Advice Please!!!
 

Myself and my partner will be landing in Vancouver next month staying in an hotel in Burnaby for the first 2 weeks. I'm really worried about not having permanent accommodation there after for at least 6 months or more. I have been emailing lots of advertisements of apartments but we have not had any replies! What are we doing wrong? Any ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated :)

Thank you

Re: Advice Please!!!
 

Daisytop33,

You are doing the exact thing as myself, i am off to vancouver in June 08, staying in happy days inn burnaby for 10 days then hopefully settle into an accommodation for a while. Try concertproperties.com for affordable accommodation, you may have to go on a waiting list.

Are you a nurse if so which hospital r u working at, pm me for my email i am trying to organise a little do in vancouver for all british nurses to meet and exchange ideas.

Take care

Re: Advice Please!!!
 

Hi San38, thank you for your quick response! I'm not a nurse unfortunately, but worked in health care for 19 years now. But a meet would be fantastic! we fly out on the 17th of May and are staying at the Accent inn in Burnaby for the first 2 weeks. I went on kijiji and saw lots of great apartments but we haven't had one reply! Sooo annoying. I will try the site you sent me right away and thanks again :)

Re: Advice Please!!!
 

oh great did u try out the website? You'll be there a month before me keep me posted. Let me know what its like in Burnaby.

Re: Advice Please!!!
 

You're doing the right thing, but be prepared to extend your stay at the hotel...

You have two options:

1) Short term furnished apartment
These are more set up for corporate purposes, and hence much more expensive. The apartments are have everything you need, it's just like staying in a hotel. We (and many others) used these as as short term solution for a couple of months. Google Bruce Ward Reality - there were very good.

2) Long term unfurnished
99.9% of rentals here are unfurnished, there is an Ikea in Vancouver so setting up on the cheap is pretty easy, but it soon adds up. You will need to be here in Vancouver to actually find an apartment. Check listings in the Vancouver Sun, Craigslist, and just wander round neighborhoods you like - a lot of places just put a sign up in the window.

The rental market here is extremely hot, the best places go very quickly. Most lease contracts terminate at the end of the month, and tenants need to to give a months notice. So if you find a place 1st June, expect to move in 1st July. Anything thats vacant is likely to less desirable or over priced.

What's you budget, and what location do you want to be in? The building we used to live in is great, right downtown and on the seawall. I can PM you the property mangers details if you like, there's likely to be a wait list, but it's worth a try.

Good luck,
Rob

Re: Advice Please!!!
 

We stayed in a motel for a month, gave us time to check out the ads in the paper and find rental accommodation in an area we liked. The accommodation is one thing, but being in an area you like is also important. My suggestion, stick with the motel for a few weeks and find the rental when you get here.

Re: Advice Please!!!
 

Canadians are poor about responding to e-mails, particularly when it's a seller's market.

Besides that, I strongly advise you against renting sight unseen. Some places may look fine on a website, but are scuzzy in real life.

Other posters have given you good advice about planning to stay in short term accommodation for about a month while you get a longer term rental sorted out. I think you'd get pretty tired of staying in a hotel or motel for very long if you weren't able to self-cater (and besides, it would be expensive to eat out all the time). A furnished apartment or an apartment hotel is the way to go.
x

Re: Advice Please!!!
 

In Calgary I have had a few reply about apartments by email... going to look at a few when i get there.

However, would rather share with someone from the company I think.

Re: Advice Please!!!
 

I hired a real estate agent - he took me to see about 8-9 places the third day I was here and taught me a lot about the market and the areas - the next time we went out, I was much more informed and I rented a place.

Didn't cost me anything and saved me a lot of aggro.

Don't know if realtors do this in vancouver (many don't do leases anyway I hear) but you might want to try this route. I'm in toronto but maybe someone out in BC could recommend someone to you?

Re: Advice Please!!!
 

Do you mean that you'd like to share accommodation with someone who works at the same company as you do?

Is that common in the UK? (I'm not from the UK, so I genuinely don't know.)

Anyway, I advise against it. I wouldn't want to bring company politics home with me.

If you want to share an apartment or house, there are links in the Shared Accommodation section of the Wiki on Renting.
x

Re: Advice Please!!!
 

It's a big company with a few hundred pilots.. so it need not even be someone from the same fleet as myself.

I was just thinking it needs to be someone who can put up with my odd work patterns coming and going at various hours of the day night.

That was my thinking... It's not like a small company so I don't know.

I take on board what you have said though!

Re: Advice Please!!!
 

Okay, that may be different. My husband's cousin used to be a flight attendant. During that career she shared an apartment with another flight attendant. They were rarely in the apartment at the same time, and the arrangement worked out fine.

But, in my own defence, context is everything. (I confess I didn't notice the significance of your User Name. :) )
x

Re: Advice Please!!!
 

We strongly recommend Craigslist - I posted my resume (CV) and was offered 3 jobs in 3 weeks - 2 were from chancers but third is now my employer. We found our accomodation also - it has numerous fresh entries on a daily basis.

Good Luck!:thumbsup:

Re: Advice Please!!!
 

Hi Daisytop,

Indeed, there's loads on Craigslist, however we ended up with a furnished basement suite close to VGH from this place:

www.makeyourselfathome.com

Very quick, painless, and just what we needed at the time. Was a month-to-month let so very flexible.

Any q's, feel free to PM. Don't know what area of healthcare you are in, but my wife is a physio at VGH if you have any questions about working for Vancouver Coastal Health.

Good luck!

Iain

Re: Advice Please!!!
 

Just to confirm what people have said here - your best bet is to get a furnished place for a month or two, then hit the streets once you're here. You will pay a bit more, but not outrageously so - maybe 30-40% more than for an unfurnished place. We used Bruce Ward and were very happy with the service and the accommodation.