the_tones_guy

Yes, I have a cheeky smile as my NL winter for the last 8 years have been brutal, tons and tons of wet heavy snow, back breaking digging and snow blowing and wet cold of -15's with a dirty wind chill of -25/-30 and that's December to late April.

Spring is miserable just rain drizzle and lots of fog. Summer is short and fall is like a Spring.

So personally, I can't wait for a Kelowna winter, as it sounds practically tropical!

Stinkypup

You will love it !! White powdery fluffy stuff!! No... Not the ash! Snow!

Theoldfields

You can't go wrong.

Not much need for snowblowers but plenty of skiing

the_tones_guy

Wonderful. So this question goes out to Okanagan locals, I need to get in touch with a good mortgage person, not a bank, a specialist/consultant type, can you help? i did meet a realtor while we were there, but he seems to be less than useless in actually reply to anything at all.

jossie

This lady is awesome. We have used her for our last 2 house purchases.Gayle Focken - Dominion Lending Centres Clearmortgage.ca I should mention that she is based in Penticton though

the_tones_guy

That's great and no worries, I'll get in touch, thanks.

the_tones_guy

One more question (I sound like Colombo)! Does anyone know how a leasehold property on Indian reserve land works in Kelowna? I know what 'leasehold' means in the UK, I've owned a few, but I have not come across it in Canada before and the ramifications of living on the Indian reserve land. Hope you might be able to help? There are 3 houses specifically we are 'really' interested in on this property.

mjwalker007

This lady is also great and is a fellow Brit that moved here, so she has a good knowledge of mortgage rules for Ex pats :

website : Tracey Robinson - Your Premier Penticton Mortgage Broker

email : [email protected]

JonboyE

Again, not a Kelowna perspective but in Vancouver and Delta it is a lease where you rent the land from the Indian band. There will be a monthly or annual fee. The lease will be for a fixed term, at the end of which the band may offer you a new lease or may reclaim the land. If the lease is long enough I don't see a particular problem. Obviously, you need a lawyer with appropriate experience in these types of leases to review the documents. Also, check if there are any by-laws on the reserve that you will need to abide by.

There is a part of Vancouver that is built on land leased from the Musqueam. It is a very posh area. There was a bit of a hoo har a few years ago when the original 99 year leases expired and the band renewed them but at fair market value. We felt terribly sorry for all the rich people who had to pay up.

BristolUK

I just took a 'drive' along Marine Drive, courtesy of streetview.

Quite 'British' looking. Reminded me of several places.

Stinkypup

The houses may be attractively priced but there may well be a good reason that they haven't already been snapped up- If they are in Westbank- they may well be, given that they are Indian Band land I would be careful- maybe get some good advice either from someone with good local knowledge- your Realtor would be best, that is their job!! Certain specific roads are very hazardous and need to be avoided if I were you- I personally wouldn't particularly want to live on that side of the bridge though others may disagree with better local knowledge to me, I live north of Kelowna.

Theoldfields

Stinky pup - we're also North of Kelowna with a six month old Labrador pup that lives up to your name sometimes! Whereabouts are you?

I would also be cautious about the Westbank First Nation land - you need to check out the area closely. There are some lovely homes and very nice neighbourhoods but there are also some areas I wouldn't want to live in. As already suggested that's what we have realtors for.

Stinkypup

Coldstream- just next to Kalamalka park and the lake- I'm sure that your lab is having some puppy fun! The genuine article- is now 11 but still loves a roll in the dirt and a swim when he can!

scrubbedexpat091

Before our current car we had a 1998 Sunfire, same coverage we have now at 117/month with full 43% discount, or 40% whatever the max is and that 1998 vehicle was 107 per month.

How ICBC figure things out, no clue, just shocked us when the insurance for a 2013 was barely 10 more a month vs a 1998.

That is just the ICBC portion, we have an additional policy the lender required which is 35/month.

scrubbedexpat091

I wish they had smaller minimums for contents. The minimum the insurance company would do for contents is 30,000. May not seem like much to some, but I literally went through the whole house adding up what items cost new, including clothing, furniture, computers and so on, and it was just shy of 13,000.

Granted we don't have to insurance appliances and such since we rent, but I think we are way over insured for contents...

Have the insurance for the liability primarily, but the contents is the 2nd largest part of the premium


I did take pictures of the bigger items like TV, couch, furniture and such and wrote down serial numbers and model #'s and backed them up in the cloud in the event we ever have to claim, I didn't bother with the clothes though.