Buying in Merida

Buying an apartment in Merida usually means buying into a development rather than onto a street. Cabo Norte is the clearest case: a gated project of some 150 hectares with lakes and the La Isla Mérida mall inside it, entered straight off the Periférico. Santa Gertrudis Copó sits astride the ring road at the kilometer 29 interchange, where Avenida Andrés García Lavín ends after linking the subdivisions along its route. Montebello belongs to that same García Lavín axis, a consolidated subdivision about seven kilometers from the center and south of the Periférico.

What to consider before buying

The other option is to skip the developments. Merida Centro is where the city's bus routes converge and where groceries, offices and schools share the same blocks, so an apartment there is bought for what is reachable on foot, a few blocks north of the Plaza Grande, where the Thursday serenatas, free open-air concerts, have filled the Parque de Santa Lucía since January 1965. If the beach is the plan, price it first: buying in Telchac Puerto, on the coast northeast of Merida and farther out than the closer beach towns, sits well above the city.