165. How We Found A New Home in Mexico Without the Guilt

After 10 months of living in our first house in Mexico, we made a decision that surprised us: we broke our lease early. But this episode isn't just about the logistics of moving - it's about the deeper realization that came with it.

I'm sitting down solo to share why we left, what we discovered about housing options in Mexico that I never knew existed, and the uncomfortable (but necessary) conversation about privilege, generational progress, and what it really means to have choices your parents didn't.

If you're a child of immigrants navigating the complexity of having more options than your parents did, this episode is for you. I'm breaking down the financial reality, the emotional journey, and the four major lessons I learned that completely shifted how I think about housing in Mexico, privilege, and what it means to want better.

For detailed show notes, visit vivalamami.com/episode165

What You'll Hear

• Why we broke our lease after 10 months and the moment we realized we didn't have to settle
• The vast variety of housing options in Mexico that shocked me and completely challenged my limited image of what "Mexico" looks like
• The intersection of privilege and gratitude and how to be unapologetic about wanting better while honoring your parents' sacrifice
• Four critical lessons about perspective, choices, and building the life you deserve without shame or guilt

Resources Mentioned

• If you didn't listen to the last episode, do so before this one!
• One-on-one moving to Mexico consultations

Transcript

Jessica 0:00

throughout this whole experience and finding housing and all of that, it's made me reflect a lot about the privilege that I have in having these different choices and options that are available to us. And in a way, it made me feel guilty about that. But then now that I reflect and now that we're kind of in that end goal, right, of that we're settled in and everything, like, I see it as a way of, being grateful for the sacrifices that my parents have made. Like, honestly, if it wasn't for them and the struggles that they made back in the US- I wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be here. And I think that is something to be thankful for, Hola, hola. Welcome to another episode of the Viva La Mommy podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Cuevas. If you didn't listen to the last episode, I shared with you a little replay of my episode with Alex, my husband, where we walked you through and talked about our experience finding housing in Mexico. Well, we decided to break the lease because we had kind of a horrible experience, uh, living in the last home in, again, León, Guanajuato. And so, Right now I am seated right here in my little home office/studio, at our new home in León. So we're still in León, but in a different side of León, and I'm going to share you a little bit more about what that experience was like, especially breaking our lease early, finding housing, and finally choosing a home here, and also lessons learned through this experience. So, hopefully you stay tuned because this is going to be a little bit about, like, tips and advice that I can share with you, but also just, like, personal things that I learned through this experience. If you didn't listen to the last episode, I encourage you to do so, just that way you have some sort of foundation. But as a little recap, we found a home in León, Guanajuato back in May 2025. This was when I came here to León to register my kids to school, and I was like, "You know what? I'm gonna scout around and I'm gonna look at all these different, um, neighborhoods and kinda like colonias to get a better idea of the location and how it can better suit us for, uh, where our kids are going to school." And so we decided to move to the north side of León. I found the house, through a Facebook post that was shared through an amiga that I have here in León that we've kept in touch for over a decade. Y ella me lo enseñó. And she was like, "Hey, I think this house would be cool for you," and I was like, "Oh, cool." And so I was like, "Oh, my gosh, this is an... This is nice." Because it literally resembled, like, the house in donde vive mi abuelita back in El Rancho. And I was like, "Oh, cool." And then We decided to pay 20,000 pesos a month. That was our rent at the old house. It is a little bit above market value just because it is in a, it was in a very great location. It was in a central location close to El Centro Commercial, La Plaza Mayor, um, and also all these different stores and different, uh, colonias that is pretty well known, like Campestre, Pa- Panorama, um, Jardines del Moral, and all of that. And so it's pretty much, like, the bougie part of León, so a lot of old money, that's for sure. But, the home in itself was a little antiquated, though, because it is, it was, like, one of the first few developments in León once it started to stretch up north. And, and even though it was a little bit antiquated, I mean, the rent was pretty high. And we were like, "You know what? I think it's because of the location and also because it's a furnished home." So if you didn't know this, there is going to be a price difference between an unfurnished home versus a furnished home. We decided to go furnished just because, I mean, it's not like we were going to bring all of our- furniture from the US to León f- you know, especially after moving abroad the first year. And then also, we just felt that at this given time we're still not 100% sure if we are moving back to the US or staying. So we're like, "You know what? Let's just spend at least the first year with a furnished home," and that's one of the reasons why it, the rent was a little higher than usual market value. The market value here in León is anywhere between 12,000 to 18,000 pesos, but it all depends if it is unfurnished or furnished, and furnished is kind of like the outlier because, yeah, it all depends on how much the landlords are, are going to price it and also the amount of a- like, equipment that's going to be involved in the home. Because there are some homes that are even semi-amuebladas, so semi-furnished, and others that are fully furnished, others that are kind of furnished but they say that they are furnished. So again, it all just depends on the landlord And so we decided to sign a one-year lease at the old home, and my husband and I technically couldn't qualify just yet, especially because my husband was the one receiving the, the most, the bulk of the income through his job. And at that time he wasn't a dual citizen. So because he wasn't a dual citizen or a, a Mexican national, he had to find someone, an aval, to sign for him. It's kind of like a cosigner. So in this case it was my grandpa because he had property in Mexico. And so we utilized him to help us sign our lease, and you know, 10 months later we broke it. Luckily they didn't require for my grandpa to sign or they didn't put any penalties on him. I mean, it was fine. From the very beginning we, we thought that it was going to work out, but like one month in there were a lot of issues that we experienced. Like, you can just tell that this woman, the owner, or the couple, right? Um, didn't put much investment into their home. Before we moved in they utilized it as an Airbnb, it wasn't like they used it for long-term renters. And when we moved in, like you could tell that they were just like kinda putting lipstick on a pig sort of thing, right? Where they just did the very bare minimum so that it can appease the person that is visually looking it but not really experiencing it. So from the beginning, there was no running water, there was no gas, and during that time, it was raining season when we moved in, there were leakage issues on the roof, And it was, it was a mess. And we reached out to the owner, we're like, "Hey, these are all of the issues." We literally sent her a list, and she only did, like, two out of, like, the entire list. And I'm just like, "Uh, okay, so what are we supposed to do?" So i- she wasn't a responsive kind of landlord, and I'm used to understanding that tenants have the rights, just because we come from Chicago. We ourselves are owners of property back in Chicago, okay? So we own a building. It's three multi, uh, unit building. And I mean, Chicago's a whole beast, right? Like, tenants have the full rights. Landlords really do not. And so I came here thinking like, oh, you know, the landlord's gonna work with us. She's gonna like, you know, do her job, and she really didn't. And we kinda let it go. Like, I was like, "You know what? It's not our home anyway. Like, we're not even gonna put a single penny in it. If it fails, it fails," right? But we were just not really happy, and we were like, we're also spending so much money on a home that it's supposed to be- Be kind of like for what you get, right? And so honestly, I feel like that type of home and the type of, uh, quality of it, we should have paid at least 15,000 pesos. But I don't know, this person pretty much like overpriced it and, you know, and it's not like she overpriced it because she knew that we had US dollars, because that was the price anyway. But I'm like, "This is horrible" for those that are making pesos, right? And they're already spending a ton of money, and she didn't put anything on it. And so yeah, so we felt like w- it wasn't for us. You know, we let it pass, we let it pass, we let it pass month to month to month. And then during that time, we were looking and exploring different options. We were looking into buying a home, but that didn't work out. We were like, "You know, we're still not sure," like we still need to figure out if, first of all, León is where we wanna be at. And, um, and it is a huge commitment. I also wasn't employed, and so we just didn't have all the money to like, uh, spend on buying a home, right? And so I ended up just like visiting all of these like rental homes, on the down-low without obviously letting the landlord know. But we knew that we wanted to move out from like month two since we signed the lease. And we didn't do it. I mean, we were so close to doing so like after month five, and we're like, "You know what? Let's just hold off like on this because we're not sure." And, uh, so yeah, we just kept exploring. And one of the things that really surprised me is just like the vast variety that León offers. Especially in a big city in Mexico, you are going to have so many options looking for housing, and that in itself is overwhelming. But I, here I am, like a year ago thinking that, "Oh, well, it's Mexico, right? Like, these homes are all similar." I was wrong, and that's because I had like this single image of Mexico, especially as a daughter of immigrants whose family is from a ranchito, okay? A s- very small pueblito. It's not even a pueblo because my family don't even have like a papeleria, right? It's, it's literally rural, a, a rural part of Mexico. And so yeah, that's the only image that you have. Like, you only envision Mexico as this type of, like, facade You only think of Mexico as this type of house, right, where you see it all gated. So you don't really get to see the house, but you know it's colorful because from the up- outside of the, the gate or the, the wall that they built around it, you know, it's, you see it as colorful. Or even the houses that are kind of out there without any gates, like you see them with like these barred, like metal things to protect the windows so that no one could get in. At least that's how it is back in Los Pueblitos de donde mi familia is from. But yeah, like my grandparents have like these massive walls that kind of like block one part of like the property, and they have these like broken bottles at the very top of it, so like if anyone tries to climb up, someone is going to get hurt based on the, the bottles. And so yeah, we had this image of Mexico, and we essentially defaulted to that image in finding a house that was basically similar to my grandparents' house, which is kind of funny, right? It's almost like, you know, us being naive and really not understanding that there's this other side of Mexico that we were never exposed to and that we never heard of or we never knew of. Like perhaps we saw it in telenovelas, but I was like, "Oh, well, that's the other Mexico," or, "Oh, well this is, they're just trying to Americanize like the way of being." Like I still had these biases that no, people actually live that way too in Mexico, and it's not just like poor people. And I think it's, it's almost that- unfortunate image that people put in to you, especially growing up in the US, that Mexico is a poor country, it's a third world country, it's a shit hole, right, as we h- constantly still today hear this narrative. But no, like, Mexico is much more than what all of us envisioned, especially e- if we are children of immigrants where our families had to flee their own country out of survival. So that's something that, you know, I also want to help you break from that image. In fact, there are houses aqui in Leon, for example, they're just beautiful. Like, and these are just, like, homes that would fit our kind of, like, income bracket, like, middle class to upper middle class. So I still have yet to see the super uber, like, rich upper middle class type of homes, right? But I'm just talking about the decent homes here in Leon, and they're beautiful. Even the home that we're in right now, like, it almost reminds me of Paris site because the type of architecture is, like, super boxy, and when you go to the backyard, like, we have a sliding window door and it's massive. And so that in itself is, like, so different from, again, the type of architecture that I'm used to seeing and knowing and experiencing back in el ranchito de mis papas. And part of that, like, throughout this whole experience and finding housing and all of that, it's made me reflect a lot about the privilege that I have in having these different choices and options that are available to us. And in a way, it made me feel guilty about that. But then now that I reflect and now that we're kind of in that end goal, right, of that we're settled in and everything, like, I see it as a way of, being grateful for the sacrifices that my parents have made. Like, honestly, if it wasn't for them and the struggles that they made back in the US- I wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be here. And I think that is something to be thankful for, especially with the level of sacrifices that my parents did, all the hard work that they did. And they, too, are experiencing this other side of Mexico because my parents are currently building their home in, in El Ranchito. Now, they're limited to just that because the only level of inheritance that they got w- was land. my dad was inherited land from his parents. That was the only type of inheritance my parents got, right? And so now they're building their home. And even though it's going to be in El Ranchito, their home is going to be a modern one. It's going to be a brand new home, which is amazing. They're going to have this different type of experience. I'm so glad that they are doing it porque my kids are going to see both sides of it, right? They're seeing how it's like to be living in a rancho, in a pueblo, right? Versus what's it like living in a city like León. And I just love that we have all these choices. I love that we're having a different type of life that is h- not only helping me reflect and understand the different levels of like classism that it exists in México and how privileged we are because, you know, we were raised in the US and there is still power in that versus if we were to be born and raised in the pueblito where my parents are from, right? And so all of this to say is that this housing experience and us moving to a different home isn't just the transactional part of this process. It, it was a very reflective and eye-opening experience that oftentimes in the US we take it for granted because we already know that there's so many options out there, and we have that choice. But I never thought that I would be so intuitive to this process here in México because I understand that there's so many complexities into it. And the fact that I have that privilege in making those choices, like it's really helped appreciate like the sacrifices that my parents made. And so here we are almost a year in after moving in Mexico, and we are in our second home in Mexico. And while it has been hella stressful, it was so stressful with the logistical aspect of, like, packing, sorting things out, moving, and unpacking. Like, it has been a lot, and I should get used to this because I feel like we have been moving every year for the past three years. But I think that we made a good choice and decision to move to a different home that better suits us as a family of four. We are very comfortable living here. I would say that the landlord is so different than the, the previous ones, the house that we are now in is a furnished three-bedroom, two and a half bath home. Still the same as the last one, but it's definitely bigger. I mean, the rooms are huge. Like, we have a family room, we have a lot of storage, And we have a huge backyard, uh, so it's definitely a bigger home, and so we are renting this home as a furnished home. We are paying a little bit more. Um, so we used to pay 20,000 pesos in the old house. For this one, we are paying 25,000 pesos, which equates to $1,400. It is pretty pricey for a typical home here in León, Guanajuato. But the reason why it's a little bit more is because it's a newer home. It has a lot of, cool features. Like, for example, we have a solar panel, uh, to help warm up the water, so we're not really using gas like the old home. And we, we used to spend a lot of money on gas in the other house. This house is also furnished, and when a house is furnished here in Mexico, you're going to spend a little bit more. And that's because you are renting for the, the appliances, the, the furniture. We didn't get to spend a lot of money out of our own pocket to, buy all of these things. the only items of furniture that we bought was, like, Alex's desk and chair and the kids' beds. But guess what? This house was equipped with two twin beds, and I'm like, "Ugh, now we're, what are we gonna do with the kids' beds that we had already bought?" So I think we're gonna sell them. I mean, we're still not sure. We're gonna pass them down to my parents' house because my parents are in the process of building their home, so I'm like, "Do you need a twin bed?" But the cool thing was that the family that used to live here, like the owners, have two boys, and so the kids' room is literally appropriate for a boys' room, and it's really cool just, I don't know, how fate is, right? Because the owners of this home not only have two boys, but they moved to the US. Isn't that funny? Like, we moved from the US to Mexico, and they moved to the US for job opportunities. And so I really appreciate that at least they understand the process about, like, immigrating to a different country and kinda navigating all of the different processes that, you know, have in place when it comes to moving and building a life, and all of that. So I really like that aspect because the landlord does understand where we're coming from. And also, he is so responsive. Like, we had some issues with the air conditioner. Y guess what? Like, h- he got someone right away. We didn't have to pay a single penny. So that is the cool thing, that at least we are able to build that trust with him. And, you know, he's very responsive. And we're obviously going to take care of his house. Like, at the end of the day, this is his property. And coming from a landlord's perspective with us, you know, h- owning property as well, like, we understand that if you are making your tenants happy, most likely they're going to stay and they're going to be satisfied, and they're also going to take care of your home. That is the most important part. So we're very happy here. Um, it's a huge house, I mean, s- humongous. When I think about it it's like, is this necessary? But I'm like, you know what? We have this choice. We, we, we had this opportunity to have a, a good life here. And so we're like, you know what? Screw it. Like, we're just gonna, you know, enjoy our time here and take care of the home. Our kids love it here. They're having a blast. I see toys everywhere. Pero I think that we made a good choice in deciding to move here. Now, as far as with the process of what it's like to rent, I mean, just like usual, if you didn't listen to the last episode, you do need to show proof of employment. So Alex had to provide the past three months of his, pay stubs, so that way they have an understanding that he is actually employed. He is the only one that has a steady income. I do have income from my own different sources through freelancing and college counseling, and all of that. Um, and then we also get income from our rental property. But we only showed, like, the The traditional, like, job that Alex has. And so that's what they requested. They also requested for our identity, so they did request for our INE. And because now we are dual citizens and Alex is a Mexican national, they didn't request for a aval. Now, that is the only difference that through this experience that we had versus the other, is that they didn't request an aval or someone to cosign because at that time Alex wasn't a Mexican national. Now that he is, we didn't need an aval. So that was the only difference. But besides that, you know, we signed a poliza juridica, which is the agreement that the, both parties have, so both the landlord and the tenants have, to make sure that the tenants are going to pay on time, that there are still some restrictions, you know, that it's the tenant's responsibility for certain things, and that the landlord is also responsible for major issues like let's say a gas leakage or, you know, a broken roof or something like that, right? So that is a poliza juridica. I got a lot of questions about is the poliza juridica the lease agreement And, yes and no, right? It is the contract that secures the property for the tenants to use at a given time, and that they are responsible to pay the rent. But I wouldn't say that it is a lease agreement because that contract also involves what the landlord's responsibilities are, and there's like clauses within them as to who's responsible for what. Um, so the poliza juridica, I would say it's its own kind of entity. It's not like a lease agreement, and it's also not to protect the tenant, but it's also not to protect the landlord. It's, it's a long-ass contract. It, I think it has like 20 pages. Um, but it's very common here in Mexico and- It protects you to a certain extent as the tenant, it protects the landlord to a certain extent, and it's also just, like, a piece of reference that, you know, a third-party person was involved, so in this case, an attorney. We paid 5,510 pesos for the poliza juridica, and that is the tenant's responsibility. Besides that, uh, we did have to pay for the deposit, which should be returned at the end of our lease. And what I've heard here in Mexico is that tenants don't get the full deposit because owners are going to find little ways to, like, reduce that amount should they see any holes on the wall or something like that. But if we are responsible tenants, we can fill in the holes, It is assumed that we would receive the deposit. But yes, we had to give him the f- a, a deposit which is the cost of the rent, and we had to give the first month's rent. So it was a lot of money, And because for the last property that we were renting we didn't receive the deposit back because we ended up negotiating that if we're, since we're leaving two months early, they can keep the deposit and we don't pay for that extra month. So it ended up being evening, i- it ended up evening itself out for that property, but we were hoping that we would receive the deposit to pay for this one. So yeah, we, we, we spent a lot of money. Mon- May was our most expensive, uh, month to say the least. And, um, yeah, so we paid a total of 55,000 pesos during this whole transaction of, uh, us renting the property And so some of the lessons that I learned, at least through this experience, was that perspective shapes everything. So what I'm trying to say is that my limited image of what Mexico looks like is not the same as what it truly is. And I think if anything that you get out of this episode, I really want you to open your eyes really, and understand that Mexico is such a diverse country. The same way as that we know in the US that there are rural parts and there are urban parts, there are suburban parts of the US, there are privileged parts and under-resourced parts. Like, we know that that is the US, but unfortunately, there has been this narrative about Mexico that it is a shithole country or a third world country and all of that, that didn't really allow us to open up and really see this other side of Mexico. And so whether if you a- are wanting to live in Mexico or not, like, just search up, you know, residencias in Leon, Guanajuato or in Guadalajara. Like, what is the average range of, like, rent? And that way you get to see that there is this other side of Mexico that perhaps we never knew of. that Was a huge lesson that I learned that, you know, I had to expand my viewpoint to have a better understanding and the different possibilities that Mexico can offer. The second lesson that I learned is that privilege and gratitude can coexist. So what I mean is that I can be grateful for my parents' sacrifices that they have made thus far so that I can then use the choices they gave to me, and that is something that I learned through this process. it wasn't a matter of, like, being conflicted between privilege and being thankful, right? I learned that I can utilize both of them, that they actually do interconnect, and that is, was a huge lesson that, that I learned throughout this process. The third lesson that I learned is that there is generational progress when you reflect back and think back up on your family story. So for example, my parents had no choice but they were forced to migrate to the US, and they had to make a life there in order to then make a living here for the last part of their lives, right? And they are going to enjoy retirement. They're going to enjoy their house that they are building right now. And so that leaves me in having even more choices where I can choose to be closer to them if I want to, or I can live in the US, but I know that I'll be coming back home and stay for a couple months in their house. Or if we decide to stay here, we can live in a city like León where we have all these different options and choices and different resources available to us, but we can also visit them. And so that is a cool thing that my parents gave me the choice to choose whatever I want. But then that leaves me for the next generation and how my kids will essentially inherit even more choices. They're going to have the ability to choose whether if they wanna stay in Mexico or go to the US as adults. Um, they're probably gonna have property, or hopefully we're gonna have property here in Mexico where they can choose between both different countries. And so I think that every generation moving forward is going to grow even more and more, and that is because of my parents' sacrifices. And that is something that I'm forever going to be grateful, but I also understand that privilege because we have that ability to be- de aquí y de allá. And then the final lesson that I learned through this experience is that it is okay to want better. Like, because of the choices that we have, we decided to break the lease early so that we can be comfortable in, in the environment that we're in. And I understand that that in itself is a privilege, but I also want to recognize that we want to have a better life, and it is okay to scale a little up when it comes to, you know, choosing a better home that physically is nicer and modern. Like, it's okay, and I'm not ashamed of that because this all happens to fit our budget. It happens to fit the type of lifestyle we want, and I'm not ashamed of it. the fourth lesson, is, allowing me to be unapologetic, but also while being reflective, I get to be appreciative and understanding my privilege. So I hope that this episode was helpful for you to have a better idea of, what it's like to move to a different house here in Mexico, h- what it's like to break a lease and all of that. But also, I hope that the lessons that I learned are helpful for you, so that way you wouldn't feel guilty in making choices it's also important to recognize that our parents worked their butts off to get here for you to then make the choices that you wanna make without any shame or guilt. So this is just, like, a reminder, regardless if you wanna move to Mexico or not, like, you know, you do you, You can create your own path and that way it can impact the next generation, and that is your children. All right, amiga, well, thank you so much for listening to this solo episode. As always, please follow me on Instagram, @vivamami. You can share this episode with an amiga that you know. And if you have any questions, feel free to DM me on Instagram, @vivamami, or you can send me an email at podcast@vivamami.com. If in case you want support and need one-on-one assistance about what it's like to move to Mexico, I'm still offering my one-on-one consultations about moving to Mexico. If you have questions about housing or what it's like to find a home here in Mexico, please feel free to reach out. I'm more than happy to assist. I will be sharing the link in the description of the show notes and this YouTube video so that way you can access the link on how to schedule my one-on-one moving to Mexico consultations. All right, amiga, well, thank you so much for listening. Hasta la próxima y nos vemos in the next episode