I plan to land and work in Vancouver, specifically Burnaby area. Any suggestions where I can find a 2 bedroom apartment in a decent locality with less commute etc? Any websites ideas, pointers are welcome.

Hi

Well Burnaby is a fairly big area. So you may want to take a look at :
http://homes.canada.com/vancouver/br...y.aspx?id=3134 for rentals. The major rental areas are around Metrotown, not a great area close to the mall, North Rd, Lougheed Mall Area, not too bad, good transport. Burnaby General Hospital area, older apartments, not great for buses. Kingsway area, stay away.

PMM

Commuting from where to where?

This one, although in New West, was highly recommended to me a while back,
http://www.vancouver-furnished.com/arabelle.htm

Are you looking for short term accommodation (therefore furnished) or long term (and unfurnished)

Good site for you to ask questions on is
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Brits2Vancouver/

TTFN
Clare

For an online database of places for sale and for rent try www.mls.ca

Great, Thanks for all your replies. I tried to find an online map of Burnabee with the localities PMM mentioned with no luck. Any idea where I can find this info and info about good bad ugly neighbourhoods in Greater Vancouver area?

Burnaby is bad and ugly. Sorry, but I cannot think why anyone would choose to live there. Personally speaking, I think locating good/bad neighbourhoods depend on what you want in terms of accessibililty to services and what you are comfortable tolerating. I would not live in most of Surrey, cannot stand Richmond (other than the wonderful sight of the airport that enables you to leave) New West ( I don't think so...I work there soemtimes, it's rough) West Van, nice but expensive, North Van nice but expensive, East Van (uggh), downtown, boring and soulness out of season...Delta (half nice, half horrible) Coquitlam is ok-ish, Port Coquitlam also ok-ish but bad schools, Maple Ridge is nicer but watch the drug houses, Mission (agggh!) and so on. There will be a hundred who disagree - it's what you want that matters.

Situation is, I dont know about any of the neighbourhoods in Vancouver region. My work place is (will be) in Buraby area. Schools, I dont care atleast now. My expections are to fidn an apartment in a not so expensive area (in the range of 700-1200 PM), where people wont break into houses, it would be safe to walk in early/late eevning, cars are not stolen, I wont be mugged, convinience stores would be in a walking distance. I dont mind a bit of a drive (25-30 KMs) to my work place. I am not stuck with Burnaby, any other cities, suburbs are fine with me.

Vetal,

Not really sure what you're looking for to be honest (your message didn't give too much away).

If you want to get out of and away from the main Van area you could try Port Moody, which is closer to Burnaby that Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Maple Ridge. The commute is a little bit closer from P/M. It's quite a nice little area, has a strictly controlled development policy, and has some upcoming art stuff/scene happening, close to walks, mountain trails, lakes/parks etc. Not loads of apartments going but if you waited/looked hard enough you'd find one or a basement/suite going. The drive to Burnaby is stright down one highway which seems busy-ish as it's one of the main routes into central Van, but it would only be at the Burnaby end of the route that it gets busy, plus you're close to Metrotown for shopping/stores and can get in to Downtown after work if you fancy doing social stuff. PM is also quite low on crime compared to many areas but does have a developing rep for dope grow-ops in some of the more secluded areas (as do all the "Tri City" areas which consist of PM PQ and CQ). Oh and there are loads of new apartments being built clsoe to the highway which would be entry level prices for 1BR places and I'm sure some will go straight to rental once completed. Another is a block or two which are located in Newport Village which is quite a small but sweet little development of retail, banking and foody type places right in the centre of PM. I bet these two blocks wil have rentals in there right now at good prices. Very handy indeed.

Also Skytrain is supposed to be going out to PM in the next two years so it may be handy to live there, I think the route would stop at Burnaby and your commute would then cost under $3 each way. No driving/parking hassles but a two + year wait.

Like I say, not sure what you're after but on first impressions (at least to a Brit visitor) Burnaby looked tatty, sprawling, busy, noisy, and pretty rough, but not as rough as Eastside. I'd say OK to work, not to live if given a choice/options.

Cheers, hope this helps.

Rich.

Well here's my nomination for the good cheer post of the year award.



What's scarey is that I actually agree with you. (Well, pretty much - I like an area of Burnabee )