BristolUK

I think you missed my point which was reinforcing jsmth's comment about there being costs in addition to purchase costs. It wasn't about what is or isn't included in rent.

mdkdue

Hi all

I have been reading this thread with interest.

We are hoping to move to Canada early next year. The plan is to sell our house in the UK and use the equity to buy something outright in Canada.

I think we will have in the region of around $250,000+ to spend. We will be moving to BC, around Chilliwack/Abbotsford.

I have been looking at what's available and I think we will be quite limited as I don't want anything leasehold or with strata fees. Its just my wife and I, so we could easily cope with a 2/3 bedroom, and it doesn't have to be especially big. It does need to have at least two floors though.

Do you think this will be possible?

ExKiwilass

agreed.

I can see people already in Abby or the 'Whack trading up but someone from East Van, say, buying out there? very unlikely

Mikeypm

250k will get you a condo or at a push a small town home. If you want a single family home on two floors freehold non strata then you will need to increase your budget.

mdkdue

I have seen some around the 230,000 mark. Nothing fancy but big enough for us. These were freehold and non strata.

Mikeypm

As of next month I will be working from home and visiting customers,so only occasionally will need to go into the office. So no need to be near downtown and hence widening the house search area.

withabix

Cheaper properties might not be where you want to be, location-wise.

You may also need to budget for what they call 'deferred maintenance' and significant defects over here - especially things you do not normally consider in the UK, such as cracked foundation slabs, a new roof, a new furnace, insulation, new sidings, getting rid of old buried oil tanks, dealing with flooded crawl spaces etc...

Take a look at the BC Assessment website to see what proportion of the assessed value is in the building and what is in the land.

ExKiwilass

a good inspection report will flag all of those and then you can use the leverage to knock down the price.

under BC law the previous owner should remove any oil tanks anyway.

Mikeypm

That's dependent on finding a good inspector though

withabix

Interest rate down to 0.75% this morning.

Economy worries...

ExKiwilass

we've never had a problem - go by word of mouth.

scrubbedexpat091

You might be able to get a fixer upper in Chilliwack in that budge, Abbotsford probably not, have you looked into Mission? Not the greatest city but it's only a 20 minute or so drive to Abbotsford.

Or Maybe Hope or Aggasiz, both small towns about 30-45 minutes from Chilliwack to the east.

You likely won't find anything house wise anywhere else in the lower mainland for that price range, just condos or possibly a town house, but then you are not really owning anything but the unit, and you have to deal with strata's which are unpleasant on a good day and look into the area as well, in some area's condos are not going up in value, and might even be losing value, so may not be a good investment.

mdkdue

Thanks very much for that information, I shall definitely look into those areas as we are still open to other options. The main aim is to be mortgage free!

Mikeypm

Mission maybe an option as your then on the west coast express route, about an hour half train ride into Vancouver down town. But no need to queue in traffic, no parking issues. Only problem is it only runs at rush hour,so a train in the morning and a train in the evening

Lychee

If your aim is to be mortgage free, the Lower Mainland is not the place to do it unless you are prepared to downsize to a condo or townhouse, which is a perfectly normal thing to do for most families with your budget. Otherwise, to be mortgage free AND own a sizable single family home on your budget, you should be looking at the Cariboo region of BC (Williams Lake, Quesnel, 100 Mile House) or Northern BC (Prince George, Prince Rupert, Stewart, Terrace), although these are real pioneering communities with the economy revolving around natural resource extraction: ranching, forestry, fishing, mining, etc. These are not communities one moves if you wish to replicate an English lifestyle.