Pros and Cons of living in Playa del Carmen, Mexico

Jun 16, 2025 | Private List update

People are increasingly moving to Playa del Carmen in Mexico for a number of reasons.

Besides the beach, tacos, and sunshine, people move here to live in peace:

No politics from back home
Hard to fall into the local tax net unless living there full time
Cancun airport nearby which is extremely well connected to North America, Europe, and the rest of Latin America
A vibrant expat community
Clear path to permanent residency and citizenship

Together with my realtor Luigi we discussed this in detail as well as the cons.

I’m a permanent resident of Mexico and am currently staying here for a few months. My son was born here in May; he’s a strong and healthy little boy.

In a few weeks I’ll go to Mexico City to register his citizenships at a number of embassies which invariably means a lot of paperwork. But it’s all worth it in the end as he’ll have so many options later in life.

https://youtu.be/3Y4DEzX-8zA?si=vt2gdc9Qz0QzfdLB

Pros and Cons of living in Playa del Carmen, Mexico (https://youtu.be/3Y4DEzX-8zA?si=vt2gdc9Qz0QzfdLB)

Prospective parents should really consider birth tourism. If you’re not sure in which country to give birth, feel free to reach out for a consulting call to discuss your options.

If you’re interested in Playa del Carmen real estate, where I myself invested a few years ago, here is the full Playa del Carmen real estate market analysis.

To a World of Opportunities,

The Wandering Investor.

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Transcript of “Pros and Cons of living in Playa del Carmen, Mexico”

LADISLAS MAURICE: Hello, everyone. Today, we’ll be discussing the pros and cons of living in Playa del Carmen, because more and more people are moving here to this part of Mexico. We’ll be discussing this together with Luigi, my realtor here. Luigi, how are you?

LUIGI: Fantastic. How are you?

LADISLAS MAURICE: Good. Let’s start with the con, noise pollution. [laughs] Construction.

LUIGI: [laughs] Perfect timing. We didn’t script that, by the way. Noise pollution, yeah, obviously, because Playa is growing very quickly, it doesn’t matter what corner you’re on, there’s usually a construction going on close by, which, obviously, if you’re doing short-term rentals, that could be a problem, or if you just want to have a good night’s sleep, and you live here, that’s also a problem. But at the end of the day, you’re still in paradise, so a little noise, well, it makes up for it.

Population growth in Playa del Carmen

LADISLAS MAURICE: I mean, there’s so much growth here. When you first moved here, what, 15, 20 years ago?

LUIGI: Twenty years ago, there was around 22,000 to 25,000 habitants, or population was around 25,000. It’s grown. I see different stats now online, between 350,000 to 420,000 people living in Playa del Carmen now. That’s a huge jump. And so, obviously, there’s going to be noise. There are more cars, more scooters with no mufflers, so there’s a little bit more noise, but there are still areas that are quiet.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, yeah. But for sure, when there’s that much growth, there’s construction. But that’s also what makes Playa del Carmen attractive, is there is a lot of growth.

LUIGI: Yeah, there is.

Lifestyle and transportation in Playa del Carmen

LADISLAS MAURICE: In terms of positives, this place is really becoming a hub, so not just due to the airport, Cancun Airport, which is extremely well connected. Personally, I travel a lot between Europe and Latin America, and I use Playa del Carmen as one of my bases, because when I’m here, it’s easy to get to Europe, a lot of direct flights from Cancun Airport, as well as a lot of direct flights to all over in Latin America. And it’s an affordable airport, too. It’s easy to get to, it just works well. And then in terms of time zones, same as the US, Canada, so to work with US and Canadian clients, very easy, but it’s also easy to work with European clients from here.

Unlike Asia, where, when you have European clients, it means that you’re staying up very late, so you’re missing out on life, essentially, because a lot of things happen at night in Asia. Here, you just wake up early in the morning, you do your stuff. Once your day is over, you take a nap, and then you can still go out in the evening, meet people, etc. A lot of Europeans have this lifestyle here. They wake up early, work, take a long nap, enjoy their night, have a short night, work. It’s a different, essentially, lifestyle.

LUIGI: Yeah, it is.

LADISLAS MAURICE: It works for a lot of people.

LUIGI: And you mentioned the airport. One of the positive things about living in Playa del Carmen is there is a lot of transportation and options to get to the airport. It’s only 45 minutes away. You can take a taxi, there’s the bus, the ADO, there’s private chauffeurs. You can rent cars easily, return them at the airport. It’s only a 45-minute drive, easy to get to, and it’s a nice drive, too.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Cool.

LUIGI: Straight shot.

Schools in Playa del Carmen

LADISLAS MAURICE: Then I’d say, and this is really a big one for people nowadays, is education for children is a big draw. I know it’s a little strange to think, oh, Mexico, good education. I mean, Mexico is known for healthcare. We don’t need to talk about this, but Playa del Carmen has a bunch of hospitals, private clinics, etc. The service is amazing. We had our first child here. I mean, not together, [laughs] but with my partner, we had our first child here.

LUIGI: [laughs]

LADISLAS MAURICE: And we come back for the second one, which is due in a few months from now. That’s how good the hospitals are and the experience. But yeah, in terms of schools, there’s so many options for schools here. There’s something for everyone. A lot of Europeans, for example, or Canadians are moving here because they want more conservative schools. If you want more conservative schools that don’t talk about certain topics, there are Christian schools, there are independent schools, all good there. But in the past few months, what we’ve seen is, especially with Americans, it’s now the other way around. Can you elaborate on this?

LUIGI: Yeah, so what’s happening right now is, obviously, we are getting a lot of clients that are moving, are looking to move here because they’re not happy with the political situation. They may not be happy with what Trump is doing, and so we’re getting a lot more of the Liberals coming down to Playa del Carmen, which, obviously, as you mentioned, with the schools, so there’s a lot of schools that offer the education that’s aligned with the liberals. And so, we have kind of, like, we talk about a safe haven, where it doesn’t matter what side of the fence you live on, Playa welcomes you, and it’s a cohesive, great kind of community where no one really cares which side of the fence you sit on, and you’re welcome, and there’s everything for everybody. And so that makes it very attractive, and it’s just a really nice, calm, relaxing type of lifestyle.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah. You have Christian schools, schools that are a bit more political, schools that are completely apolitical. You have Montessori schools. You have schools where children make their own schedule. You have schools in the jungle, where kids, like, learn, learn with chickens and duck, and have their own little–

LUIGI: Garden area.

LADISLAS MAURICE: garden area.

LUIGI: And they learn how to grow food and things like that.

LADISLAS MAURICE: There’s literally everything. Bilingual, so English and Spanish, or only Spanish, or only English. And generally, they’re not too expensive, either. On average, you’re looking at $300 to $500, $600 a month per child, some a bit more expensive. But generally speaking, they’re quite affordable for very decent education with children from all over as well.

LUIGI: Yeah, I wanted to mention that. A lot of our clients are really happy bringing their kids here because it’s an international school, and so kids are learning two languages. They’re, obviously, still learning their English, but they’re learning Spanish, or they’re picking up a third language, because there’s French, or there’s Russians and Ukrainians now here. There’s all kinds of languages. And so, parents are really happy to expose their children to this type of international and diverse kind of community. That’s a positive thing, as opposed to, if you grew up usually in one city in Canada, United States, you typically learn maybe a second language a little bit in school, but you don’t really get to practice it. Here, you really do learn two languages, and you have to use it every day. Spanish, you use it.

LADISLAS MAURICE: It’s one of the advantages. It’s very international, but–

[Person playing piano on the street]

LADISLAS MAURICE: Let’s hurry up.

LUIGI: [laughs]

LADISLAS MAURICE: Lively, lively place.

LUIGI: I love Playa. Listen, you’re going to see people on the street performing music everywhere. It really is a completely different way to live. And we were continuing about the international.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, so very international, so it’s great, but one of the drawbacks is maybe it’s not as Mexican as other destinations. If people want a true, true Mexican experience, Playa del Carmen is probably not the right destination. You get a mix of both, essentially.

LUIGI: But you can get a lot of the Mexican culture if you leave the tourist area. Fifth Avenue, which is what we’re on right now, which is pedestrian only, is very touristic. However, if you go a few blocks towards the other side of the center, and you start to move in more of a local area, and so you do get some of that authenticity. We went to one of the seafood restaurants last time you were in town. Just very, very local, very authentic Mexican.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Nice tacos.

Walkability in Playa del Carmen

LUIGI: Yeah, we had the fish tacos. One of the things we should talk about, since what we’re doing right now is we’re walking, the walkability score in Playa del Carmen is, like, 1,000%. I mean, you can walk anywhere. Everything is close. If you want a barber shop, a restaurant, a supermarket, nail salon, doctor, anything you want, schools–

LADISLAS MAURICE: Bar, night club.

LUIGI: bar, night club, beach, everything is walkable, which is a huge advantage. A lot of people are moving here because they want quality of life. If you’re living in a city where you’re stuck in your car for two or three hours a day in traffic, you come here, you’re like, “Wow, I can be outside. I’m getting more exercise, I’m walking, I’m getting vitamin D, I’m going to the beach, and I can still run my errands within 15 minutes of where I live.” You know what? If you take a long time to get ready, like me, I do my hair, it takes me a long time to get out the door, I can leave my house five minutes before any appointment, and I still get there on time. It’s a nice thing to be able to get out and walk and not have to have a car.

A car is a huge expense, insurance, gas, maintenance. If you don’t have to have that expense here, you’re saving money, and you can live, you can use that money towards enjoying experiences, as opposed to having to pay for expenses.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Like, walk to Walmart. I don’t know too many places where you can walk to a Walmart.

LUIGI: Yeah, Walmart, and there’s Home Depot here. There’s everything, Sam’s Club. I mean, we have pretty much everything.

Infrastructure development in Playa del Carmen

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, because the infrastructure has improved a lot.

LUIGI: That’s another thing.

LADISLAS MAURICE: That’s important, because even compared to three years ago, when I was here for a while, I mean, the city has improved.

LUIGI: It’s huge. When I moved here, I had to wait in line-ups for hours just to get basic banking done. We talk about Wi-Fi. We have a lot of digital nomads, a lot of people moving here, and they have online businesses, which is something that, because of COVID, a lot of people went online, and so people are able to travel and move around and have their business. Well, without the infrastructure, like electricity. Electricity used to go out a lot here. We had a lot of power outages, and we had slow internet. That’s improved. Our power outages don’t happen as often. Internet is very solid and very stable. I mean, obviously, some days with some wind or whatever, it goes down, but it’s very solid. You can run a good business and have Wi-Fi at all times.

Banking system is now online. We have online apps, which means you don’t have to go wait in line-ups at the bank. You can get car insurance easily if you do get a car. All of these things have improved. And cell phone signal has improved. When I moved here, you couldn’t get signal on the beach. You’d have to walk three blocks up, send a message, and go back down to the beach just to let a friend know where you were. Things have improved. It is very comparable to a lot of the cities north of the border, and that’s why I think it’s attracting a lot of people.

Getting residency in Mexico

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah. I mean, it’s a viable hub, I’ll put it this way, and it’s easy to get residency. Personally, I chose the giving birth route. I had my daughter here, and then this gave me permanent residency immediately. There’s a whole video on birth tourism here in Mexico, it’s a whole thing. But even for people that don’t have children here, there are many ways to obtain residency in Mexico. And then, once you’re a resident, you really have access to everything. You get your tax number. You can do banking, car, everything. You don’t necessarily fall into the tax net very easily at all. It’s just such a good base for Latin America.

Very quickly, I mean, there’s so many flights on a daily basis to the US, to Canada, to Miami, if you want to do banking or whatever, to Panama. I go to Panama and Colombia on a regular basis, and just like direct flights. It’s just a good, good hub that makes sense now. From a lifestyle point of view, from a logistical point of view, from an infrastructure point of view, it’s just good.

LUIGI: It’s great. And you mentioned the residency. One of the disadvantages, we have to mention, is living in a tourist destination, obviously, there are some, it’s not official, you don’t see it on a price list, but there are two different prices. There is a price for people who show the residence card, and then there’s the tourist price. And a lot of times, tourists maybe get taken advantage of or fall into a trap where they pay a lot more money for something that maybe could be a lot less. When you have the residence card, there’s no argument. You show your residence card, you pay half price in a lot of the entrance at the parks. And even taxis, we talk about the taxis, if you don’t know, it’s easy for the taxi to tell you, “Hey, it’s going to be this much.”

LADISLAS MAURICE: They will do that, invariably, if you don’t know.

LUIGI: Exactly.

LADISLAS MAURICE: And there’s no Uber, unfortunately.

LUIGI: In Playa, no.

LADISLAS MAURICE: You have to contact the taxis through WhatsApp. It works well, you’ll have a taxi within five minutes. And then you sit in the taxi and you say, “Show me the price in the app.” And then you’re good. But if you don’t know this, you’re going to be paying two, three times the price.

Crime and safety in Playa del Carmen

LADISLAS MAURICE: Look, one of the cons that people often think of when one mentions Mexico is crime. What’s your take on this?

LUIGI: Well, like I said, I’ve lived here a long time, and we do have interactions with a lot of clients that are coming from United States and Canada. And what I can say is that Mexico does get a bad rap, a lot of propaganda, a lot of news. Mexico is a big country, so to say that Mexico is unsafe all in one general statement is very unfair. There are parts of Mexico that, obviously, in some cities, that are very dangerous, but you come to Playa del Carmen, and you can walk down the street at two or three o’clock in the morning. You can take a taxi. There is no violent crime on the street. There aren’t random violent crimes like you’re seeing in a lot of the North American cities. That doesn’t really exist.

But what does exist here is, obviously, petty theft, robbery. Not home invasions, like you’re seeing also in some parts of Canada, just you left your door open, someone saw an opportunity, stole your laptop. Those types of crimes that still exist. And honestly, in a lot of Latin America, it is like that. When the salaries are very low, and you’re seeing tourists coming and spending this kind of money, they have to spend money, and some of the prices have gone up for a lot of the local people, their salaries haven’t gone up at the same rate, so they need to make a little extra cash. If they have families to feed, if they see a laptop, they see a cell phone, they see a door open in the apartment, they’ll take advantage. But apart from that petty kind of theft–

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, there’s no physical, violent crime, like, mindless physical crime here if you’re just a tourist minding your own business.

LUIGI: That’s right, yeah.

LADISLAS MAURICE: This lot is for sale for $4 million, right?

LUIGI: [laughs] Yeah, $4 million. You’ve got to get a lot of units in there to make it–

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, the whole thing.

LUIGI: Yeah, to make it make sense.

Pros and cons of real estate in Playa del Carmen

LADISLAS MAURICE: Let’s talk a little bit about real estate here, some of the pros and cons, because prices have risen quite a bit in the past few years.

LUIGI: Yeah, prices. We were walking just a few blocks, and right behind, you saw an abandoned building. Here’s one of the disadvantages. There are a lot of pre-sales. The risk of a pre-sale is, obviously, you can get into a bad pre-sale, and there’s a risk that it doesn’t get completed, or it gets delivered very late, which can affect your rental return, or if you did some numbers expecting to have a delivery a certain date, and it took another additional year or so, that is, sometimes, a risk. And the pre-sale construction price has doubled since COVID, materials, inflation, whatever you want to call it. It can be a little bit out of the price range for some investors getting into one or two-bedroom in some of these pre-sales.

Conversely, the secondary market or the resale market, there are some really great deals. The price per square meter is, sometimes, half of what you would see as in the pre-sale market. And you can get really, really good deals. You usually get larger spaces because they’re older buildings and very accessible price, and also very close to the beach, few-minute walk to the beach. In terms of if we were to compare with some of the cities in Canada and United States, here, you can still get into a one-bedroom close to the beach, walking distance to everything for between $180,000 to $200,000. I don’t know if you can get into a nice one-bedroom close, walking distance to everything in some of these North American cities for under 200,000, so it’s still very accessible.

And let’s go into the next point, which is a pro here, besides maybe gas and some of the food prices, which can be very comparable in terms of prices in Canada and United States, everything else in terms of running a property, owning a property here, property taxes are very, very low, in the hundreds, maybe $200 through $500 a year to own a property here. If you’re looking at in terms of renovations or maintaining your property, the trades here are still very inexpensive. If you need an electrician or plumber to fix anything, very inexpensive to run your property. If you wanted to renovate your kitchen, very inexpensive compared to United States and Canada.

And electricity, so some of the bills, water bill, you’re looking anywhere between $15 to $20 a month for your water. Gas, if you happen to have gas and you’re cooking with gas, very inexpensive. I pay about $70 every three or four months to fill out my gas tank. It’s very inexpensive. And I run my air conditioning often, and air conditioning, so electricity is the highest, I think, bill in terms of services in Playa. But even that, I pay around $200 every two months, so $100 a month to have electricity and air conditioning, everything running consistently. So very inexpensive in terms of owning the property here.

And even the HOA, which is a killer. Now, a lot of Canadians are leaving some of the markets in Florida, because the HOAs have gone way too high, taxes are way too high. And here, the HOAs, insurance, HOA here is very accessible. You’re looking at anywhere between $2.50 a square meter to $4, on the high end, a square meter. If you have a 60 square meter place or 100 square meter place, it’s anywhere between $200 to $300 a month, sometimes, $400 if your building has a lot of amenities, but it’s very accessible.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, and I think that’s a mistake that a lot of people make when they come here and try to buy something in Playa del Carmen, they only get pitched pre-construction, pre-sale by realtors. And it’s fine, nothing wrong with pre-sale, pre construction. But there are often very decent deals on the secondary market.

LUIGI: Absolutely.

LADISLAS MAURICE: You want to make sure that you work with a realtor. I mean, Luigi here, for example, that also looks at the secondary market. Why do most realtors not offer the secondary market? Because one, the commissions are lower, and two, it’s a lot more work. But there are very interesting deals to be found. And why? Again, that’s a positive and a negative. The negative aspect is that liquidity is relatively low here. When you want to sell real estate, the normal time frame is, what, six months to a year?

LUIGI: Yeah, there are exceptions, but yeah, six months to a year.

LADISLAS MAURICE: If you have it at market price, six months to a year to sell your real estate. It’s not like in the US or Canada, where within a few weeks, boom, it’s gone, or even a few days. Here, it takes a while. And sometimes, people end up in situations where they need to sell, and that’s when you get really attractive deals on the secondary market.

LUIGI: On the secondary market, yeah. But having touched on the pre-sales and the risk of pre-sale, so that’s why it’s also very important to work with a reputable broker that does the due diligence with their legal team to vet and reduce that risk, to make sure that the pre-sale is viable, and a great pre-sale, where they’re well-financed and all the legal paperwork is in order. And then on the resell, the exit strategy is a conversation you need to have with your broker. They’re going to make sure you have a good exit strategy so you don’t sit on the secondary market, when you want to sell, for a year or two years. Which means going into the property, you need to know what type of property it is, are you competing with a lot of other properties on the market, and what would be the strategy when you do want to sell in the future?

Those are important things to take into consideration. There’s so many positives in living and investing here in Playa, and that’s why I’m still here.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah. [laughs]

LUIGI: Twenty years. [laughs]

Beaches and swimming in Playa del Carmen

LADISLAS MAURICE: Twenty years, yeah. Let’s talk about the beach, though. Because, I mean, the beach is lovely, but there’s sargassum, sometimes.

LUIGI: People move here or spend time here in Playa because they want the Caribbean lifestyle and they want the beaches. We have beautiful beaches. There is a sargassum problem, which started in 2014, 2015. I will say this, though, the Sargasso is seasonal. Even if it’s in the season, it’s not every day. For example, you’ve been here a couple days now, you can go to the beach one day and see, in the season, there’s some Sargasso in the ocean, and then the next day, because of the currents and the winds, it takes it completely away, and you go back to the beach 24 hours later, or even 48 hours later, and it’s completely clear. Even in the Sargasso season, it’s not every single day, and it’s still beautiful, and there’s still days where it’s gorgeous.

But should you run into two or three days in a row where there’s sargasso on the beach, we have a lot of other options. We have cenotes, people stay in their pools with ocean views, so they still see the ocean, but they’re sitting in their pool. And then there’s also some of the islands and other beaches you can visit. They may not have sargasso that day. Some of the islands on these–

LADISLAS MAURICE: Like a map every day with where they’re sargasso?

LUIGI: Right. Sargassum moves. You might go to a beach that doesn’t have sargasso. And there’s also, really cool, some beaches now have the live webcam so you can actually go onto the site, watch the live webcam and say, okay, there’s no sargasso that day, and you can head over to that beach for that day. There’s solutions to that, it’s not a major thing. I mean, it can ruin your vacation if you come and, for seven days, there’s sargasso, but there are other options.

Playa del Carmen as a safe haven and Plan B

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah. I think, in conclusion, really, Playa del Carmen is increasingly becoming an international hub, not just for digital nomads and retirees, etc., but for entrepreneurs, for families, and generally, it’s increasingly a safe haven for people of all political stripes, essentially. There’s really a very strong case for moving to Playa del Carmen, or at least having some sort of foothold in this place, or spending some amount of time here on a regular basis. Personally, that’s what I do. I really enjoy it here, and I think that people should really, really consider this place.

LUIGI: Absolutely, I agree. And you touched a little bit on the political thing. Honestly, when you get here, there is enough for everybody. It’s very welcoming, and it’s not really on the forefront of everybody’s mind. The community here just talks. They want to get to know who you are, and it’s not really a political conversation. You can really live freely here and still live the way you want to live with your values and morals, and everybody just kind of leaves you alone. It’s really, it’s nice, it’s a nice change.

How to contact Luigi

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, it is. Absolutely. I wrote a whole article on the real estate market here in Playa Del Carmen, the neighborhoods that are interesting, the neighborhoods you should avoid, some key facts you should know, a bit of market analysis. There’s a link below. And if you want to get in touch with Luigi, he’s got a whole team. They can help you find the real estate that you’re looking for, whether it’s for lifestyle or for investment.

LUIGI: Absolutely.

LADISLAS MAURICE: All right. Luigi, thank you very much.

LUIGI: Appreciate it, thank you.

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