Much like the homestead exemption in the U.S., the capital gains exemption reduces the capital gains tax you'll be charged. To qualify, sellers must satisfy a set of criteria, and the exemption amount is tied to a Mexican financial index whose value shifts over time. For the full list of criteria and other specifics, see The In-Depth Answer.

Once you've signed a listing contract with one of our agents, the agent arranges professional photography of your home. After the photos are ready, getting your property live on our site usually takes just one to two days.

To list your home for sale with MOXIE Real Estate, you'll need to supply: ID* copies of your deed property tax bill (predial) your CFE bill * An ID copy is required for each person named on the deed; physical or digital copies both work. With these documents in hand, your agent can review your potential capital gains exposure and, if needed, work out a strategy to reduce it. Your agent will also verify that all construction on the property is correctly reflected on your tax bill, avoiding issues that might hold up the closing. Elsewhere in our FAQs you'll find more on capital gains taxes and on why it matters to work with an agent skilled at helping clients minimize them. One important note: never sign a listing agreement without first getting an estimate of your capital gains tax.

That depends heavily on where the market stands. Real estate moves in cycles, and our data shows that in the strongest years, sold prices average only 2%-3% under asking. In sluggish periods, the average gap can widen to about 10% below asking. So during boom times, when prices are climbing, building in some negotiating room is probably wise. In slower, more competitive stretches, however, our experience says pricing close to your true bottom line helps your home stand out. Picture it this way: if most sellers pad their prices 10% above their bottom line and you price near yours, buyers will immediately recognize the better value in your home.

For Mexico to recognize it, a document notarized in the US or Canada must additionally be apostilled or notarized at a Mexican Consulate.

An apostille is a certification, established by international treaty, that validates a legal document signed in one country so it can be used in another. In the US, obtaining one is simple — through each state's Secretary of State (or the equivalent office), or via an online service.

Escrow is a joint financial account between buyer and seller from which no money can be released without both parties agreeing. In Mexico, these funds sit in an account safeguarded by a legal trust agreement. The earnest money deposit (typically 10% of the transaction value), the remaining balance due before closing, and the closing costs are all wired into and held in this account. At closing, both parties sign off on how the funds will be distributed among everyone involved. Once everything is finalized, the notario forwards the distribution document to the escrow company and authorizes the release. The escrow company then wires the money accordingly and sends confirmation of the transfers to the notario and the agents.

No. You will, however, need to grant a Power of Attorney (POA) to someone who can appear in person and sign for you on closing day. For buyers, there are occasional situations where someone may sign on their behalf as a gestor oficioso without any POA — but a seller must always have one. The POA can be executed either inside or outside of Mexico. For the steps to create a POA and further details, see The In-Depth Answer.

Most agencies in Guanajuato charge a 6% commission plus IVA (value added tax). With rare exceptions, that commission is covered by the seller. Once collected, it is typically divided evenly between the seller's agent/agency and the buyer's agent/agency.

IVA (Impuesto al Valor Agregado) is Mexico's value added tax, operating much like a US sales tax. The rate is 16%, applied to every product and service purchased, except food and medicine. It doesn't apply to the real estate transaction itself, but it is tacked onto the fees charged by lawyers, notarios, and real estate agents and agencies for their services.

A lot depends on where your property sits and how strong the market is. The reality is that plenty of prospective buyers have the cash flow to service a loan, and we've met many others who are waiting on an inheritance. In a strong market, there's little upside to offering seller financing — unless you'd simply prefer to receive your money in installments. In a slower market, though, it can work to your advantage. Cash buyers in slow periods tend to negotiate aggressively on price. A buyer who needs partial financing to close the deal, by contrast, is usually willing to pay more for your property in return for your help. To be clear about terms: partial financing means you, the seller, collect a set percentage of the total price up front — say 50% — and receive the balance in payments over time. Full seller financing means accepting payments on the entire amount owed. So when a buyer needs help to purchase, offering partial financing over 1-5 years with interest means you don't have to come down on price. As a bonus, your home becomes one of the rare options for buyers who are short on cash. Location factors into the decision too. Generally speaking, well-located homes in excellent condition sell first, while properties with a weaker location or condition linger. Every year our agency meets buyers eager to purchase now who don't yet have all their funds together. Their options are limited to the few listings offering partial financing, or to homes priced well under their true budget. If your property falls into the less-than-ideal category for location or condition, offering partial financing could attract considerably more interest. Be aware, though, that offering partial financing and agreeing to finance the entire purchase are two very different things. For instance, it might be reasonably safe to finance a buyer who recently lost a parent and can document a substantial inheritance arriving within 12-24 months, or one with abundant cash flow. Financing someone you learn is already drowning in debt is another matter entirely. While we've seen a handful of homes financed and amortized over 10-15 years, most arrangements resemble a shorter-term bridge loan. The financed portion might be structured as interest-only payments with a balloon due at the end of the term, or amortized as if it were a 15-20 year loan, again with a balloon payment at term's end. The risk: if the contract is drafted poorly, Mexican law tends to side with a non-paying buyer and caps the damages you can recover if you must reclaim the property. Structuring the deal well and making the contract airtight is essential to protect yourself if the buyer defaults. Our suggestion is to first spend real time with the buyer requesting financing and gauge whether you're comfortable with them and their finances. Unless you know the buyer personally, we generally advise financing only when they can put down 50% or more and the terms align with your needs and goals. If partial financing is on your mind, we'd also encourage you to sit down with one of our brokers who has hands-on experience structuring these deals.

To protect yourself from fraud: after receiving the wire instructions you'll use to send your deposit and final payment to the escrow company, call your agent and confirm every detail of those instructions verbally before sending any money. The wire instructions will remain identical from your first deposit through closing. Never act on revised instructions that arrive by email or text.

In Mexico, only a notario can close a real estate transaction.

Yes. The local Realtor Association (AMPI) operates an MLS. In fact, a property has to be entered into the MLS before it can be presented at AMPI's weekly network meetings or circulated through the agents' email group. Every listing we take is uploaded to the MLS, giving the association's 240+ member agents full access to it.

IVA is Mexico's value added tax, applied to the sale of every product and service except real estate, food, medicine, and medical care. It works much like the sales tax charged in the US and Canada. In the context of your real estate deal, IVA doesn't apply to the property sale itself — but it is added to the fees and commissions charged by the lawyers, the notario, and the real estate agents and agencies. Mexico's IVA rate is 16% and has held steady there for many years.

The notario is the party responsible for calculating any capital gains taxes owed, withholding them, and remitting them on your behalf. If you owe capital gains, payment goes to the notario at closing. When escrow is involved, the escrow company wires the funds to the notario; otherwise, you transfer the amount to the notario directly.

No, your physical presence at closing isn't required. You will, however, need to grant someone a power of attorney (POA) so they can sign in person on your behalf on closing day. These POAs are typically prepared by one of the attorneys in the notary's office and, unless stated otherwise, also authorize the holder to approve the release of funds from escrow. Executing a POA locally in Guanajuato is straightforward, cheaper than doing it abroad, and usually needs only a day or two of advance notice for the notary to prepare it. Buyers can sometimes have someone sign for them as an officious agent without any POA at all, but sellers must always have one. The POA can go to a trusted friend or relative, and some clients prefer to name one of the attorneys at the notary's office. Whether you sign locally or from abroad, we suggest having your real estate agent coordinate with the notary or one of their attorneys to draft the POA, ensuring the notary will accept the wording without changes on closing day. A POA prepared by a local notary will be written in Spanish. When you visit the notary's office to sign, a translator will be on hand to interpret the document if you don't speak Spanish. Completing a POA from Outside of Mexico If you're abroad, have someone at the notary's office prepare the document. It's often sent to you with English on one side and Spanish on the other. Once it arrives, you have two paths: Option #1: If you live in the US or another Hague Convention country, print the POA the notary provided, have it notarized by any local notary public, then get it apostilled and send it by overnight mail to your agent or the notary. If there's a Mexican consulate near you in the US, you can simply have the document notarized there instead. Option #2: If you're in Canada or another country outside the Hague Convention, you'll need to visit a Mexican Consulate to have the notary's document validated. Every consulate has its own rules and timelines — some will redraft the document and have you return days later to sign, while others will work with the version you bring. Check the requirements with the Mexican Consulate closest to you. For buyers, beyond authorizing someone to sign at closing, the POA can also empower a person in Guanajuato to sign for your SRE permit and for the escrow distribution of funds. Stay in close contact with your agent, who can walk you through every step.

Technically, the right to choose the notario belongs to the buyer. If you work with us, we have notarios we know, trust, and prefer to recommend. In practice, though, sellers facing significant capital gains taxes sometimes "shop" their sale among several notarios until they find the one offering the most favorable tax outcome. When that happens, a seller might insist on a particular notario from the moment the home is being shown — or the issue may only surface during offer negotiations. The bottom line: while the buyer formally holds the choice, it's quite common for the selection of the notario to end up as one more point of negotiation between the parties.

This is a frequent issue, and one our agents can help you resolve before closing. It can arise in several ways: extra square meters were added and the builder never finalized the paperwork, an addition went up without a permit, or the tax office simply never registered the new construction. In any of these cases, your tax receipt (predial) may show considerably less built area than actually exists. The trouble surfaces when the notario's office sends an appraiser to verify your property's measurements before closing. If the figures don't match your tax bill, an appraiser must correct the bill — a step that frequently delays the closing. If you have any doubt about whether your built square meters are accurately recorded on your tax bill, raise it with your agent so the correction, if needed, can begin right away.

Four main factors determine how fast a home sells. Location - You've surely heard that real estate comes down to location, location, location. It really does. Condition - Homes that are well designed and well maintained consistently sell faster than those that fall short in either respect. If you've been putting off any maintenance, now is the time to address it. Price - Your home competes against every other home on the market, so it needs to be priced to stand out against properties of similar location and condition. Exposure - As the old saying goes, "Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark." We have invested heavily to give our sellers unmatched exposure — our website records more than 3,000,000 page views annually. Many sellers are surprised to discover that average time on market here is counted in months, not the days typical of the US and Canada. Since 2007, the average has swung from about 6 months during boom periods to more than 24 months in slow stretches. Naturally, some properties go under contract within days or a few weeks of listing — usually thanks to location, condition, a compelling price, or all three combined. Inventory levels matter too. When inventory is high, your home is up against many similar options. When it's low, yours may be one of only a handful in its price range or area, and it will move faster. For context: the lowest inventory we've tracked since 2007 came in late 2017, with just 175 active listings — roughly 6 months of supply. The peak was 1,350 listings in mid-2024, which, measured against the pace of actual sales, amounted to 42 months of inventory. In other words, at that sales rate and with no new listings added, clearing all of that stock would take 42 months. All of which makes your choice of listing agency critically important. Our agents will provide a candid, accurate assessment of both your property and the current market, so together you can set the price that best serves your goals. The old truism still holds: "A well priced property will always sell."

An apostille is a certificate that verifies all of the following: - that the signature of a public official (a notary public, for instance) on a document is genuine, for use abroad, - the official capacity in which that person signed, and - where relevant, the authenticity of any seal or stamp on the document, such as a notary seal. Apostilles are generally issued by the Secretary of State (or equivalent office) of the state where the document was signed. Every country that joined the Hague Convention accepts them — and both Mexico and the US are signatories. There are at least two routes to getting a document (a power of attorney, for example) apostilled. 1. The do-it-yourself route: have a notary public sign and seal the document, then mail it or bring it to your state's Secretary of State office (or equivalent). They confirm that the notary you used is licensed and legitimate, usually by attaching a verification page. Going this route, the apostille typically runs $10-25 USD, plus a small notary fee of around $2-25 USD. 2. Depending on how far you live from your state's office, an apostille service may be faster, more convenient, and possibly even cheaper. These services often come to your home or meet you somewhere public to notarize the document, then submit it to the State Department for you. Expect fees starting around $300 USD. Whichever route you choose, search online for "apostille" plus your state's name and several options will appear. If time is tight, call the State Department or the apostille service directly — we've seen official websites advertise 7-day turnarounds while the actual backlog, when you call, turns out to be three weeks. Because Canada never signed the Hague Convention, Canadians (and citizens of other non-signatory countries) must instead have their POA authorized at a Mexican Embassy or Consulate.

Capital gains in Mexico are a federal tax, withheld and remitted by the notario at closing. The notario is also the one who determines how much is owed on each property. The calculation is always done in Mexican pesos (MXN), and the tax generally falls between 20% and 35% of the gain. By law, it can never exceed 25% of the total transaction value. Here's the calculation in simplified form: -Your cost basis is the peso price you paid for the property on your purchase date. -The notario adjusts that basis for inflation using software tied to the official government inflation rate over your ownership period. -The adjusted basis is then subtracted from the sale amount, expressed in pesos. -If you (or others on the deed) qualify for the capital gains exemption, that amount comes off next. -Real estate commissions paid to your agent (excluding IVA) are also deductible. -Whatever remains is your gain — the figure you'll be taxed on. Keep in mind: even if you bought in dollars and are selling in dollars, running the numbers in pesos will very likely yield a different result, because the tax basis is always computed in pesos. Every one of our agents is trained to help sellers grasp and minimize the tax side of a sale. Reach out to an agent if you need guidance — understanding the tax impact of selling your property should come before you ever put it on the market.

Mexico's resident visas fall into two main categories: residente temporal (temporary) and residente permanente (permanent). Both call for proof of either a minimum monthly income or a set amount held in your bank account. For anyone who can meet that financial threshold, they're generally not difficult to get. The application has to begin outside of Mexico, at a Mexican Consulate. You book your appointment online and then appear in person to file. Approval usually comes within 30 days — at some consulates, even the very same day. After approval, you have a few months to present your approval letter at the immigration office in Guanajuato, where your photo ID visa will be issued. Some of our clients have finished the process after already arriving here, by booking an appointment at the Mexican Consulate in Laredo, Texas. They ride the overnight bus to Laredo, attend the appointment, get their approval letter that same day, and head back. While the visa process is fairly straightforward, every Mexican Consulate handles things a bit differently, and the rules have shifted often in recent years. We suggest meeting with one of our agents, who will put you in contact with a visa specialist. These professionals stay current on rule changes, book your appointments, and help assemble the necessary paperwork. Their fees are usually modest — typically just a few hundred USD — and worth every penny for the time and hassle saved if a key requirement has changed.

Setting up a power of attorney (POA) — which authorizes another person to sign the purchase or sale of a property in your place — involves a few steps. 1) Our standing recommendation is that the POA be prepared by the notario closing your transaction, or by one of the attorneys in their office, guaranteeing that the wording will be accepted by the notario when closing day arrives. 2) If you're in Guanajuato, the notario's office can draft the POA and you simply stop by to sign it. It will be written in Spanish, but if you don't speak the language, a translator will be brought in on signing day to interpret it for you. For buyers and sellers alike, the document will likely include wording that lets the POA holder sign not just the deed but also the escrow company's distribution of funds. 3) If you're away from the city, the notario drafts the document and sends it to you, and then: a. if you're American or a citizen of a Hague Convention country, you'll get it notarized and then apostilled; b. if you're Canadian, from a country outside the Hague Convention, or simply close to a Mexican embassy or consulate, you'll bring the document there and sign in front of a consular official. 4) For buyers abroad who didn't sign the SRE permit application while in Guanajuato, the POA will likely also authorize someone to sign that application in their place.

Deciding whether to add your spouse, partner, or children to the deed is a personal decision, usually guided by your broader financial planning. That said, as a general rule, the more people on the deed who hold Mexican residency, the more tax exemptions you can stack. And if your sale price exceeds the exemption threshold, having more names on the deed translates into a smaller capital gains bill when you sell. Unless there's a compelling reason not to, we usually suggest adding your spouse or partner as a co-owner — and in some cases, your children. One caution, though: think twice before naming minor children on the deed. Selling a property partly owned by a minor requires a judge's authorization, which is seldom granted.

The commission is paid by the seller — it's not an expense the buyer has to be concerned with.

This is handled through the notario who will be closing your transaction. If you're in Guanajuato, the notario's office prepares the power of attorney (POA), and you sign it right there at the office. If you're away from the city, the document can be mailed to you. From that point, the remaining steps vary depending on which country you're in. For the complete details, see The In-Depth Answer.

There was a time when print ads were an excellent way to attract buyers. Back in the late 2000s we frequently ran five or more pages of print advertising, and nearly every week buyers walked into the office asking to tour homes they had circled in the paper. Seeing your property in print is exciting, we know — but since 2014, those ads have generated very few actual buyers. Over 85% of buyers now shop for real estate online. That's why we've redirected our time and budget toward the channels that deliver the greatest exposure: our website and our social media presence. In 2023, the website alone drew 2.7 million page views. Our site is also fully responsive, meaning it adapts smoothly from a phone screen to a large desktop monitor without losing any layout, text, or images. With research showing that 68% of web traffic now comes from phones and tablets, we've made certain your property looks perfect on screens of every size.

The notario handling the sale of your property is the one who calculates the capital gains owed, and who collects and remits those taxes at closing. All of our agents are trained to help sellers understand and reduce the tax impact of a sale. Before you begin the selling process, make sure you know how the transaction will affect your taxes. For a full breakdown of how the notario arrives at these figures, see The In-Depth Answer to this question.

We know of a handful of clients who have managed to notarize documents online for things like lease agreements and certain banking paperwork. That said, if the document must be notarized and apostilled for a property closing, confirm the requirements with your apostille service first — most of them will insist that you appear in person for the notarization. The notario may also require your physical presence.

In Mexico, a notario is nothing like a notary public in the US. Beyond holding a law degree, a notario must complete further specialized legal training focused on the duties of the position, and must even compete to earn the title. Notarios are appointed by each state's governor, with the number based on population. Unlike ordinary attorneys, only notarios have the authority to formalize and record real estate transactions, wills, and other legal instruments. The records they produce remain in their office permanently and belong to the state. The law also requires notarios to remain impartial in every transaction they handle.

If you satisfy the criteria below, you could qualify for a partial exemption from capital gains taxes: • within the last three years, you have not claimed this ISR (capital gains) exemption on the sale of any other property • the home you plan to sell has served as your primary residence in Mexico • you hold Mexican residency status. While it resembles a homestead exemption in the US, Mexico's capital gains exemption works in a somewhat more complex way. Each person listed on the deed who qualifies and holds Mexican residency is eligible for the exemption. The amount is calculated on the total value of the transaction, not merely on the gain itself, and it is tied to a Mexican financial index that moves constantly, sometimes day to day. In recent years the exemption has ranged from roughly $225,000 USD up to $310,000 USD per qualified individual on the deed. If the deed lists only you, the exemption falls within the range above. With two people on the deed, that figure doubles. For a deeper explanation, see How are Capital Gains Taxes Calculated? Planning to sell in the near future? Reach out to one of our agents, who can provide an estimate of your capital gains taxes and help you build a strategy to reduce or even eliminate what you would owe at the sale.