Doug and Charlotte Armstrong spend six months a year in Puerto Vallarta primarily in Nuevo Vallarta.
Doug is AMPI certified real estate agent, works across both Nayarit and Jalisco, and handles the transaction: the negotiating, the paperwork, and the part that decides what a deal is actually worth. He came to it after thirty-seven years in financial services, and before that he curled at a national level, which between them taught him to read a deal and to stay calm when the pressure arrives. He will also tell you to rent a season before you buy anything, which costs him sales he could have had this year. He makes that trade on purpose.
Charlotte knows the towns, and what actually separates them, which is more than anyone expects from places fifteen minutes apart. Which ones you can walk and which ones need a car. Where getting to the beach is easy and where it quietly is not. And what each of them is like in February when it is full, and again in September when it is not, because the bay has two personalities a year and most visitors only ever meet the charming one.
This site exists because the mistake people make is not coming to Mexico. It is choosing the wrong part of it.
Two weeks is not a winter.
Ask a local ex-pat how they
chose the Banderas Bay area and how they spent six months a year in Puerto Vallarta.
A holiday is a poor test
On a holiday you are out most of the day and asleep by the time the street gets loud. You eat out, so you never find out where the grocery store is or what it stocks. You are here in February, when the weather is doing its best work, and gone by the time the rain arrives.
None of that matters for two weeks. All of it matters for six months.
This is why we created a guide of questions and information to consider when deciding to stay in Puerto Vallarta for the winter.
If you are still working out whether to do this at all
Plenty of people arrive here having already chosen Mexico and even chosen this bay. Plenty of others are earlier than that, and still deciding whether a long stay is for them, or weighing this coast against somewhere they already know.
Doug and Charlotte were in the second group for a long time. Thirty winters in Arizona, then Cancun, then Cabo, and each of those ended for a different and quite specific reason. They did not choose this bay so much as stop looking.
If that is where you are, start there rather than with the areas.
The bay, north to south
Banderas Bay runs about forty kilometres from Punta Mita in the north down to the south shore. Two states, a dozen towns, and they are not interchangeable.
NAYARIT
Punta Mita — The north tip, on a peninsula. Gated, private and quiet, with golf and the large hotels. A surf beach, and the longest airport run on the bay.
La Cruz de Huanacaxtle — A working fishing village with a yacht marina attached, and the best market on the bay on a Sunday.
Bucerías — A real town rather than a development. Walkable, busy and loud, and the best place on the north shore if you want to leave the house and be somewhere.
Nuevo Vallarta — Planned from scratch, wide and green and mostly gated. A long flat beach, and home for Doug and Charlotte.
JALISCO
Marina Vallarta — Boats, golf, and the shortest drive to the airport.
Hotel Zone — The line of towers along the beach north of town.
Versalles — Inland, residential, and where a lot of the good eating has ended up.
Centro — The historic core. Cobblestones, the Malecón, and the most walkable part of the bay.
Zona Romántica - Old Vallarta south of the river, and where the bay socialises.
The south shore — Mismaloya, Boca de Tomatlán, and the places past where the road gets interesting.
How this works
Doug and Charlotte work with Fabris Corp, which has been doing real estate in the Banderas Bay area for more than twenty years and keeps an English-speaking lawyer in house. On a purchase here that lawyer is involved from early on rather than at the end, which is not how most Canadians and Americans are used to buying.
The split between the two of them is simple. Doug is AMPI certified, so the transaction is his. Charlotte does the part that comes first, which is where to be. She helps with open houses, helps show homes, and makes the videos of the properties for sale, which means she spends her days in other people's houses looking at them the way a buyer will.
Wherever you are in this
Still working it out
Most people find this site long before they are ready to buy anything, and often before they are sure they want a season here at all. That is the normal way round.
Start with the guide. It has the eight questions worth answering before you look at a single place, and you can keep it.
Ready to look seriously
If you have done the thinking, or you have rented a season already and know what you want, the next step is a conversation rather than more reading.
Doug has current figures for the specific areas you are considering, with the reasoning attached. There are none on this site on purpose.
Six months a year in the Puerto Vallarta area. This website will help you narrow down what to know.
Two Weeks is Not a Winter
A free guide for Canadians and Americans working out their first long stay on Banderas Bay.
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What a holiday hides, and what to look for instead
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How the towns differ, from the north end of the bay to the south shore
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The questions to answer before you start looking at places