When Joshua and Silvia Westrup worked in Houston, they lived in a large three-bedroom home with a big yard. But since Joshua Westrup, 50, became the national sales manager in Mexico three years ago for a New York manufacturer, the couple has had to adjust to a new lifestyle.
Instead of living in a large house as they were accustomed to, the Westrups reside in a small, two-bedroom apartment valued at $175,000, almost twice as much as their home in Houston.
The couple bought the apartment two years ago for $135,000 in cash. They figured that in the long run, it would be cheaper to buy property than pay more than $1,000 a month in rent. They intend to keep the unit as an investment after leaving Monterrey.
“I’ve been coming to Mexico for more than 30 years, but I never knew how expensive it was to live here until we moved to Monterrey,” Westrup said. “It doesn’t matter whether you buy or rent. Everything is sky high.”
Westrup’s reaction isn’t unusual. Americans in Monterrey have learned that life in this northern Mexican city isn’t cheap.
“A lot of Americans are in shock when they move here,” said John Barrett, executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce, a group with 435 members.
“Many of them still think of Mexico as a cheap country where they can live like a king for a few dollars.”
Barrett, who counsels American businesspeople moving to Monterrey, said that finding affordable and suitable housing is a major task.
It is estimated that about 7,000 Americans, including about 500 business executives and their families, live in Monterrey, almost twice as many as in the mid-’80s, when rents and real estate prices began to increase sharply.
Most U.S. companies operating in Monterrey give their U.S. personnel money for housing, which usually covers the difference between their previous mortgage payment or monthly rent and the rent in Monterrey, Barrett said. Some companies pay as much as 80 percent of the total rent.
But by the same token, Barrett said, most companies have a limit as to how much of an employee’s housing costs they can cover.
The average unfurnished home in a middle- or upper-middle-class neighborhood rents for a minimum of $1,000 and can go as high as $6,000.
If for sale, those homes range from $350,000 to $750,000, according to Realtors and ads in local newspapers.
Barrett said that finding a furnished home or an apartment for rent in a well-to-do neighborhood is even more difficult because such residences go for a minimum of $2,000. Some furnished homes rent for as much as $8,000.
Ron and Joan Meyers of Ann Arbor, Mich., who moved to Monterrey last year, are trying to figure out how to survive in an expensive housing market.
While in Michigan, the couple and two of their children lived in a four- bedroom Colonial house with a swimming pool and a 2 1/2-garage.
The monthly mortgage payment, including property taxes, was $1,000. “Before moving here, we figured that if we paid over $1,000 a month we would live very comfortably . . . maybe even in a mansion with a pool and everything else,” said Ron Meyers, an inventory analyst for Ford Motors’ subsidiary in Mexico.
Instead, the family lives in a three-bedroom townhouse that is half the size of their former home but costs about $500 more a month to rent.
Robert L. Hughes, a spokesman for the U.S. consulate, said his office can’t help Americans looking for homes unless they are diplomats.
