Greetings From Gringolandia

In the Ecuadorean city of Cuenca, locals blame expats for pushing up property prices “The wave of migrants has▶…▶begun to generate friction”

Susan Lamy and her husband, Jean Pierre, owned a successful interiordesign business in Westport, Conn., but they still worried about how they would make ends meet in retirement. “Just paying for the basic necessities was killing us, and we could see that there was no way that we would ever be able to stop working,” says Lamy.

The search for an affordable retirement spot led the couple to Cuenca, a Unesco World Heritage site in Ecuador’s southern Andes. They settled there in 2013 and now live in a spacious apartment with a terrace overlooking the Yanuncay River. Lamy says she and her husband enjoy a high standard of living in Cuenca for around $2,500 a month, paid for by their Social Security checks: “This seemed to be the best possibility for having a really terrific life on a fixed income.”

The combination of a subtropical climate, well-preserved colonial architecture, and low cost of living has made Cuenca a magnet for North American and European retirees—an estimated 5,000 now call the city of 500,000 home. Senior citizens also benefit from subsidized health care and medicine, discounted transportation, and a busy calendar of free cultural events sponsored by the city.

While some retirees have opened cafes and small stores, Ana Paulina Crespo, director of external relations for the city’s municipal government, says the new arrivals haven’t made significant contributions to the local economy. One sore point is that many rely on Ecuador’s health-care system, where the tab for heart bypass surgery is about $10,000, or less than onetenth the cost in the U.S. “The wave of migrants has been growing, and it’s begun to generate friction,” she says. “Our biggest challenge right now is to find ways to benefit from all the foreigners.” The municipality is developing policies to better integrate the immigrants, including pairing retirees who have expertise or specializations with local universities and creating opportunities for them to volunteer in the community.

When the swell of international pensioners began about six years ago, local real estate developers initially thought the new arrivals would be wealthier Americans interested in buying properties, says real estate agent Maribel Crespo, a distant relation to the mayor’s aide. Instead, most turned out to be middle-class retirees from the U.S. who live on about $1,500 to $2,000 a month and choose to rent instead of buy homes. A two-bedroom condo goes for about $700 a month, Crespo says.

Still, building costs have almost