BUILDING down south
'We Built Our Vacation Home In Tulum For $350,000. I'm Glad We Invested Early, But There Are Issues'
Ratchel Pinlac and her husband first visited Tulum in 2018. They noticed that the hotels were expensive: You get a tiny room that doesn't have electricity because it's supposed to be rustic — but it costs $600 a night.
There was also a lot of construction happening, specifically near the beach. It was mostly condos, vacation homes, and developments. They got the vibe that Tulum was about to take off.
During their second vacation, in 2021, they began to think about buying a house in Tulum. Toward the end of the trip, they started looking at realtors in the area.
[The couple loved being able to customize the house. Conie Suarez Bravo]
The project cost about $350,000, which they paid for using their savings from years of work.
The developer had a plot of land in Region 15 — a neighborhood between downtown and the beach zone — and had already carved out what size of home would be on each plot.
There were four houses, and the house design was based on square footage. It would be a 2,600-square-foot home with three stories, three bedrooms, and two pools. He already had an initial design, and Pinlac and her husband just heavily customized the house to fit what they wanted.
[Ratchel Pinlac wanted an Instagrammable infinity pool. Conie Suarez Bravo]
They said it would take a year, and it ended up taking about a year and a half. There was a lot of back-and-forth, but overall it was a fairly smooth process.
[Pinlac said the local developers added larger windows without charging more. Conie Suarez Bravo]
Pinlac and her husband got into the Tulum market early. It hasn't fully developed yet, so there were a lot of unofficial extras with the builders. For example, they added a custom bathtub, made the pool bigger, and made the windows a lot bigger, all without extra fees. Pinlac thinks when people are just starting their business like these developers are, they're loose in that way.
[Perks like a custom bathtub were added for free, Pinlac said. Conie Suarez Bravo]
The language barrier was stressful. Pinlac's husband speaks Spanish, which made it easier, but he even struggled to understand what the developers told them. Luckily, the couple's realtor, who was bilingual, managed the communication and held the builders accountable.
Certain things got lost in translation. For example, they picked a finish for the walls that they also put on the floor, so Pinlac had to get them to try to sand it down because it made the floor look dirty. But overall, the couple were super happy.
[Pinlac said she knew she wanted to add arches to the house design. Conie Suarez Bravo]
The downside of building a holiday home in Tulum is that there is so much construction around it because it's a developing area.
The couple wants to Airbnb the property when they're not there, and they haven't been able to rent it out to its maximum potential.
To see more photos of the couple's vacation home in Tulum, head to Business Insider.
