Lake Chapala, Guadalajara real estate: properties for sale

This is Lake Chapala, Mexico's largest natural lake, in the interior of Jalisco four hours from the bay, and the MLS carries it because Vallarta brokers list there; it is nowhere near a beach. The north shore, Lakeside, is the expat capital of Mexico: twenty to thirty thousand Americans and Canadians, full-time and seasonal, on a strip of cobblestone villages with a mild year-round climate at 1,500 metres. Ajijic is the heart, a Pueblo Mágico of murals and cobblestones with a lakefront malecón, the San Andrés parish, the Lake Chapala Society campus, forty-odd restaurants and the Wednesday tianguis; buyers name its quarters, Seis Esquinas, El Centro, Upper and West Ajijic, and the adjoining San Antonio Tlayacapan and Riberas del Pilar. Santa Cruz de la Soledad is the quiet lake-view delegación east of Chapala town with far fewer expats.

Buyers are retirees and snowbirds who want climate, community and cost, not a coast. There are no high-rises and no marina development; the stock is houses, casitas and small condo enclaves.

Practical points. Guadalajara's airport is thirty-eight kilometres and about thirty-five minutes on the Chapala toll road, and it is the airport everyone uses; Vallarta is nearly four hundred kilometres and four to four and a half hours west. Walmart, SuperLake and the Laguna Mall in San Antonio supply the shore, and the hospitals of Guadalajara are forty-five minutes to an hour. Lakeside is outside the restricted coastal zone, so a foreign buyer can hold title directly without a fideicomiso. The lake's level and water quality vary year to year; a lakefront lot's shoreline is not fixed.

— John Forget, Mexico Life Realty