Outside the Boom

San Miguel de Allende has a way of reinventing itself every few years—new faces, new accents, new construction projects. According to the Mexico Relocation Guide website, the current population of San Miguel de Allende is about 66,000 in the city proper, and about 10% of those are expats from Canada or the USA. During the various cycles of the housing boom here, it seems like everyone is either buying a house, building a house, or selling a house, to the point that one of the nicknames for the town is “San Miguel se vende” (San Miguel for sale).

When we arrived here twenty years ago, the town was in one of the "up" cycles of the boom. My partner and I were trying to figure out the local scene, get to know it, and find a way to make a living down here playing music.

One of our first forays into the scene was an art opening at the newly repurposed Fábrica La Aurora. Before that, it was a textile factory, employing thousands of people in town from 1902 until its closure in 1991. The old-timers here say you could hear the whistle all over town, marking the shift change.

It was later transformed into a space for fine dining and art galleries and reopened to the public in 2004.

We were at an art opening that fall, sipping white wine and schmoozing. I was chatting with a woman.

Me: How long have you been in SMA?

She: Oh, five years or so.

Me: What do you do?

She: I paint, but I mostly do real estate. My husband used to be a musician, but now he's in real estate too. Anybody who isn't in real estate is stupid. And what do you do?

Me (gulp): I play guitar.

She sips her wine. Conversation over.

We had plenty of chances to get into real estate, either by buying a house, building something, or by managing someone else's project, but it never appealed to us.

I know people buy and sell homes, and there needs to be professionals who can help them navigate the territory, especially when buying in a foreign country. But it’s just not our gig.

We never did become realtors, or buyers, or builders; however, we did find our place—a small rented house in a Mexican neighborhood, surrounded by roosters, sheep, dogs, and the steady pulse of Norteño music. And honestly, that’s plenty for us.