evets

Honestly....

after chatting to my colleagues the last year. Ottawa is a goer. I am in Mississauga and they all laugh at my decision. Relocated from Melbourne, AU.
After the year here, I kinda agree.

Not sure about the IT jobs. But affordable housing yes. Mississauga/Toronto is stupid. Lack of rental vacancies, stoopid prices. Not sure what what your salary will be and what deposit you will have.

But do not think house, start thinking Condo, unless you are coming over with 500kCA$+ deposit if not more to get that house.

My first trip to Toronto did not blow my mind, was slightly disappointing. Honestly not sure who makes these lists of most livable countries.

EDIT- Noted the fact you made comments about your deposit in a previous post. Completely missed that.

DigitalGhost

Possibly slightly OT but why did you leave Melbourne for Mississauga? Were you just looking to get out of Australia?

One thing to possibly keep in mind is that Ottawa is the democratic capital and Canada is an officially bilingual country so some jobs, especially in the public sector, might expect at least some level of French proficiency.

scilly

have you checked the weather???

Ottawa is the 7th coldest capital in the world


I still do not believe that 1.5 million is enough of a cushion to allow you to buy a house and 2 properties for rental

evets

I do wonder this myself. And a large majority of people I speak to since I have been in Mississauga make the same comment.

Left Australia due to numerous reason's, which I look back and think WTF. I did not leave because I hated or had enough, but due to work situation and ageist job market and finding myself in a very niche role and not keeping up a rapidly change IT job market. My own bad.

Easy in hindsight to reflect. Funnily enough, I did read a few posts on here prior to relocation about people making the same move from Melbourne to GTA and them returning. Re-reading the posts they kinda make sense.

Trying to make the best of my situation and make a decision on my future.

evets

I should add since my decision and spending some on here and another expat forum, I sometimes question my thoughts above and think yes it was a wise move. Maybe not Mississauga but at least Canada.

dbd33

I worked for a year in Ottawa, commuting weekly by car from Toronto. I hated it then but, on consideration, Ottawa might work. It's a small city so it's feasible to commute from quite far out and so afford 2500 sq ft on a sensible lot without straining the budget. There's easy access to outdoor stuff, Gatineau Park, for example, is huge. It's not a lively place and you are not going to make a fortune in appreciation on your house there but it's physically attractive with a big river and canals (a colleague used to fish at lunchtime).

Snags are:

- there's lots of computing but it's not banking so adjustments would have to be made

- the climate. The place is in a swamp so, when it's not frozen, it's a steaming mass of bugs.

- housing will always be "affordable" so, given the constant price appreciation in Vancouver and Toronto, moving to Ottawa rules out moving to either of those places later.

DandNHill

Wow I was just looking on Realtor.ca. You could buy three houses for $1,000,000 and still have change.

BristolUK

I bought two from $250k and had plenty of change.
Not in Ottawa of course.

carcajou

I agree, with some of the above posts that if you are not beholden to Toronto, Ottawa could work, and may in fact be preferable.

I also believe you could probably swing a house and two rentals on $1.5 million.

Access to US universities for your children is not realistic. If that's an important priority for you, then consider the earlier posts about investment-based Green Cards. There is no North American version of Free Movement, Schengen or the EU; Canadian citizens pay the same exorbitant international tuition rates as anyone else who is not a US citizen, and Canadian citizens have no ability to live and work in the US without an appropriate visa. High-level academic programs at Canadian government high schools are designed to funnel kids into the Canadian university system, not the American one; Canadian high schools are not better equipped to send graduates to US universities than an IB-aligned international school in the UK that American expats send their kids to. The SAT can be taken in the UK.

dbd33

Which is, of course, a wholly reasonable basis for comparison!

What's missed here is that the population of the GTA is largely immigrants, very many of them are in Canada because they had no path to the US. Education can provide that path for their children and it's this aspiration to which the schools cater. Americans in London are a different case as they are not a majority. Palestinian schools might be a better comparison, many people in Palestine will aspire to move on.

Winterdiva

Scilly, we have small sum of money set aside for the move. Also, we wont just buy the properties on day1. The plan is - DH moves first and finds work. He then starts looking for a family home to buy. Once we finalise this property, I will quit my job here in London and prepare to move. After we all move and I find job, next thing is to settle into a routine (appx a year). THEN we will start looking for properties to invest rest of the money in (whatever is left after we buy our family home, 2 cars etc)

BristolUK

I'm still thinking one rental property might do it as mentioned earlier.