Hi all,

Just been reading the message about landing without a job, very interesting. We are in the same boat and it is making us nervous as we are probably going to have to use all are funds to buy a house. Do most people buy straight away? What have most people done? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. The closer we get the more excited we are but also the more panicked we get over this whole issue of house/work/money thing. , .

cheers

Dan & Ceri

Hi,
we arrived in December '06 and we stayed in a B&B for 6 days whilst we found a house to rent and moved in straight away.
We rented because although we have spent the last few years trying to get here you never know if you will want to stay here or the different areas etc. so personally we have found it better to rent first you can ask people about different areas to live etc, and if you have kids the schools are attended by where you live - i think although we have no kids so i may be wrong....

we found a very good realtor who found us a house to rent quickly and walked us through the process, it isn't that expensive and we felt it was better to get to know the area first... although most rentals are 1 year contracts....
whatever you decide will be great, where are you going???

Good luck in your adventure....

cath

We landed without jobs. We weren't prepared to rent at all and so I came over 2 months before landing and bought a house. We took possession of the house the day we landed.

We had sufficient funds to be able to put in excess of 35% down but, if we hadn't, we would have qualified for a mortgage based on UK salary (they allow you to do this even though they know you will be unemployed shortly) this may be an option for you.

HTH

thanks for that. we are heading to calgary, we have three boys under 4 so schools are very important.

Hi
We land in 3 weeks. Hubby is keen to buy a house asap, but I feel we should wait until he has a job. Its a tough decision, but I dislike the idea of moving twice, from rented to our own house. I cant imagine packing up and moving again once in Canada and also its more unsettling for our little children.
We're lucky as we have a friends furnished appartment we can stay in for as long as we like, so can consider our options.
Good luck
Nik

do you have more info on the mortgage with british salaries taken into account? we should have 35% but would probs clean us out.

is that hoylake, wirral? we are in prenton and applied at the same time, had our medicals yesterday.

Hi
Yep, sure is Hoylake, Wirral. Small world hey.
Where are you headed?
Hope your meds went well - where did you go?
Nik

We got ours through TD Canada - but most of the major banks should do so. I would suggest you contact a mortgage broker in the area you want to settle. They will then be able to advise you accordingly

headed to calgary, meds in manchester seemed to go ok, that was fun with 3 kids under 4! Good luck with the move in May, we hope to land October time.

Excellent, thank you! What area of Calgary have you settled in?

SW - love it

Hi
We went to Altrincham for meds. Pretty quick service, meds sent to CIC in about a week and we got PPR about a month later. Good luck - hope you hear soon.
Its starting to get a bit manic around here with the flights booked for 3 weeks time! Agggghhhh.... so much to do. Tip (especially with little children) do as much as possible ahead of time!
Good luck with the move to Calgary in October.
Nik

It would be a good idea to do some research on schools if this is important. We came to Calgary 9 years ago when our daughters were 1 and 2 so we also looked for a neighbourhood where there was a good school within walking distance.

So, we found a house in a good neighbourhood in the SW, near a good school, near transit. The school is French immersion but started out with an English program as well. We put our kids in French immersion but the red flags about the future of the school went up almost immediately following the start of kindergarten for our oldest. By the end of that year, the English program had been removed. Over the years it seems the school board has done its best to create a situation where they would have to close the school. Yesterday was the vote. The French immersion program is closing at the end of June. So, no English, no French, no other program, no students. What do you think the next step is? Close the school all together.

So, we choose a neighbourhood based in large part on the fact that there is an excellent school within walking distance, and our kids don't even get to complete elementary school there. They're on a bus this fall.

So, do your research. Unfortunately you can't read the mind of the school board.