[BajaGringo]

Based on everything you shared, anywhere along the Rosarito Beach – Ensenada corridor should work for you. You’ll have access to fast and reliable internet, within 90 minutes max of border, great year round weather, 4 golf courses, a wide range of retirement properties to choose from, lots of stories and many social as well as volunteer organizations will keep you as busy as you would like to be. There are several good hospitals and access to many top notch specialists, should you need one.

To answer some of your questions:

The housing market along that corridor was a strong seller’s market that was in part fueled by a growing expat community that works in the San Diego area but has been moving south of the border seeking affordable housing in the face of skyrocketing home prices and rents in San Diego. Nice, oceanfront condos are hard to find for less than 300,000 today and oceanfront homes are starting out at about a half million and up. It has definitely gotten more expensive but friends in RE up there tell me the market has cooled off just a bit over the last few months.

Property taxes are cheaper in Mexico and how much you pay depends on where exactly your home is, ranging from just a couple hundred dollars to 6 or 7 hundred dollars each year. Home insurance varies a lot and it’s based on many factors so you’ll just have to ask for a quote.

Internet down here is fairly fast if you hook up with Infinitum which is offered by Telcel (40-50Mbps). Overall, it is usually quite dependable but there are some problem areas witht he service so it’s a good thing to check on before choosing a property.

Assuming you are not of age yet to qualify for Medicare and living close to the border, a high percentage of expats in that boat usually pay for some level of healthcare insurance for the U.S. and cross the border for their healthcare needs. Some choose a policy that only covers major medical and then pay out of pocket for routine doctor visits and medications here in Mexico. It’s a balance that you will figure out over time what works best for you.

Doctor visits are fairly cheap, usually 300 pesos or less although specialists can charge 1000 pesos or more. Prescriptions are in general, much cheaper in Mexico. Lab work on average is about 50% less.

How often you cross north for “stuff” varies based on your lifestyle and preferences but for a lot of people, they slowly adapt more and more to life in Mexico and find they don’t need to cross the border as often as they did when first moving down.

I would suggest that once you have an address in Baja, start your residency paperwork at the San Diego consulate.

You won’t have any problem driving a California plated vehicle in Baja and it requires no special permit – just make sure you keep your driver’s license and insurance valid and purchase and annual policy for driving in Baja from our good friends and sponsor, Baja Bound Insurance.

The drought is even worse down here and the state government is doing a terrible job (IMHO) on motivating the public to conserve the resource, although that has improved slightly over the last couple of months, so I would suggest you find a property without a LOT of high water consuming gardens and landscape.

Public transit in that region can be a bit difficult to decipher at first but there are basically 4 types – large busses on routes, small busses/vans on routes, taxis and Uber. They are quite reasonably priced and I personally use Uber these days whenever I have things to do in Tijuana but have heard there are problems sometimes getting Uber to pick you up in Rosarito?