Anyone in Nanaimo?
 

Would be interested in hearing what you like and do not like like about living in Nanaimo.

There appears to be more properties for sale with ocean views than other cities/towns on the Island and they seem to be cheaper than Duncan and Chemainus. Any comments about the area please.

Re: Anyone in Nanaimo?
 

No one at all ?????????? Got info from sans and would like to hear from more people please.

Re: Anyone in Nanaimo?
 

Hi we live in Calgary and just took a 7 week road/camping trip touring B.C. Vancouver Island is wonderful, we stayed in Nanaimo for a couple of days but it wasn't our favourite place - it's hard to say why because it is certainly better then the UK. It is a large port town that has the usual port town problems - homeless people, drugs, graffitti etc. Some areas of the town are better than others, why don't you try contacting the local tourist info or look at the town website for crime figures etc? We only drove through Duncan & Chemainus so I can't comment on those. How about Ladysmith or .....I'll come back to you, there were 2 or 3 places that we really liked, I will go and look them up and let you know. :)

Re: Anyone in Nanaimo?
 

Hi Investor...........we live here :D
As with anywhere else there are good & bad parts, when we came here to visit in 2004 I hated it on sight & couldn't imagine living here but there are some very nice areas around here, none of which we saw originally.
There is quite a big North/South divide with the North end deemed the 'better' end of the city, Mount Washington is approx 90 minutes away as is Victoria & its only about 15 mins to the Vancouver ferry if we fancy a 'big city' fix :)
www.nanaimoinformation.com might be worth a look.

Re: Anyone in Nanaimo?
 

There are a couple of families from Nanaimo who post on the Brits2Vancouver group.

Clare

Re: Anyone in Nanaimo?
 

Thanks bananahammock, what made you change your mind enough to go and live there? I must admit that I have never been tempted to consider living in Nanaimo but we are looking for a house with an ocean view and that's where most of them seem to be.
Hot favourites are Chemainus and the Maple Bay area of Duncan also Mill Bay. Not keen on going further north than these places.

Re: Anyone in Nanaimo?
 

We are going to Campbell River further north and travelled down the island to Victoria last year. I preferred the northern towns and out of all the towns we travelled through I liked Duncan least. It felt uncared for compared to the others. Been told there are great sea views in Courteney-Comox.

Re: Anyone in Nanaimo?
 

Yes Duncan downtown is a bit scruffy but the Maple Bay area is lovely with a great marina. We don't really want to go further north than that because during our research we found that there is much more rainfall north of Nanaimo.
Campbell River is where the smelly plant is which ruled it out too.

Re: Anyone in Nanaimo?
 

hi , I am a friend of Banana hammock and live in Union Bay South Courtenay.
Your age and your work hopes and money will be your deciding factor in where you live.
I could not live in most of Nanaimo, too busy, but literally minutes from the town there are nice houses, like little villages some with sea views but for the best you are looking at $800K for a good sea view (near ocean). Up hear cheapest I see a tmoment is $450K
As for Cambell River smelling! you obviously have not spent any time in Nanaimo! I have only once been when there has not been a foul odour throughout the place. If you live anywhere near the Duke Point ferry god help it honks, not sure where it comes from but it is awful. Dont move anywhere near a timber mill. House in Cambell river have jumped 30% in last year, it is a very prosperous town, and good potential in future. Money will be bvery wekk invested in property there.

Popular places are Lantzville and Nanoose just north of Nanimo , but pricey. We origianally looked at Duncan and Mill bay, did not like duncan or chemainus or Ladysmith. Mill Bay was expensive when we looked but seem to have stayed very much the same over two years, which has actually made it more affordable to us if we moved there now. So much building has been done over the last two years, so a lot of new houses have sold and older ones taking longer.

We chose Courtenay for life style, 30 mins to mountain, we live across from the ocean, surrounded by provincial park, and prices were zooming. 45 mins on highay to nanaimo, so was the town. Our house has doubled in price since being built 2 years ago. We are in a very nice neighbourhood.

Downside, jobs hard to come by, too many people too few jobs. No big business & tourism and retail mainly. It is who you know around here. You need a certificate to cross the road here, and to the point of ludicrous to be honest.
If you have kids stay south or Nanaimo, older kids hate it here ususually , too many retired or semi retired like us living here!

If you can afford an ocean view then grab it, there are few left, and attract the buyers. But look into the area.

We love it here, we cannot believe our dream has really come true, and would never return to Uk. At the moment we are staying put in the Comox valley as there is huge potential for the town, and lots happening.

Also as for rainfall!, we have had glorious sun for months, and when I watch the forecast it is the valley that seems to escape the rain when Victoria and Nainaimo get hit. Also more storms and heavier snow falls down south it seems. We are protected by the valley. We had 4m on the mountain this year fantastic skiing, Only two odd days where we live. You can golf in morning and ski in afternoon.

Comox valley is a hidden gem, that we nearly missed. So glad we didnt. The whole island is a fantastic place to come to so if you do pick the wrong place you can always move later.
Good hunting!


w

Re: Anyone in Nanaimo?
 

Hubby had a job offer here & I knew that a few days holiday was probably not enough time to make an informed decision. Personally I liked Victoria but unfortunately our pockets weren't quite deep enough, we also started out looking for the 'ocean view' but ended up being more taken with the countryside :rolleyes: but then again, the ocean is only 5 minutes away.

Also, we came with teenagers & realised that some parts of the Island they would have found incredibly boring, Nanaimo has a choice of secondary schools (some better than others) a University ~ our daughter started last week :eek: a couple of cinemas, easy access to downtown Vancouver etc etc........................ Yes the pulp mill smells sometimes but I can honestly say we can rarely smell it.
It took us 4 months to get our own house & that gave us time for a good look around................I am friends with 'stainedglasslady' & when she visited earlier this year she was (I hope!!) pleasantly surprised with the areas we had discovered but would never had time to find originally, there are also a lot of rundown areas that we would not consider living in.
I suppose at the end of the day we took a chance ~ as we all do in coming here.............it was hard work selling our house in Bristol & house prices here were escalating all the time, there are good & bad points to living here but for the whole family it seemed like the 'best fit' .................time will tell eh?

Added a couple of photos of where we live :)

Apologies if I've posted any of these photos before.

Re: Anyone in Nanaimo?
 

Yes we liked Parksville and Qualicum Beach but they are a bit like heaven's waiting room!!!!!


It's got to be ocean or lake view. Got to have water nearby.



That's great to hear you are settled and hope we will find it quickly.

Thanks for your post gooding.

Re: Anyone in Nanaimo?
 

Hi again bananahammock. Did you rent short term to start with? If so can you recommend anywhere? We have friends near Victoria but don't want to impose on them for too long.


Thanks for taking the trouble to post the photo's.

Re: Anyone in Nanaimo?
 

Investor sent you a PM

Re: Anyone in Nanaimo?
 

I'll PM you with more details :)

Re: Anyone in Nanaimo?
 

The plant (wood pulp) is out the north end of town and you only get the smell up there when the wind blows the wrong way, it doesn't affect the rest of the town at all. Most of the new builds in Campbell River are at the southern end of town so the plant is like 6 miles away. Anyway there are worries it will be closing. We were there last October, and it rained a bit, but there was still great weather in between - a bit like here really but more so. In April it was hotting up nicely, and ellsie's relatives say the summer was super.

We bought a house there last year to get our credit rating going and take advantage of the boom, and prices have shot up, and are still climbing. Lucky we bought another one in April before it got too pricey.

not ellsie, OH :D