I was born in the United States and I later naturalized in Peru. I made my purchases on both sides of that line. The mistakes below are the ones I see in other buyers, and a few I understand because the shortcut is tempting. I am not your lawyer. Where the mistake is legal, the person who catches it should be yours.
Treating a low price as a finished life
An 8×20 meter lot for a few thousand dollars can be a real offer in a provincial town. It is land, or it is a shell. It is not a house with a tank, a roof, and wiring you would trust in an earthquake. People fly home and describe the purchase as if the asking price were the project. The project includes building, or years of watching an empty lot. I wrote a companion note on what cheap property looks like.
Buying the sunny Saturday
Listings are taken when the light is kind. Friday night may be a discoteca. Dawn may be a church loudspeaker and roosters. The street may be a mototaxi route. In the Andes, the pretty flat below a slope may be a huaico path in the rains. On the north coast, a dry week does not answer El Niño. In Lima, nobody warns you that May to October is gray garúa and the house was not built to feel warm. If you will use the road in February, see February, or admit you have not seen it.
Skipping the rental
A few months in a rented place is dull and it is cheaper than a bad deed. You learn the hospital, the market, and whether you sleep. I will help arrange that. Buyers who refuse it are often protecting a fantasy, not a calendar.
Ignoring altitude
Cusco’s center is about 3,400 meters. Puno is about 3,800. Huancayo is about 3,200. Arequipa is about 2,300, which people dismiss and then feel. A long weekend is a poor test, especially if you spent it in a hotel bed. I am not a doctor. If your heart or lungs are a question, ask a doctor before you ask me about a neighborhood. More in the altitude essay.
Paying the English price
The same street has a Spanish asking price and an English one. Facebook groups widen the gap. I compare a number with local ranges because that is how I have bought and sold. I will not promise you the local number, and I will not pretend the gap is not real.
Confusing possession with title
A constancia de posesión means someone is there. It does not mean SUNARP will treat you as the owner. Community land, comunidad campesina or comunidad nativa, is a further step into “the person offering it may not be able to sell it.” Formalization exists and it is slow. It is not a plan you should budget as a sure thing. Read the title section with your lawyer, not as a recipe.
Falling in love inside the border strip
Foreigners generally cannot own within 50 km of the border without special authorization. Parts of the north, the south, and the Amazon are in that sentence. A beach town’s name is not a survey. I will not guess for you.
Letting one person sign for a family
A spouse under sociedad conyugal, every heir in a sucesión intestada, every co-owner. One charming seller is how a deal looks done and is not. The registry tells you the names. Your lawyer tells you who is missing.
Assuming the deed is a visa
Buying property does not grant residency. I became a citizen through a separate life, not through a closing. Overstaying a tourist stamp is a fine and a problem, not a strategy. I am not an immigration lawyer and I will not sketch the forms.
Cash that you cannot prove
Above a threshold set in UIT, payments are supposed to go through the bank. I am not printing this year’s sol figure. A cash handover is hard to prove later, and it is how a second sale of the same lot stays possible. The bank trail is boring. Use it.
Being the rich gringo
Neighbors notice the person who announces how cheap everything is, who skips a greeting, and who treats a fiesta as noise pollution. You can be foreign. You cannot be a temporary monarch. Spanish, even imperfect, changes the temperature of the street faster than a higher offer does.
If you want the practical list without the essay, the checklist prints. If you want to start, the intake is the door.