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By THE PULSE NEWS MEXICO STAFF

Thanks to international work-from-homers, about 3 million of whom have chosen Mexico as their remote office destination-of-choice since the outbreak of the global covid-19 pandemic, the cost of rents have grown exponentially in some parts of the country.

In Mexico City alone, rents have increased by as much as 20 percent in some areas, according to Rotamundos.com, an online extended-stay rental service.

After a tweet from one U.S. digital nomad posted in February calling Mexico City a “truly magical” place to work remotely went viral, there has been a sudden flood of foreigners coming to the capital to cash in on warm weather and lower prices as they work remotely for their offices back home, Rotamundos said.

Among the top areas in Mexico City for these global work-from-temporary-homers are Colonias Condesa, Roma Sur and Roma Norte, where rental prices have skyrocketed so high that the some local residents claim that now only foreigners can afford to live there.

There has also been an increase in the number of extended-stay tourists in key Mexican beach resorts, such Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlán, Acapulco, Cancun and Tulum, as well as in other attractive cities for foreigners such as San Miguel de Allende, Monterrey and Querétaro.

Rotamundos CEO Javier Cárdenas Ibarra noted that the phenomenon of digital nomads will also cause vacation rentals of houses or apartments to increase 20 percent this year.

“These digital nomads are looking for properties with certain standards: a good internet connection, a good bed, a cleaning service and homes that are also sustainable and ecological,” Cárdenas Ibarra said.

Since these foreigners can now commute to their offices via the World Wide Web, he said, they are extending their stays from what used to be one or two weeks to up to six months or even more, he added.

Lax restrictions on masking and lockdowns during the height of the pandemic also contributed to making Mexico a destination for covid-19 escapees.

David Padrón, director of Click & Home, a business dedicated to renting houses and apartments to tourists in Tulum, said that the rental of vacation homes in that city, as well as in the entire Riviera Maya, never fell as a result of the pandemic.

“Tourists stopped coming because there were no planes, but as soon as the lockdown was lifted, they started coming back,” he said.

“Before they stayed for 14 days, but now they come to work from home for three months. They stay in one place, but they don’t like the internet or the laundry, and they go somewhere else for another three months.”

According to Click & Home, vacation rentals in Tulum are around $300 dollars per day, so it is expensive, but the price includes laundry services, room cleaning, internet, food and contact with nature.

“Yes, people come and go, not only from the United States, but from Mexico,” he said.

“Right now we are full of people from New York, California and Texas. A lot of Russians are also arriving.”

“In Mexico, inflation compared to the United States is lower and people with higher purchasing power can live better here,” added Claudia Velázquez, director of operations at Softec, a real estate consultant.

In Tulum alone, Velázquez said, there are more than 6,000 properties that are available for rent through platforms such as Airbnb, Booking, HomeAway, Expedia and Despegar.com. In Playa del Carmen, there are around 10,700 homes, and in Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo, there are some 5,000 homes for rent.