noodlesandcheese

Hello all, I'm new to the forum although a long time lurker so hopefully posting in the right place.

We (husband, our baby and myself) are looking to move to Nova Scotia under the PNP scheme but I'm a bit worried that we're suffering from emmigration rose tinted spectacles, so would greatly appreciate any opinions on our plans.

We've been to NS before and loved it, and we're used to/happy in the cold (husband and I spent two years working together on a research project in Siberia).

My husband and I are in the same field of work, I am considerably more senior and experienced but I intend (with husband's full support) to be a stay at home mum to our son. I have been offered two jobs in NS in my field, so perhaps in the future I could work if I wanted/needed to. The salary my husband would be likely to get would be around $40,000/$50,000 if he took the kind of job he wants, but he has been offered a job at $70,000.

We would be bringing around $470,000 with us. We've been having a look at houses and we've seen a couple we really like for around the $50,000 mark. We were thinking of buying another house with some of the surplus money to rent out as extra income and then putting the rest into savings/investing it.

We're not worried about leaving behind family as neither of us have had contact with our families for nearly ten years.

Are there any big pitfalls/mistake that we're about to make? Will our income be enough to live on? Also, is gluten free food available in supermarkets? Last time we were in NS it wasn't great but we got by easily enough, but that was five years ago.
We've thought about it so much, but we're worried that it is to good to be true, we are desperate to live in Canada.

Jericho79

$470k should buy you a nice house on the outskirts of Halifax, certainly over 2000 sq ft with land.

There's plenty of recent discussions on NS, so rather than repeat what was said in those, have a quick search.

Even mortgage free, I think you'd struggle on a single salary of $40k.
$70k would be relatively comfortable though.

My experience of NS is that most people love it for the first year, then move on because it's too expensive and/or there are not enough jobs.

Word of warning- buying and selling houses is very expensive in Canada, so I would suggest renting for a year or two to make sure you want to stay. If you buy a house and decide to leave, your realtor is going to take anything up to 6%. House prices are pretty flat in NS, so this can be quite an expensive mistake.

All the best.

DandNHill

I love NS but had to move for hubby to find a job.

I would be very careful of buying a $50,000 house... it will need lots and lots of work which might break the bank...

Where are you looking at settling? My advice is to rent to start with so you're sure you know where you want to be. Jericho is right that it is expensive to sell a house in NS but maybe more importantly it can takes years to sell a house in some parts of NS!!!

All that being said, if you have a job and are in a location that suits you, life can be great!

Jericho79

Sorry, now that I've read your question fully, I'd agree with the above poster about the $50k houses. You can buy cheap houses in NS, but it's because they're in areas where there's no work.
And in those areas, it's unlikely you'd get nominated because there's such high unemployment.

BristolUK

There are a few of us with rental properties on BE.

Not sure where you're looking at buying but we have a duplex that cost $100k in 2005. If you don't get too many problems and no periods where it's unrented you can make around $9k profit a year.

That can make quite a difference when it comes to looking at salary. Maybe part time work becomes possible or that job one enjoys rather than the better paid but stressful job.

noodlesandcheese

Thanks very much for your replies and advice.

So perhaps it would be a better idea to either keep a small house in the UK to rent out for extra income, or one in an area of Canada where the housing market is a bit more upbeat?

Sorry, I should have said that were out to move to Cumberland County, we really liked the look of the Spring hill area. I think perhaps that we will end up moving somewhere where there is high unemployment, as all the locations where my husband can do his toe of work are like this, that has always the I work our field.

Surely he could get nominated if there were jobs for him to go to? Or perhaps taking the job then getting the company to sponsor (they have offered) would be a better plan.

$9K profit in rental is far better than we had thought, that sibs great! I do raise that is dependent on a number of things, but that sounds for to me. In that case, if he had a $50k salary and then or rental income on to, would that make life difficult? We live in a very expensive part or the UK at the minute, our electricity alone is $600 per month (small 2 bed bungalow), so I do wonder how much more expensive NS could be.

Some of the $50k houses we saw looked lovely, recently renovated, good insulation (apparently) etc, but I supposed that's why we'll be looking at then with a fine tooth comb. We don't want a bit house, ideally 3 bedrooms with 1-3 acres of land in a beautiful isolated spot. The isolated but is important to us.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Thanks again, I really appreciate the advice.

noodlesandcheese

I should have also said that we have the option of New Brunswick instead $55k salary job offer for husband there), although we haven't been there, hence why we leaned towards NS.

christmasoompa

Sorry, this is completely off topic, but if you're really paying around £350 a month for electricity for a small 2 bed bungalow then something is wrong! The area you live in shouldn't make a big difference to your electricity price.

I also live in an expensive part of the UK (South East/Home Counties). I'm not on mains gas so we are entirely electric here (all hot water, heating, an electric Aga etc), our house is 5 beds and 4500sq ft, and we're not paying anywhere near that!

Id suggest you get your meter checked ASAP, or just change supplier/tariff because it sounds like your electricity bills are far higher than they should be unless you're running a tumble drier 12 hours a day and using a particularly inefficient form of heating.

Although on the plus side, you'll be prepared for NS electricity prices.

Best of luck to you.

man1mal

I am really curious to what field of work you guys are in!

tweed_wearer

I don't know anything about NS. I'm heading to vancouver, as far from NS as you can get!

That said, it seems that this move has everything going for it. I'd say go for it, rent and reevaluate after a year.

Novocastrian

What with wanting an isolated property costing $50K and that electricity bill, I think they're probably running a grow-op.

christmasoompa

That may explain it!

There's got to be a reason for it, I'm still astounded at £350 a month for a small 2 bed. My gast is flabbered.

Simon Legree

They wouldn't be the only one in this part of the world. Apparently they aren't that uncommon !

feelbritish

Although we live on the other side of Canada we kept a house (easy renting end of terrace in home counties) in UK and then brought enough funds to buy another house here outright. Best thing we ever did in our lives! That house has increased in value far more than the house here and we get a very good rental income which when we retire is going to be our largest income! I would not rent out property here in Canada, too many rules and regulations and very slanted towards the tenant! Most tenants here do not look after property. This is just what we have observed over our 12 years here! With no mortgage or debt I believe you can live quite comfortably on $55 000!

noodlesandcheese

Sorry for being absent for a while, our little boy has had a bad tummy bug so I haven't had much spare time!

OK, to clear up some queries and to try to reassure you all that we aren't anything to do with the drugs industry (though perhaps could be considered as a suffering to help with the cost of NS living...? Only joking!)

What we do, I don't really want to go into it as I don't want to out us, my husband's contact is up for renewal shortly and his employer would be less impressed if they knew we were planning on jumping ship. We are research scientists, but other than fact what we do is ethically sound, I don't really want to say more than that, hope that's OK.

Our electricity bill in the UK, I probably should have specified, we have worked outside the uk for most of the past decade, we bought and kept a small house in the UK just for security. For the last few years we let two of our friends live in the house rent free provided that they maintained it, paid the bills etc. Stupidly (and we kick ourselves daily for our foolishness) we kept the electricity account in our name so that it was less faff. To cut a long story short, they didn't pay the electricity bill at all for the years they live in our house (they were supposed to phone the company and pay by debit card every month) we didn't get any emails or notice from the company but when we arrived back in UK we find a attack of letters and threats of court on the doorstep. We now pay that much each month to clear the deficit. We're trying to get the money back from our ex friends but we (again stupidly) had no written agreement with them they're claiming that we were supposed to pay. Our solicitor is confident that we can get the money back, it's just taking a while and I was very ill through pregnancy and after birth so things stalled a bit. We can afford to pay off the deficit, but we don't want to unless we have to.

We want an isolated house as we've lived in extremely isolated areas for the last decade and it's what we like, it feels horribly claustrophobic living in our house in the UK, we didn't buy it with the intention of actually living in it ourselves but by the time we got back to the UK I was just too ill (hospitalized for almost whole pregnancy) to move house so we took the easy option.

Thanks very much for all the advice, it seems like keeping a house to rent in the UK may be the best plan. We don't have any debts (other than the electricity, grr!) so hopefully it will be enough.