Yucatan Living

Best Real Estate Agency

19 July 2007 Reader's Polls, Real Estate FYI 54

The Yucatan Living Reader’s Choice Poll gives the expatriate community a chance to express their preferences for local merchants and service providers in Merida and Yucatan.

Reader’s Choice Polls are open for voting until the end of the year. Readers may vote in any of the polls that interest them, voting for the designated nominees, or recommending a nominee of their own during the opening week of the poll.

After the polls close, special awards will be beautifully produced and awarded to the winners sometime in January. We hope that the winners will proudly display their awards in the knowledge that they have provided an outstanding service to the community.

Best Real Estate Agency in Merida

If you are living here in Yucatan, chances are one of the first things you had to do was to buy or rent a home. While some of us were savvy enough or spoke Spanish well enough to trato directo (deal direct) with the sellers or landlords, many of us spent our initial days here with a helpful real estate agent.

Please consider many things when voting for the best real estate agency. Naturally, the best agency should hire and employ knowledgeable agents. They should know the territory and the business. They should treat customers well, with both patience and respect. They should have integrity (loosely defined as doing what they say they are going to do). They should be pleasant to work with, and after the deal is done, you would recommend them to family and friends.

We believe you can’t judge a real estate agent on how long it takes to buy or sell a house, for instance. On whether or not the seller or buyer had integrity. Or on whether or not you are happy with the house once you move in. Sometimes, forces of nature (or forces of Mexico) create havoc for the best of professionals.

We open this poll by nominating the five largest and most popular real estate agencies used by gringos and other expatriates moving to Merida and Yucatan State. This is certainly not an exhaustive list.

Here in alphabetical order are the initial nominees:

Casa Blanca Real Estate – Operated by Jorge Caceres, a Yucateco by birth who lived and worked for years in the USA, this agency has been around longer than any others on our initial list. Located on Calle 55 at Calle 66.

Mayan Living – Established by Jim Mann, an expatriate who has been working and selling real estate here for about five years.

Mexico International – founded by Mitch Keenan, the first extranjero to set up a real estate agency in Merida. His team of agents is based out of their offices in the Fiesta Americana building next to the Sanborn’s restaurant.

Real Estate Yucatan – The husband and wife team of Gabriela Isaac and Alec Stephens run this agency. Gabriela is a Yucateca and Alec hails from Mexico City, but spent many years working and living in the USA.

Tierra Yucatan – This agency is run by Jennifer Lytle and her able-bodied socio, David Palomo. Jen has traveled and lived in Mexico for over 30 years from her former home in San Antonio, Texas. Jennifer’s team works out of their renovated colonial office on Calle 66 in Merida’s centro historico.

Reader Nominees:

Casa Barbarita – For the past several years, Gabriella Kretsch has been helping people from around the world find their dream home in Yucatan. Her real estate agency is the first reader nominee.