Originally Posted by vagabonding

Good evening all, it’s been many years since I have been on this site but with the Covid lockdown it’s given me a lot of time to reflect on my 16 years in Canada. I’m starting to give serious thoughts to a potential move if to England if i can get my Canadian wife on-board ( which she isn’t at all) I am going to post in the moving back thread my whole backstory which is fairly lengthy. Anyway just wanted to see from some long timers like me if they agree that over the last 15 years the cost of living in Canada (GTA) has become outrageous. When I tell my family back home the cost of things and they have seen it themselves, they don’t know how anyone can live here. Now I’ve been very very fortunate with a very high paying job but my company recently went bankrupt ( more on that later)

when comparing things like property tax, car insurance ( which is absolute highway robbery) food, house insurance, clothing to what they cost in the UK it’s night and day. 15 years ago most things were cheaper in Canada than the UK but it’s changed so much since then. Do you agree? I just can’t see why or how anyone in the UK would come to Canada with the such a wide gap in the cost of living

Originally Posted by scilly

Then go, you're not having much fun staying here, unless you enjoy moaning about everything ......... but make sure that everyone in your family is in agreement with you.

That includes your other half, any and all children, and what your family in England really think

Think about what if your partner/children do not want to leave. Are you willing to leave them and be on your own?? Not much fun!

I've been here over 50 years, and have never wanted to live back in England from the day we left in 1967, and my feeling is that it was significantly better there then than it is now.

Just be absolutely sure that you are not just going through a bad phase where everything here is bad and everything over there is rosy. The grass is not always greener when you are actually living there ............. no matter where "it" is!

If you think your house is too big and a smaller one would be better ............ you do NOT have to live in a big house, you know.

We bought a small house in 1967, and we still live in that house. Your house is not for show off, it's for you and your family to have a comfortable life!!

Maybe you don't even have to live in southern Ontario! That's not Canada, you know!! There are a lot of cheaper places to live ............... though don't come to the Lower Mainland of BC, or you'll have more to moan about re costs

Originally Posted by scilly

Then go, you're not having much fun staying here, unless you enjoy moaning about everything ......... but make sure that everyone in your family is in agreement with you.

That includes your other half, any and all children, and what your family in England really think

Think about what if your partner/children do not want to leave. Are you willing to leave them and be on your own?? Not much fun!

I've been here over 50 years, and have never wanted to live back in England from the day we left in 1967, and my feeling is that it was significantly better there then than it is now.

Just be absolutely sure that you are not just going through a bad phase where everything here is bad and everything over there is rosy. The grass is not always greener when you are actually living there ............. no matter where "it" is!

If you think your house is too big and a smaller one would be better ............ you do NOT have to live in a big house, you know.

We bought a small house in 1967, and we still live in that house. Your house is not for show off, it's for you and your family to have a comfortable life!!

Maybe you don't even have to live in southern Ontario! That's not Canada, you know!! There are a lot of cheaper places to live ............... though don't come to the Lower Mainland of BC, or you'll have more to moan about re costs [/QUOT

im well aware of the size of Canada having bring coast to cost. Congrats on not missing England. I don’t know if you were close to your parents and siblings but I am, and the times I spend with them cannot be matched

I noticed you didn’t refute my comments regarding the property bubble and highly leveraged debt levels which consumers and the goverment have buried their heads in the sand to a large degree though they do admit that they need a large immigration number for the economics to make sense somewhat.

I’ll admit I am having a moan but that’s a brutish pastime and not always a bad thing as the brits don’t put up with the bull crap from institutions. The lack of moaning from Canadians is one of the reasons they have the most expensive car insurance, airfares, cell phone plans etc etc etc etc and .....it’s a long list as you know

my wife isn’t on-board right now but I’m hoping to convince her especially if we can make it happen that my kids will have grandparents and cousins etc close by

Originally Posted by vagabonding

An unnecessary comment which really has nothing to do with you ........... but both OH and myself were close to our families. However all members accepted that we had to do what we had to do .

I dont know your situation but why did you have to do it? surely it wasn't a life or death situation that you had to move to country you knew little about away from family and friends? I said this because you say you didnt miss England. I do miss a lot of aspects of the UK but the thing that makes me want to go back is that I can spend time with my family since Ive spent the last 20 years mostly away from the country and I am now in my early 40'sand my parents arent getting any younger. I think when we are young (certainly in my case) we have a big sense of adventurism and that the grass is greener. When we are young we dont have a sense of time or realize that life is finite. Family is family. You cant replace lost years away from them. Also how could you "feel" that life was better in 1967 in the UK then it is now? thats a broad sweeping comment from someone who left the country over 50 years ago. Both Canada and the UK are night and day compared to what they were back then.

But I would also point out that we only managed to get back to the UK every 6 or 7 years.

Maybe that was the reason why we noticed the huge differences in England every time we went back.

Plus the fact that relatives and friends would be all over us when we initially went back, but if we were there for longer than 2 weeks, as was usually the case, then they went back to their normal lives, which no longer included us.

That is something else you might have to consider. A week is fun for them, but stay a month or 3 months, and it could well be a very different mattre!

I have considered it. Its about being able to have them integrated into my life. Going hiking with my dad on a Sunday in the Lakes for example. Having my kids spending time with them on a weekly basis etc

I didn't mention the bubble, because I'm fed up of talking about it! It is no different now than it was back when we bought our house in 1972, and you'll probably think "oh she knows nothing about expense".

expense has absolutely nothing to do with the bubble. I work in finance and have studied "bubbles" and the whole of Canada is a massive bubble right now period. You are someone who could speak to this better than I can in a lot of ways given your comments about living through hard times in the 80's and 90's in Canada. This country has experienced a surge of wealth the last 15 years or so which is one of the reasons why so many people want to migrate here right now. However a lot of this wealth is akin (in my opinion and others) to a pyramid scheme. The wealth is built on the false premise that property prices will keep rising and a new steady stream of immigration is needed to fuel this. How is it reasonable or justified that house prices for example in places like London ON have more than doubled in 10 years. In some places they have tripled. All of a sudden everyone who has property is "wealthy" and they go on to buy a second property with the increase in their first property or buy a boat or fancy cars. This is a FACT. I call Canada the biggest bubble in the world right now and its so close to popping you can feel it. There was some justification for the rise in prices with a oil boom a while back but look whats happened with oil and the push to green energy. Canada has not had a credit cycle in over 20 years!!!! You said you are sick of talking about it but this is exactly the Canadian way. The lame duck media here brushes it off as do the oligopoly banks because they have a HUGE vested interest in keeping the bubble from bursting. I find it criminal that the Bank of Canada says inflation is stable....are you kidding!!!!! prices of everything is going up so much faster than wages. The GTA is living in a pipe dream right now. Reckless poor quality buildings and houses with zero investment in infrastucture. The Financial capital of a G7 country that has 2 main subway lines that look no different from when you moved here in 1967. They even have a guy with a mullet watching you drop in a token. what a joke.

Canada lost its best asset 10 years ago to the UK. Mark Carney. This country is truly stuck between a rock and a hard place. You have the most indebted consumers by a long margin, far worse than the UK and USA before the financial crisis, and the biggest housing bubble in the world with a economy that is dependent on new immigration to keep it going in the middle of a pandemic with record jobless rates.....KABOOM! I might be wrong and the party may continue for a few ore years but eventually it will burst and we will see massive austerity which Canada has seen before back in the 90's but one which this debt fuelled generation has no idea what is coming.

Not true .......... it took most of my husband's salary to pay the mortgage. Because the cost of the house exceeded the usual requirements by a mortgage company.

We scrimped and saved for it, but for years after we had plenty of months in which there would be more month left than money. Sometimes we had to decide which bill to pay and which to leave.

Amazing how many egg dishes you can make without upsetting the child too much!

It was actually just as expensive for us to buy then as it is for you now.

The only difference is that we stayed in the small house, and it gradually became easier for us to afford it, and to build an extension on the back that made life much more comfortable by adding an extra bathroom and family room. That was more affordable than moving into a bigger house that would cause more money problems for us.

I do feel a lot of pity for you. I don't know why you came, but it looks as though you might be having to make a decision between going back or staying here with your wife and family.

Dont feel pity for me. I have 2 beautiful kids and a wife though we are on very different pages right now. I want to take my money and run right now and set up a life for us in the UK. We could buy a beatiful house outright and have money to put down on a couple of other to rent out as retirement. My motives to move back to the UK are both economic, for family and cultural. I just have a sense of timing right now. I called the cyclical bubble in Toronto back in 2017 and I know its only a matter of time before Canada as a country has to deleverage like the Brits have done for the last 10 years. Now the UK is opening the taps and in my opinion, in a much better fiscal position than Canada to ride out this storm

Not fun.

Originally Posted by Siouxie

Please don't generalise... you don't KNOW that Canada's economy is going to collapse - nobody KNOWS - you believe it will...... and that's your prerogative. There are places you could 'take your money and run' in Canada, places you could buy a nice house outright and a couple of vacation properties or rental properties (ever looked at Kirkland Lake? or some of the Eastern Provinces?) -- your problem is that your wife won't agree to moving! That's the mountain you have to climb.

Instead of writing off Canada completely I'd suggest that you sit down with your wife, have a very long discussion or go and talk with a counsellor together, and make a decision you can both live with - perhaps you could take the kids back to the UK for a months holiday every year or arrange for parents to relocate to Canada.. or perhaps you will have to accept that you will grow apart from your kids and move back to the UK.. but what ever works best for you all, the uncertainty and stress of constantly worrying about things can't be helping the situation..

Best of luck whatever you decide.

Originally Posted by vagabonding

I never said the economy will collapse. I do know that at some point probably in the not to distant future that Canadians will need to deleverage and the housing market will need to correct. This is simple economics. Prices cannot rise indefinitely and have become completely detached from wages. Credit cycles and delevaraging are natural cycles which Canada hasn’t had in 20 years!!! It’s inevitable and will likely be fairly painful given the sky high debt levels. Debt does not magically disappear!

I don’t want to move anywhere within Canada period. I want to live in the UK to be close to my family and be able to travel within Europe and the UK

thanks for the best wishes and yes we do have a lot of things to work through. This is the problem many of us face when we marry someone from a different country. People’s priorities and views change over time. Mulybwife 10 to 15 years ago would of loved to the UK in a heartbeat but now doesn’t want to as her parents are getting older and she gets to see them regularly. I just know that as time goes by and kids get older it will become a more difficult prospect.

Originally Posted by vagabonding

I never said the economy will collapse. I do know that at some point probably in the not to distant future that Canadians will need to deleverage and the housing market will need to correct. This is simple economics. Prices cannot rise indefinitely and have become completely detached from wages. Credit cycles and delevaraging are natural cycles which Canada hasn’t had in 20 years!!! It’s inevitable and will likely be fairly painful given the sky high debt levels. Debt does not magically disappear!

I don’t want to move anywhere within Canada period. I want to live in the UK to be close to my family and be able to travel within Europe and the UK

thanks for the best wishes and yes we do have a lot of things to work through. This is the problem many of us face when we marry someone from a different country. People’s priorities and views change over time. Mulybwife 10 to 15 years ago would of loved to the UK in a heartbeat but now doesn’t want to as her parents are getting older and she gets to see them regularly. I just know that as time goes by and kids get older it will become a more difficult prospect.

Originally Posted by vagabonding

I never said the economy will collapse. I do know that at some point probably in the not to distant future that Canadians will need to deleverage and the housing market will need to correct. This is simple economics. Prices cannot rise indefinitely and have become completely detached from wages. .

Originally Posted by dbd33

I think they can. I don't think there's much connection between wages and house prices in Toronto, Vancouver or, for that matter, Kensington and Chelsea. As long as there are people who want to have a property in these places who are not earning locally prices can keep going up.

Originally Posted by Jsmth321

Pretty much this.

Its those living and working and being paid in CAD$ that get the raw end of the deal so to speak.

Even if Vancouver prices plummeted 50%, they still would not be affordable, at least in my view 500,000 isn't affordable.

Originally Posted by dbd33

My understanding is that, n Vancouver, the problem for working people is that it's easy enough to qualify for the sort of mortgage needed to buy a house, say 2 million, but above a million two, the mortgage has to be supported by 50% cash so a house that costs $2m requires $550,000 cash (20% on the first 1.2 and 50% after that). $550,000 in cash can be difficult to put together. Obviously, these aren't London or New York prices but Vancouver doesn't offer London or New York income so, in order to buy, one has to work somewhere else.

Originally Posted by dbd33

I think they can. I don't think there's much connection between wages and house prices in Toronto, Vancouver or, for that matter, Kensington and Chelsea. As long as there are people who want to have a property in these places who are not earning locally prices can keep going up.

Originally Posted by vagabonding

Toronto and Vancouver cannot be compared to London which is a true world class city. Toronto and Vancouver are second tier cities. Visualize London compared to Toronto in terms of attractions, transit and status. Vancouver has much more going for it than Toronto from a purely a geographical and visual standpoint and as haven.