Dare to Dream? Dare to Scheme

Dream House

Jim Telshaw was able to build his dream house in Mexico on a firefighter's salary.

"It takes a little bit of patience and a little bit of know-how," says Telshaw, 54, who moved to the seaside village of San Carlos, Sonora, nearly 20 years ago, shortly after retiring from the fire department in Lake Tahoe, California.

He now owns three houses in San Carlos and lives in a two-bedroom house surrounded by a six-foot hedge with his wife, a native of Mexico. Together, they run a local flower nursery.

Telshaw built the house himself for approximately $50,000, financing the construction from the sale of his house in California and the proceeds from his retirement account with the Public Employee Retirement System.

Getting a mortgage in Mexico was out of the question--interest rates are outrageous--so Telshaw had to build his house in stages, paying local contractors in cash in incremental stages from his nest egg back in the United States, as U.S. Customs laws don't let Americans bring more than $10,000 into Mexico without declaring it.

It took some time, but Telshaw finally had the house he wanted. And he's thrilled about his new country. "You can't imagine what this is like. Fishing, kayaking, dune buggies, everything. It's got to be the best kept secret in the universe."

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