You do have to act fast when renting in Vancouver . with a vacancy rate below about 0.5% it is a landlords' market.

There isn't much room for sane second thinking!


Glad that you found one of the free stages for the Jazz Festival. It's always been one of the highlights of the summer. I must admit though that I was glad to get off their mailing list ... daughter wanted to order some tickets back around 1997 and didn't have a credit card so asked if I would put it my card and she would refund me.

It took me until about 2010 before I managed to get off their list!

That's for sure, I saw an apartment in Kits at 9am this morning, submitted an application at about 11am and it had already gone to someone else by lunchtime!

Luckily we saw one we liked a couple of days ago which we're pretty sure we'll be accepted for tomorrow. It's huge compared to some of the shoeboxes we've seen although a lower ground floor so not lots of natural light. I prefer space and some lamps though

Honestly I am already bored of apartment hunting so really hoping we get this one!

Apartment hunting can be a bit frustrating in Vancouver, we lucked out with our current place, its a bit beyond our budget, but in Vancouver you gotta take what you can find and what you can get approved for.

We went to one place last year and there were over 150 people viewing, we didn't even apply.

We saw a couple of apartments in a building yesterday that we viewed with about 4 other people and there were constant viewings over the week. They were tiny though, we'd have had to be quite desperate to want to put an application in, and it seemed most others felt the same way. We did have to up our budget from what we initially thought but it's still doable - just a bit more pressure on me to get a job haha!

The higher the rent one can pay the easier it is to find something and less competition. Our 1 bedroom is 550sq feet, our first apartment was a "micro" apartment and it was I think around 400sq feet, they rent fast though in our building never empty....lol

We signed the lease on our apartment yesterday, hooray!

We provided them with a landlord reference from the UK and my hubs employment contract, but did not give them our SIN, UK credit reports or proof of bank balances. I said that we could provide these if needed but they didn't seem bothered. We also gave them a bunch of references which I'm pretty sure they didn't actually contact. I got a rather large bankers draft today to cover the deposits (1/2 month rental deposit, 1/2 month pet deposit plus pro rata rent as we want to move in before 1st August).

I think it's going to be an expensive couple of months, next on the list will be furniture shopping! I think a trip to Ikea will probably be in order to grab the essentials. We have our internet/TV being installed the day after our lease starts, so I'll at least need to get a folding chair or something hah.

Watching this thread with interest as I'm moving to Vancouver very shortly!

Presumably receiving COPR via email isn't normal? Yesterday evening I got the passport copy and photos requested (), I'm assuming that they'll mail the COPR - this is what seems most common.

I'm actually in Canada right now but heading back to the UK early October to pick up my stuff before I land as PR.

We've now been here three whole months so thought it was time for a little update! We now both have our PR cards (my husband's came about a week before the 'within 60 days' estimate, mine about a week after...) and our BC driving licences and service cards so we can use MSP. It's all official!

House and bills
We've been loving living in the West End - our street is nice and quiet but 5-10 mins walk from English Bay, Coal Harbour or the shops and restaurants of Denman/Davie/Robson. The apartment is a good size and was nice and cool in the summer heat, hopefully it retains heat OK in the winter! Lets just not talk about how much we have to pay in rent Buses run frequently in all directions so no problems getting around if we don't fancy walking. All our bills have been set up to come out of our bank account automatically now so much like the UK. No horrible bill surprises so far, BC Hydro has been around $45, rental insurance $35 and water/gas is covered by the owner. TV/internet with Telus is pretty steep - we haven't had a proper bill yet as we had bill credits for the first couple of months, but I reckon it'll be around $120/month. They did give us a huge TV for free as part of the deal, and my husband needs good reliable internet for work (and games hah) but our TV package sucks for that amount.

We have had some nasty vet bills but with a 11 and 15 year old cat it's to be expected - especially as our 15 year old seems to enjoy leaping up and down cabinetry like she's a kitten! We've got them registered with a nice local vet and just got insurance for them so hopefully any future dramas will be covered somewhat.

Our items being shipped from the UK arrived FINALLY a couple of weeks ago. A few shipping diversions and delays, and not amazing communication but hey it arrived. And mostly in one piece - all our china and glassware was fine, but one picture frame suffered smashed glass. Not sure we'll bother trying to claim for it tbh. I kind of regret shipping as much as we did. Some stuff I'd totally forgotten about and bought replacements here anyway as I needed it before the shipment arrived, other stuff I unpacked and just thought 'eh, I've lived without this for 3 months...' It was nice to see some familiar items though, our place definitely feels more like home.

Food and drink
We are still probably spending way too much on food, drink and eating out oops! We are so close to restaurants and bars they are all too tempting... but we're also learning where to get reasonable deals and we live right near a No Frills, Safeway and dollar stores. Just got to avoid going to the whole foods too often! We also like our craft beers which eats into that budget! Alcohol laws are interesting here and booze is expensive, but it's a choice we make to a) drink at all and b) not drink cheap shitty lager etc. so just got to deal with it.

Work
We're both working now and getting into the swing of things! The commutes are not too bad (we both work within Vancouver) and colleagues are friendly. I still don't really understand how my vacation time is calculated and there seems to be a lot of random red tape but I work for a very large employer so I guess that's to be expected. I think I was just spoiled by my employer in the UK who basically let me do whatever I wanted in terms of flexi hours, leave - as long as the work was done and I wasn't taking the mick it was fine.

Lifestyle
Well we haven't immediately transformed into hiking, yoga-on-the-beach outdoors types (we're both way too nerdy for that) but it's so nice having great places to walk and explore on our doorstep.
Even without a car we've made it exploring up into Squamish and West van parks, out towards Burnaby etc. Back in Wales we had nature not too far away either but I think being able to see the mountains here reminds us that nature exists and motivates us to go investigate it! What I would consider a strenuous hike I think most Vancouverites would see as a leisurely Sunday stroll though Anyway, we've been making an effort to get out and about, meet up with people and go to events. So far so good, this weekend is our first properly lazy one since we got here, I think we needed the break!

Talking of without a car, it's kind of freeing not to have one! Not to mention keeps the monthly bills down... now we have our drivers licences we may sign up for the car share programs. I feel like I've forgotten how to drive though, maybe taking a local lesson wouldn't be a bad idea!

Anyway, so far so good! We're just about getting our heads around expenses vs income so we're working on getting a budget sorted - we're lucky that we're decent earners here but I can see it all just disappearing on food, drinks and 'stuff' if we're not careful. Not a Vancouver thing though I don't think, just an 'adjusting to a new life' thing. Next stop is to get my head around RRSP, TFSA etc. to get our finances in some kind of order. It's not perfect here and there are things that are frustrating but no more or less so than back in the UK. Just different!

Looking forward to hopefully another week of some blue sky and sunshine before the 10 months of solid rain and clouds and miserableness that people keep complaining about

Re car shares car2go and Evo are better then Modo which is more a rental as you pick up and return to same location where Evo you can say drive car from point A to B and leave it at B as long as its in the home zone.

Just can be a pain sometimes getting a car but west end and downtown your probably okay.

I think Evo is 40 cents a min with a hourly and daily max.

Evo also has free drop off at YVR at a parking lot then free shuttle. Car2go is a drop off at a hotel by YVR and there is a charge so might be something to keep in mind.

Some sign up for both EVO and Car2go so there is better chance at having a car avail when needed.


West end is very walkable one of the best in Vancouver if you ask me. Can almost get everything without needing to leave the west end. Very nice area.

I was driven around this week in a Modo. The drivers chose Modo because of the fixed location being a couple of blocks from them.

Buy a growler and get it filled directly from the brewery. This is by far the cheapest way to buy craft beer in the city and it also ensures the beer is fresh.

May I thank you for showing me there's another, proper meaning to the word 'growler'. I've only ever heard it used as an Australian slang word

I hate Evo with a vengeance!!

Not anything to do with the drivers, or the car share programme per se, but it's that no fixed location ............ because they are left all over the place at random.

Having one parked right outside my front door for 5 days, and another one on the side street next to the house for the same length of time at the same time, plus 5 (FIVE) others within a block and half was waaaaay too much!

I phoned the company twice to complain .......... I do have mobility problems and need to be able to get to our car easily ............ nothing happened, except that cars have now been left for only 3 days in the same places.

On that and 3 other occasions, the car was left outside the house at the legal distance from the corner, which meant there was no room to park our car and for me to get into it (a very large maple tree is in the way), and the neighbour has 2 cars which he quite rightfully parks outside his house. OH was having to park our car 3 and 4 houses away.

They seem to completely ignore the by-law that cars can only be parked outside houses in residential districts for a few hours if they are not owned by the resident or a visitor to the house.

In this neighbourhood it does seem to be company drivers who leave the cars around ..... an advertising ploy, maybe.

I'm quite sure that people living in the same house would not be driving 3 Evos, yet that is seen here, seeing 2 Evos outside the same house is common. When it is "our" turn for the advertising, there will be many Evos parked.

It's quite the sight to stand at the junction of 2 residential side streets and see a total 10 Evos within a block each side of that junction!

If any more are left for longer than 3 days outside or beside the house, I shall phone the 311 number and report as an abandoned car.

Car shares like EVO who do not have fixed locations can park in both resident only and no parking except by permit as well as 2 hour only parking.

Not sure the 8am to 6pm 3 hour parking rule applies to car shares though.