broker with legal accountability for that statement. When I walk you through closing costs or residency thresholds, those are numbers I work with every week in active transactions.

You'll find a lot of "Mexico is amazing, here's what to do" content online. My aim is something narrower and more useful: accurate, current, professionally grounded information from someone whose livelihood depends on getting it right.

La Paz Is Not Cabo. This Is a Feature, Not a Bug.

The confusion is common, so let me be direct: La Paz and Cabo San Lucas are three hours apart on the same peninsula and functionally different countries in terms of what they offer.

Cabo San Lucas is a resort destination. It is spectacular for vacationers. It is built for people who want to visit — and the pricing, the infrastructure, the atmosphere all reflect that. There's nothing wrong with this, and many people are looking to purchase property in a resort environment. It's just not a city.

La Paz is a city. The capital of Baja California Sur. Government offices, public universities, public schools, Saturday farmers markets, neighborhoods where families have lived for three generations. It has a real economy that isn't entirely dependent on tourism. It has community in the original sense of the word.

My clients Jennifer and Greg spent three days in Cabo on a scouting trip before driving north to La Paz for what they planned as a two-day comparison visit. Eight months later, they're still here. "Cabo felt like we were on vacation the whole time," Greg told me. "La Paz felt like somewhere we actually lived."

That's the thing about La Paz. It doesn't try to impress you. It's just quietly, genuinely itself — and what it is happens to be extraordinary.

What La Paz Gave Me That Miami Couldn't

I'm not going to pretend Miami was a mistake. Twenty-plus years of meaningful work, real growth, genuinely good years. But somewhere around 2019 I noticed something: I had been very efficiently building the wrong life.

La Paz gave me Tuesday morning swims. It gave me neighbors whose kids know my name. It gave me work that is meaningful in an immediate, visible way — I help people find a place where they actually want to live, and I get to watch them become happier. My commute is a ten-minute walk along the water.

I also, inexplicably, have five cats. Their names are Loki, Freya, Thor, Runa and Guapo. I remain a self-described dog person and I have made my peace with this. My house is run by freeloading revolutionaries who do nothing but eat and sleep. I love them.

Why This Blog Exists

Every week I speak with people who want some version of what I found — and who are stuck, not because the move is impossible, but because the information available to them is wrong.

"Foreigners can't own property in Mexico." Not true. "The healthcare is terrible." Not true — and I'll introduce you to a retired ER nurse from Seattle who'll tell you exactly what she thinks of that claim. "You need fluent Spanish to survive." Not true. "La Paz doesn't have anything to do." Not true, and frankly a little insulting to the Sea of Cortez.

This blog is where I dismantle those myths, one at a time, with specific detail and current information — including the things that have genuinely changed since 2022, like the Mexican residency income thresholds that have risen significantly and catch a lot of people off guard.

I write it because La Paz changed my life in ways I didn't know I needed. And because the least I can do for people standing where I stood in 2020 is give them accurate information and a straight answer.

Next up: can you actually live in Mexico legally, and what does it actually cost in 2026? The answer may surprise you — in both directions.