Fodor's Put Mexico City on Its No List. The Real Story Is Rent.

Fodor's Put Mexico City on Its No List. The Real Story Is Rent.

Fodor's put my hometown on its No List over a housing crisis built on remote-work salaries and a deal the mayor signed with Airbnb.

Emiliano Duarte

The facade of the historic Edificio Paris apartment building in Mexico City's Centro Historico, with one incidental passer-by not individually identifiable and no commercial branding, for the piece on the city's housing crisis and short-term-rental conversion

Photo normi / Unsplash

Fodor's put my hometown, Mexico City, on its 2026 No List. Notice what the entry does not say: no cartel, no security warning. The real story is rent.

Residents of Roma and Condesa report rents of 23,000 to 30,000 pesos a month, roughly 1,200 to 1,600 dollars. In October 2022 Claudia Sheinbaum, then the mayor and now the president, signed a deal with Airbnb and UNESCO to sell the city as a hub for digital nomads. Temporary rentals climbed from 22,122 to 71,780 over the past decade, and three apartments now leave the long-term market every 48 hours. Then the government bet its housing calendar on a World Cup flood of 5.5 million visitors that arrived near 175,000. Visiting responsibly changes little. The useful thing is to notice who set the price, and when, and who signed the deal.