We've just returned from a 2 week reccie in Ontario, and I think we're more confused now than ever.

We're both in tech jobs, so have been looking mainly at the tech triangle (Waterloo, Toronto, Ottawa) areas (no jobs set up yet). We've come to the following conclusions:

Neither of us would particularly want to work in downtown Toronto.

Ottawa is beautiful, but the distance required to travel to work from a nice place to live could be excessive.

We didn't manage to make it to Waterloo, so haven't got any real opinions about it.

Generally, we'd like a commute of under 40 minutes, as long as it's moving (i.e. not sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on the 401 for 40 minutes to travel 5km). We're open to public transport as long as it's reliable. The main thing is that we want a house with 3+ bedrooms, in as rural a setting as possible without sacrificing the snowploughs, with a decent sized yard, under £350,000.

Anyone have any advice/tips about any of the above areas?

Thanks in advance!

Yeah lets try to make the price of the house under $350,000.. not £350,000

:scared:

We know exactly what you mean about the commute, but you have to sacrifice one thing for the other really. Waterloo has the company the makes the blackberry, and it's right by the university of waterloo, which means students there step right into those jobs.

Toronto where we are now, has a lot of companies as you might have gathered, and they pay well more than places outside the GTA. Our friends in Ottawa have to travel an hour just to get to their jobs from the surburbs they live in.

We have just bought a house outside the GTA, that gives us all that you have mentioned above, and we are going to have to travel to our jobs ( business related) in the city.

Here is the community we bought in, closing on it next year. I believe it's right within the budget you specified?

http://www.empirecommunities.com/di...unity=wyndfield

Yikes! Yes, I meant $350,000CAD not £350,000GBP...just a slight difference there! :scared:

[QUOTE=cov-canuck]Neither of us would particularly want to work in downtown Toronto.[QUOTE]

If it's commuting time you're concerned with downtown may be better than a 'burb. I've been working in the Godforsaken wasteland that is Markham with someone who lives in Barrie. Markham is on the northeast fringe of Toronto. Mrs stuck-out-in-Barrie works downtown. He drives to work while she drives to the end of the GO train and rides. It's a shorter commute for her, less than an hour and a half, as she avoids most of the traffic.

If you're in tech then you'll find most of the opportunities in Ottawa in the western suburb of Kanata. There are plenty of small town communities that are within a 40 minute drive of there. Places like Carp, Carleton Place, Almonte, Richmond and Arnprior.

Even in Stittsville, just west of Kanata, would have homes on 50'X100' lots in your price range. Not rural but small town suburban. But I'm not sure what the smallest lot you would consider large to be.

The best method is to look on mls.ca to see what's available and check out the distances on maps.google.com. If you're looking to see where the tech jobs are, search out the intersection of Terry Fox Road and March Road.

But if you're getting a job downtown in Ottawa, housing would be cheaper and closer on the other side of the river in Quebec. But downtown jobs are mostly government or financial.

That's pretty far fetched unless they live in the east end and work in west end or they work downtown, live outside the greenbelt and drive instead of taking public transit.

I have worked in Europe for a company based in Kitchener/Waterloo for 18 months and have visited the area every 6-8 weeks. We are in process or relocating and just signed to buy a new build property with a view to moving in March. Unemployment is pretty low here and Blackberries supposed to be expanding significantly next year, they are also building a new Tech Park so your time of role is in vogue.

There are some nice areas both within KW and close by. There are some free housing magazines both for new build and resale in the area and we can mail you a few when we are back in UK next week if you send your address.

Rural areas around KW include Ayr, Dundee, Elmira, St Jacobs, Connestogo if you want to search for them on www.mls.ca. Couple nice areas within KW include Deer Ridge, Kiwanis Park, Manheim and Conservation Drive. These are nice up market areas where 2000 sq ft properties typically are Can $400k and for Can$6-700,000 you can get some amazing places

If you need some more pointers pm me as getting fairly familiar with the area.

PM sent, thanks a lot.

The company in Waterloo that makes the blackberry is RIM:

http://www.rim.net/

They are also in the news today, for some patent issue in the US

Waterloo has always really appealed to me and my husband for some unknown reason!!!!

How come you ended up in Burlington then?

Job offers basicly!!

hi...new to this stuff - we are english...migrated to NZ then london,ontario...then back to NZ and are now thinking of Halifax or in or around the area to be closer to the UK...a contact has warned us off N Scotia..did you move back to the UK because of halifax...or just homesick..and if homesick why did you not return to Nova Scotia...hope all that makes sense...would be good to hear from you...many thanks,howardk.