Hi all,

Just a quick question .Hope to go to Canada on PNP/twp with the hope of PR my hubby a truck driver so busy looking for employment, Today had our house valued and as you may all be aware the house market is very very slow here in the UK at the moment..... looks to get worse before it gets better but we have decided to put it on the market £20k below value to see if it sells .

Does anyone have any advice on this matter and also would our money go further in Canada , were currently in a 5 bed detached house but really a little big for us in Canada as we hope to spend alot of our time outdoors . We are hopeing for a house with views as im fed up of seeing my next door neighbours washing line !!

Sorry to go on but any advice / stories you may have would be greatly appreciated.

Debbie

Hi Debbie,

Just had a quick scan at your past posts and think I saw mention of either BC or Saskatchewan. Is one of these (or somewhere else) firming up as your likely destination? I ask because, as you know, Canada is huge and there are significant differences in what your money will buy in different places. That said, I'm happy to be corrected by those who actually live in BC and SK but I would imagine the monies you bring from the UK will buy you a lot more house in the significant urban centres of SK than it would in the significant urban centres of BC.

As to a house with views...they are definitely out there to be found...what the views are of will depend on the location of course...mountains, prairies, water, etc. A number of people find that it can be difficult to find a house in the newer communities that isn't a tad close to your neighbours properties. Many houses back onto other rows of houses behind (I'm not talking Coronation Street here!) and that can be a bit of a surprise. Clearly this is not the case with more rural properties and before a stream of people come on here to say, "I live in a community and I have a mountain view" or similar, note that I chose the words "many" and "difficult" instead of "all" and "impossible". You can find such properties but in a typical urban community, maybe 80% or more of homes would probably not quite meet what I am interpretting your desire for a "view" to be.

Finally, re putting your house on below market value...I guess you need to balance your desire to get out here in a particular time frame with the state of the market as you see it and the houses that you are competing against. It would be hard to criticise someone for being as realistic as you appear to be being. Make sure your Estate Agent shouts about the outstanding value that your house therefore represents - else people might just think it is priced that way because there is something wrong with it.

In closing, I don't think I have seen anyone hang out any washing around these parts...

Kind regards,

Eamonn & Janet.

Housing market is :curse::curse: in the uk, we have interest in our house, but sadly the buyers are waiting for there houses to sell.

Good luck on the house sale
It will depend where you have excepted a job to house prices, also certain areas of canada you cant hang your washing out

Gill

I would put it on at the value the agent suggested as that should be the current market value with current conditions applied. If you put it on lower, anyone buying will expect a discount on that as they will assume that you will take a lower offer due to the market.

What I'm trying to say is that people won't assume you've already discounted it.

Thanks for your reply,

Having only moved to this house 10 months ago buying it from plan , Fingers crossed people wont think there is something wrong with it !!

Moved her as was so fed up in our last town so decided to move in the hope that it would be better , only to find out very quickly its not the areas its the whole package and cant see light at the end of the tunnel .This is one of the main reasons we have decided to finally make the move . ..

My husband was in the forces 22 years and didnt want to settle in the uk but i did , Now having been back in the Uk a few years i have realised its now or never! We have been very very lucky to have made a great deal on the 3 houses we have had in the 5 years on the property ladder . So hope to get to Canada and be mortgage free soemthing we can only dream about here .

Will see how it goes . House hopefully on the market very soon
Debbie

We have just moved over 3 weeks ago to a town called Maple Ridge BC- Re selling your house- prior to leaving UK I worked as a Solicitor & run a HIP company- had lots of dealing with estate agents. EA don't care how much they sell your house for, they just want a sale. We sold our house in December 1 week before xmas by simply going with the price quoted by the EA and then discounting once someone expressed an interest. I wouldn't discount it first. With the current UK housing market- if you get a sniff go with it.

As previous replies, where you move to depends on lots of factors & down to personal choice. What is important for you will decide where you move. Canada is very varied & there are great locations which are affordable, but then you lose out on other things. Where ever you live in the world a good location for jobs & amenities will command a higher price. Vancouver is expensive as is London.

Again thanks for the replies,

Will certainly put it up at valued price and see how things go . I can understand where you come from but certainly want to sell ASAP

As for location how does one choose??

We would like an area with :
Great education
Good Health care
Sports facilities
Safe
At least some nice weather !! Although we love snow
Nice house
mountain views !!!!!

Oh yes and good shops ....

Am i living in a dream land ha ha

Debbie

Saskatoon is almost certainly overpriced right now, but still decent value compared to Vancouver or the UK. I'd guess we're looking at around a 30% drop in prices over the next few years, though if the commodity bubble keeps inflating, house prices here could be sustained or even rise.

As always, mls.ca is your friend if you want some idea of what your money will buy over here (but note that last year in Saskatoon some houses were selling for 25% above asking prices, whereas today they're probably getting asking prices or less).

Thank Mark ,

Hubby has been invited for interview there so will certainly be doing my research although have read it does get some of the worse weathers is this true ?

Debbie

Temperatures go down to around -40 (-50-ish with wind-chill) in the winter and up to around 35 in the summer, but it's not a big deal most of the time if you're working indoors (and those are peaks, not average). There was a big blizzard in 2006 where my girlfriend couldn't get home from work, but nothing that bad last year.

It's also worth noting that houses are much better insulated here, so the gas bill was only about 75-100 pounds a month through the winter; the house actually warmed up on sunny days at -10 with the heating off because the sun shone through the windows and the insulation kept the heat inside.

The main thing I notice is the lack of rain compared to the UK, though when we get a big rain-storm it can be seriously soggy out.

Good luck to anybody selling their house. We sold ours two months ago after it spent just over a year on the market, during which time we had about two dozen viewings.

We thought it would never go, but it did in the end Now we're happily renting, and it's such a relief to have taken that big step and cut such an enormous tie to life in the UK. All we need now is the visa!

Best give Saskatchewan a miss then.