Our founder was scammed.

It’s not a story we tell a lot, but we’re going to tell it here.

It is the year 2002 and you are buying your first property in Playa. Back then you could get some really amazing deals. He was paying approximately $200,000 for land very close to Fifth Avenue. A property he could build a bunch of condos on… It was the bargain of the century!

The guy who was buying it from assured him that he didn’t need to involve an agent. The agents just steal some of the capital through commissions…just a waste of money. They could go directly to the notary… the notary would take care of everything.

So they did it. They went directly to the notary, the notary saw that the money was transferred from the buyer to the seller. The notary gave him a receipt that looked like it came from an ATM from the 80s. Everything was ready.

On John’s property was a small house, John intended to tear it down and build condominiums on it. Since he didn’t have the money to do it now, his plan was to wait a couple of years. So he rented the house and went to the United States.

When he returned that same year, there was another person living in his house. John asked him why he lived there and he told him that they had rented it from the “landlord.” John informed him that he was the owner. That’s when he started the fun.

It turned out that “the bargain of the century” was a fraud. The “new” tenant was in cahoots with the former owner and the notary. This triggered an episode that would result in a notary having his notary license revoked and several people being jailed. But that whole process took several years and cost a lot of money.

What John didn’t know at the time was that he could have avoided all of this with proper representation. If he had had someone who understood what his rights were, who understood how the laws worked in Mexico and, more importantly, how those laws applied to him as a non-Mexican, he would have known that there were steps he could have taken on contract day. . to protect himself. Of course he didn’t know any of this… Eventually he figured it all out… Unfortunately it cost him years of his life and a lot of money.

And that’s the backstory of how American Realty was founded. John saw that what the area needed was someone who could ensure the safety of people looking to purchase real estate. American Realty was founded with the idea that this should not happen to other people. Today John has a partner and has an entire team dedicated to protecting people who buy real estate in the Riviera Maya. His mantra is simple:

Don’t do things on your own

Don’t take risks with your money

Protect yourself

In 2005, American Realty was established in Mexico. Since then, John and his partner have worked diligently as owner-operators of the most respected real estate company in the area. They have closed hundreds of transactions and represented people of many nationalities, all based on the American Realty promise: