Rete

Last year I posted that my stepson was moving from Halifax, NS to Edmonton, AB to start a new IT position. He was to go out first in January, which he did, and in June his family (wife and son) were to join him.

Unfortunately, the IT company did not live up to the promised income and it is much much lower than stated. He said $75,000 but started him at $35,000. He figured it was a start and they did promise (I know) that there would be a work review in 3 months and a raise if warranted. Yes, work review was great, raise was not bad but still only brought him to $50,000.

He looked and looked but was unable to find a house for rent (wife's stepdaughters were joining them) that they could afford. So tomorrow he heads back to Nova Scotia.

Fortunately, the company is retaining him to work from home at the slightly higher salary so he will not be unemployed.

Glad that so many immigrants to AB have been fortunate enough to bring enough funds with them and to have enough work experience to garner well paying positions in AB.

MarkG

Alberta seems insanely overpriced for everyone except oil workers. I was going to move to Edmonton when I first applied, but I don't see any point now with the costs relative to wages... houses around where my girlfriend's parents live have tripled in price in the time I've been waiting for a visa.

Notiaink...honest

Time to find a new employer (probably should have thought of that after the initial ridiculous lowball offer)

With Albertan experience and the alleged employement boom out there, how hard can it be?

Steve_P

You are absolutely correct there was a piece on the local TV news about the price of rental accommodation putting people off coming to Calgary for work.

http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/RTGAMA...calgary.ctv.ca

Plus the cost of buying a home is ridiculous the average price of a home in Calgary is apparently now around $500,000.

MarkG

They either need higher wages or lower costs; otherwise everyone who isn't an oil worker or didn't buy a house a few years ago is going to leave.

Even Saskatoon prices have now inflated to the point where someone on a typical wage would have a hard time buying a house there, apparently due to people moving out of Alberta. The whole oil bubble is just crazy and really screwing up the West of Canada.

Steve_P

But it's a never ending inflationary cycle.

Higher wages mean higher operating costs, which means higher costs of goods, which means demands for higher wages and on and on and on.

Paul Wildy

In which case you should get married and secure your future inheritance!

MarkG

Yes. And then interest rates rise and people can no longer borrow $300,000 on a $40,000 salary. And then prices drop.

The real problem is that the whole boom is part of the global credit bubble, which is currently falling apart; in a few years the bubble will be gone, but the huge debts people have taken on to buy overpriced houses won't be.

It's just absurd for companies to complain that they can't find people willing to work for $20,000 a year when a fairly ordinary house costs $300,000+.

dbd33

If housing isn't cheap relative to salary then one has to wonder why people would want to move to Canada. I thought that cheap housing was the main draw. If you're going to have a large mortgage anyway you may as well be in Reading as Edmonton; at least you'd have weather, culture, history and family.

Tableland

I went window shopping (or is that plasma-screen shopping? You saw it here first!) last night for houses in BC and Alberta after a brief disagreement between Mrs T and myself. She was of the opinion that properties in the aforementioned areas was expensive and Moi, well, I thought that one could pick up an acreage as easy as picking up nits at the school play.

Gotta tell you, I was really shocked (good job I never put any money down on this). I could not believe the prices of places. I entered a search on MLS for an acreage in the southern parts of these provinces with 3 bed minimum for about $325,000 CDN and the results were 0. This figure was not slected randomly but because I had looked at a few acreages in Australia for around this price.

There were some (is charming the word?) wooden cabin type places made of plastic and other strange synthetic materials in my price range, but they were on pretty small parcels of land (big by UK standards though, to be fair). It seemed to me, and I admit I'm hardly an authority on this, but it seemed to me that NS/NL was just about the only place where deals are to be had, but they come at a price.

Still, most of Australia is just as absurd, and a report out just this week states that the house price/wage thing is worse than ever there. Looks like the days of us Brits rolling out to the colonies and clearing our mortgages in a thrice are as dead as white-walled tyres.

Notiaink...honest

The pace of life, less stress and hassle day to day, more of a sense of community, and social responsibility, the sense of space and "interesting" weather all spring to mind.

Rete

Hard enough when you are Native in Canada. Very prejudical in Canada as the US, unfortunately. Plus the fact that he wanted his wife and kid with him. He took the low figure for the experience and the promise of a higher wage in three months. Yes, $15,000 increase is a nice raise but still to low to afford a decent place in a decent area.

Tableland

I read tonight that should the Doha round fail, Australia could be invited to become a full member of NAFTA, in which case he could hop over to down under and get work there.

Notiaink...honest

You are looking in the wrong place

Quinte MLS listings throw up 20 results, some you would bulldoze and start again, others are alright.

27 acres enough?


$300k

dbd33

Horses for courses I suppose, one man's mellow is another's dull.


A function of not having to work all hours to pay the mortgage/rent, surely. Someone struggling to pay the bills is under stress in any location.

A function of being higher up the housing ladder. If prices rise so that one can only trade Glasgow for Rexdale there's no gain.

I think there's less public space here than in the UK. One can have more private space, an acerage for example, but only if land is cheap.

Each to their own but we're talking Edmonton here. People move from Edmonton to Buffalo for the weather.