Why Greg stayed: San Miguel's comforts, costs and trade‑offs
An foreigner broker on 17 years in San Miguel de Allende, the real cost of living, and the one thing most newcomers miss.
“I came down with a home and nothing else, no friends, no business. The net will appear.” - Greg Gunter
Greg landed in San Miguel de Allende after the Great Recession and never left. Seventeen years later he has built a real‑estate business, a YouTube library of practical videos, and a daily life that looks more European village than typical Mexican resort. If you’re thinking about moving somewhere foreign but want the comforts of a walkable town, this conversation is a grounded look at what you actually get, and what you trade.
Why San Miguel feels like home to outsiders
Greg’s first sellable detail is visual: San Miguel’s preserved colonial architecture and a compact town center that’s “like Florence or Umbria.” The UNESCO designation (2008) brought waves of visitors and helped the town become a long‑standing foreigner magnet. Today he estimates roughly 175,000 people in the area and about 30,000 American and Canadian, enough to have a full English‑language social scene but not so many that you don’t feel you’re in Mexico.
Two practical consequences:
It’s intensely walkable: Greg says you can cross the town in 25–35 minutes; he drives under 3,000 miles a year. Many residents live within a 15‑minute walk of the center.
Cultural life is dense: art openings, a monthly “first Saturday” art walk, piano bars that seat 20–25 people. In a tiny venue you’ll actually meet strangers and get invited into community, not leave the moment the band stops.
Money that actually matters: housing, bills, and the household staff problem
Greg gives concrete day‑to‑day numbers that shift the math for most Americans.
Utilities and services are cheap: water runs about $20–$30/month; electricity roughly $1/day unless you have solar; internet about $1.25/day; unlimited mobile data around $35/month.
Property tax is low: roughly $250 per $100,000 of assessed value, a $500k house comes out to about $1,200/year.
Domestic help is affordable: Greg pays his full‑time maid about $6/hour for shopping, cooking, laundry and plant care.
Real estate itself sits in the middle: not as cheap as Mexico’s coastal bargain towns but substantially cheaper than many U.S. coastal markets. Greg says home pricing is comparable to parts of the U.S. interior or West Belt, and that luxury buyers still push averages higher.
Two consequences to note: carrying costs (taxes, utilities, staff) are low, which matters most after purchase; but supply chains are slow. Greg orders supplements and packages through a U.S. mailing address and expects three to four weeks for shipments to arrive.
"Amazon in Mexico carries maybe one‑twentieth of what it does in the U.S., plan a month ahead for anything you need." - Greg Gunter
The reality of daily integration: language, bureaucracy, and social entry points
Language: You don’t need perfect Spanish to get by, but a little goes a long way. Greg recommends early classes focused on practical shortcuts, learn the phrases that let you be polite and functional at markets, with staff and at appointments. He admits after 17 years his Spanish still isn’t perfect, but he communicates and connects.
Social life: The easiest route to friends wasn’t neighborhood networking but volunteering and local media. Greg got started by writing a social column for the bilingual local paper and by attending nonprofit events, markets and gallery openings. That visibility helped him meet people quickly and later grow a business.
Bureaucracy: Expect friction. Greg compares Mexican paperwork to Italy, multiple offices, stamps, duplicate trips. His practical tip: hire an expediter or property manager for residencies, utilities and title work. It costs more up front but saves weeks of waiting and stress.
Work, pace and the one neighborhood question you must answer
Work culture is slower, and many people come to retire or work remotely. Greg works ~55 hours/week and sells about 30 homes a year, he’s the outlier, not the norm. If you plan to work locally, you’ll likely need to be entrepreneurial or run a small business.
Neighborhoods vary block by block. Greg’s single blunt piece of advice for house hunters:
Do the homework before you buy. Ask exactly how gentrified a neighborhood is, whether streets are walkable at night, and whether you can tolerate living next to ongoing renovations. Those details, hilliness, noise, proximity to markets or expat hubs, change the experience more than headline price tags.
If you move here: the short checklist Greg actually uses with clients
Research neighborhoods via local guides and video walkthroughs.
Book a scouting visit and arrive prepared with a wish list (walkability, yard, uphill or flat).
Take an early, practical Spanish course focused on conversational shortcuts.
Engage an expediter or property manager for residency and utility transfers.
Plan shipments (vitamins, specialty goods) to a U.S. address and allow 3–4 weeks for delivery.
Greg ends with a practical, patient posture: he’ll work with people for years before they buy, because moving abroad is rarely a quick decision. He’s also built an unusually deep, public library of resources, hundreds of YouTube videos that show the day‑to‑day: markets, meals, transit and a “day in the life” of a local realtor.
If the image you want is a small European town with Mexican food, a strong local art scene, low bills and a slower rhythm, Greg’s life in San Miguel is a useful model. If you hate waiting for deliveries, hate patchy paperwork, or need seamless instant logistics, you’ll want to plan around those trade‑offs.
If you want Greg’s concrete neighborhood notes, his video walkthroughs, or the neighborhood comparison he walks every client through, his website (DreamProHomesLuxury) and YouTube channel are full of the practical clips he mentioned during the interview.