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Bobbie Snyder – Part I
Married • Vancouver, Washington • Partner, Real Estate & Beyond
“The fact is that everybody comes here with the expectation this is Mexico, but they want to change it to be like home.”
Bobbie and Bill Snyder are early retirees who pulsate with energy, fed by a tropical climate that allows them access to the outdoors every day of the year. They fled the cold and windy winters of the Pacific Northwest nine years ago and have never looked back. Like their baby boomer cohorts, Bobbie and Bill were up for an adventure and seeking a sun-soaked Paradise south of the border. They found it in Puerto Vallarta.
At sixty-three, Bill Snyder is a Little older tan the age-defined baby boomer. He was born and raised in Vancouver, Washington, and lived in that area his entire life prior to coming to Puerto Vallarta. His father was a farmer, so Bill grew up knowing the value of hard work. After Bill graduated from the University of Oregon with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and business management, he returned to Vancouver and worked for several companies doing financial work. In 1976, a friend who attended the same church that he did told him of a business opportunity to purchase the Anderson Glass company, an existing firm that was in the construction business, selling glass and structural products.
Bill sold his business in 1966 and retired at the young age of fifty-one. He had worked hard all of his life; in fact, he had a checking account when he was eleven years old and was paying into Social Security by the time he was fourteen. His parents taught him about the value of hard work and responsibility, and it paid off for him later in life.
Bobbie was born in Seattle at the beginning of the baby boomer wave in 1946, but she doesn’t remember much about the city because her family moved to Hawaii when she was very young. She was raised on the windward side of Oahu in a small town called Kailua. At that time, Hawaii was still a territory and not a state. She recalls growing up in an idyllic environment, similar to what she found years later in Vallarta. “We grew up not wearing shoes, spending most of our time at the beach, and enjoying the beauty and sunshine of Hawaii, much of what I love about PV now,” Bobbie says.
Bobbie moved to Vancouver, Washington, in the mid-1980s because she had a friend there who kept raving about it.
Her daughter was about ready to go to college, and her son was in ninth grade at that time. She got a job in the construction industry and worked in that business for about four years. But when her son graduated from high school and was ready to go to collage, she also decided to go, while continuing to work full-time. The only class she could if into her busy Schedule was real estate, and she enjoyed it so much that after three months of school Bobbie decided to become a real estate agent.
She was successful from the very beginning of her real estate career and was a top seller in the Portland-Vancouver area for nine years. Bobbie was on the top of her game just at the time Bill decided to take early retirement. She had her own radio talk show on real estate and was one of the top producers in the area. She wasn’t sures he was ready for retirement.
When Bill retired, he and Bobbie moved to a new home they had built on the Long Beach peninsula, situated at the mouth of the Columbia River. They lasted just one year at their retirement place, driven south by too much wind and rain. “I refused to spend another winter at Long Beach and told Bill to get me out of here,” Bobbie laughs. Bill had purchased four lots as investments and built what they initially thought was just going to be a beach house, but turned into, at least for a year, their first retirement home. “We just couldn’t survive the winters, “says Bill. “The first January we spent there, it rained twenty-eight days. Bobbie was used to the weather in Hawaii and needed the sun and warmth.”
Bill had visited Puerto Vallarta several times, but Bobbie had never been. PV was on Bill’s retirement short list of resort areas on Mexico’s west coast, base don the positive experiences he had in PV on vacation. He loved the weather, the beaches, the warm bay water, and especially the prospects of getting out on the bay for some good fishing. So, Bill and Bobbie got in their car and headed south of the border for a five-month car trip to Mexico to look for a new, sunnier retirement spot.
The couple’s adventure took them down the west coast of Oregon and California to Mexico and then followed the western coast of mainland Mexico all the way down to Acapulco, looking for the ideal place to buy or build a house.
As they wound their way down the serpentine Mexican coast, they stopped first in the Guaymas and San Carlos are a to look at real estate and then drove on to Los Mochis, but the desert-like topography north of Mazatlan did not appeal to them. “We aren’t desert people; we like it more tropical,” Bill explains. They pressed on down the coast to Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, then Zihuatanejo, and finally to Acapulco, stopping along the highway to check out all of the retirement possibilities.
For the most part, their five-month tour of coastal cities was uneventful, but Bobbie remembers they were scared once during the trip. “We were warned to watch out for bandits in the mountains from Acapulco north. Driving the two-lane road with many hairpin turns was scary enough, but then we came around a blind turn, and a rope went up across the road, blocking our vehicle. We thought it was bandits for sure, but it turned out to be local villagers trying to raise money for a young girl’s quincinera!” They gladly contributed, the rope was lifted, and they were once again on their way.
The couple decided Vallarta was the place for them after considering several different locations. They found a lot on a canal in Nuevo Vallarta with a boat dock and a sea wall that would allow Bill to jump in a boat and get out on to the bay with ease. They looked at each other and grinned. This was their place.
Bill and Bobbie liquidated most of their holdings in the U.S. and decided to live full-time in Mexico. They started construction on their home in Nuevo Vallarta in 1999 and were one of the first to build in that area. It took sixteen months to construct the house, base don Bobbie’s own design with the help of an architect. In building the house, they learned a very important cultural lesson: Mexican people have a difficult time saying no. Bobbie sighs, “It would have been much easier building the house if we had lived here first for a few years to better understand the culture and how business is done before plunging in and building a home.” Email to a friend.
Will continue next month…
• Please click here to read Chapter 2 – Part I
• Please click here to read Chapter 2 – Part II
• Please click here to read Chapter 2 – Part III
• Please click here to read Chapter 4 – Part I
• Please click here to read Chapter 4 – Part II
• Please click here to read Chapter 4 – Part III
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At sixty-three, Bill Snyder is a Little older tan the age-defined baby boomer. He was born and raised in Vancouver, Washington, and lived in that area his entire life prior to coming to 
When Bill retired, he and Bobbie moved to a new home they had built on the Long Beach peninsula, situated at the mouth of the Columbia River. They lasted just one year at their retirement place, driven south by too much wind and rain. “I refused to spend another winter at Long Beach and told Bill to get me out of here,” Bobbie laughs. Bill had purchased four lots as investments and built what they initially thought was just going to be a beach house, but turned into, at least for a year, their first retirement home. “We just couldn’t survive the winters, “says Bill. “The first January we spent there, it rained twenty-eight days. Bobbie was used to the weather in Hawaii and needed the sun and warmth.”
trip. “We were warned to watch out for bandits in the mountains from Acapulco north. Driving the two-lane road with many hairpin turns was scary enough, but then we came around a blind turn, and a rope went up across the road, blocking our vehicle. We thought it was bandits for sure, but it turned out to be local villagers trying to raise money for a young girl’s quincinera!” They gladly contributed, the rope was lifted, and they were once again on their way.