Just wanted to ask some of you who have already made the move! Did you just move over and find somewhere to rent/buy or did you take a trip over a few weeks before moving to sort somewhere to live first?
We were planning on prob staying in a hotel for a couple of weeks/days and finding somewhere to rent.
Thinking about things I dont know if it would be better to go over for a week or something prior to moving and finding somewhere so have somewhere to go straight to.
Also do you think its best to buy or rent straight away??

Thanks in advance.

Hi

We moved to Calgary 5 months ago. We were in contact with a realtor who found us a place to rent before we landed but we still had to stay in a hotel for a week.
With things the way they are in Alberta I would look to buy asap after landing. Look on MLS and contact a couple of Realtors in the area they should be able to help find temporary accomodation for you and start a house search so you can look as soon as you get here.

HTH

I'm going to echo Steve and Tanya here, there is almost 0% rental available in Red Deer, Home Depot are putting people up in the warehouse and I know of people living in tents waiting for a house/rental to come up. Not sure if Edmonton is as bad, but do get i touch with a Realtor, they are really helpful.

I have been slightly worried as when i did a search for rentals in mls nothing came up... although i have found a couple of sites... but doesnt seem to be much choice.
I would prefer to buy as think renting is dead money and also I dont think i would feel 'at home' until i was in a place that was ours. My only worry is buying and then regretting it if after awhile there is another area we like etc...
What do you do? do you just email realtors in the area and explain our situation?? Hope we sell our UK home soon.

Yep that is the best way. When I was looking at further details of houses on the realtors sites I found I had to give contact info and they would contact me anyways to thank me for looking on their site.

Look around as many different areas as you can, you will be surprised by the different "feels" of the communities. At the end of the day you can always move again if you don't like the area! Best to get yourself on the proerty ladder asap here before you get priced out :scared:

Didn't mean to scare you by the way

Thanks for your advice I will get emailing some realtors this week!

The sooner you get in with a GOOD realtor the better as houses here are selling like hotcakes. You can be in within 3 weeks of putting an offer on - we did it with our 1st house. We never were happy with it, our realtor kept an eye out, as did we, we found more areas we liked and 8 months later sold our huge house for a whopping 80,000 more than we bought it for and downsized to our beautiful house we have now. Incedently when we put our big house on the market we put it on for 40,000 more than suggested by our realtor and sold it for 5,000 under the asking the afternoon it went on :scared: thankfully it was the same realtor that priced the house we bought and we got a BARGAIN!

MLS is no good for rentals, only for sales. Try these links: (copied from a previous thread ... you should always try the search function!)

http://www.101apartments.com/asp/Pu..._city.asp?sp=AB

http://canadianresidentialrentals.com/ab.html

http://www.renthome.ca/

http://www.gscrentals.com/Alberta/

http://www.powerproperties.net/

http://homes.canada.com/

http://www.rentboard.ca/search/index.aspx?locid=110

http://www.rentfaster.ca/

http://www.homerent.ca/

We got both our short-term, and our longer-term rentals from the last site, Homerent.ca

We arranged a 3 month rental condo out in Devon (30 mins from the city).
We did it privately, by contacting the owners directly. Saw their ad in the local newpaper that a contact out in Devon had been posting to us.

Maybe if you focused a little out of the city, you may have a little more choice. Devon does seem a fair way out, but if you work on the south side of the city, its a relatively easy commute.
Have to say though, that renting there for 3 months was long enough. Wouldn't have wanted to live there permanently. Just a bit too 'small town' and hickey for us. But thats only a personal ob. Others may really like it.

You could have a look at this site too, sarahad.

http://www.myidealhome.com/

We are hoping to move over to NS in December, assuming the house sale goes through. We are going to buy outright so will go over for a week in October to look for a place. We have been over three times in the last year and each time have had a good look round. The people I will be working with (and also others from this board) have given me lots of advice on the best places to live so we are pretty comfortable with doing this. I have searched on MLS for suitable houses, then found them on google earth which has helped to get a sense of what is in the area. Google earth isn't completely up-to-date but it is helpful for looking at closeness to schools (our main priority), main roads, etc. I wouldn't buy without viewing the house first so I would recommend a visit if you can stretch to it. Good luck!