Hi All

Well... Lauren, myself and the dogs landed at Calgary last Tuesday (14th Sept) and we haven't stopped since

All we can say is that Calgary was definitely the right decision for us and we made some good choices along the way. With this in mind I thought I would post a few links to people who have been amazing and have helped us settle in.

Temporary accommodation: www.148westterracecres.com (TheThornes).
What an amazing family and what an amazing basement suite. They have been sooooo helpful and sooooo much fun. The basement suite is top quality and we thoroughly recommend it to anyone coming over to Calgary / Cochrane.

Realtor: www.148westterracecres.com (Chloe Cartwright).
Chloe has been instrumental in helping us put an offer in on a house and has gone above and beyond the 'call of duty' for a realtor. A word to the wise - you have to have a realtor when looking to buy to act in your interests. However, there are other realtors out there but Chloe did wonders for us.

Buying a car: www.kneehillautosales.ca (Marshall Barkman).
If you know nothing about cars (like us) then Marshall can help you source one to your requirements and price. However, please note that he is a way out of Calgary in a place called Linden (about an hours drive). But for us the drive to collect the car was nothing compared to the service we received and the vehicle itself.

Transferring money: www.satworldwide.co.uk (Adam Cotton).
Adam used to work for a larger money transfer company and we switched over to him after HiFX didn't return our calls and their website was so baffling! Adam will speak to you on the phone and will give you excellent advice. We transferred a lot of money over via him and he was 100% the entire time.

Banking: Bank of Montreal - Crowfoot Branch (Pawell Schmidt & Hung Lee).
Both of these guys we brilliant and we set up our account prior to arriving and then helped us activate several more once we arrived. Super service!

Please feel free to ask any questions but please bear in mind I am working flat out and our internet connection is sporadic.

Hope this info helps.

Andy

P.S. Canada rocks!!!

Thanks for the kind words guys - appreciated!

Pleasure having you here and so glad everything is working out well and falling into place for you. Now, how long until that house warming party??

pretty sure, you don't need to use a realtor if you don't want to, ie do the leg work yourself - prob still help with the legal papers - but you generally have to hire a lawyer to do this anyway after deal is closed - if you've no experience of using the cdn model 'realtor' you'd have no real concept of what service they provide ; airport pick-ups etc are not that uncommon - they don't pick up their (sizeable) commisson until the deal is closed

I would always suggest that newly arriveds use a realtor. If for nothing else than to find out the good places to have coffee, etc.

I agree that Brits are not used to the pick up and drive around aspect but, once one realises the commission they are receiving, one wonders why they don`t do more.

Our realtor provided us with a complete set of plastic plates and cutlery to tide us over our first few days and, at the time, we thought it was great.

She turned up 3 days later to "pick up the money for the items" and made sure we repaid her her $20, notwithstanding the fact she made $9,500 in commission from our purchase (we had found all the properties ourselves using MLS in England and she drove me round for one day to view them so I could decide which one we wanted. One offer, one counter offer (I corrected the contract she drafted) and the deal was done).

No prizes for guessing that, when we came to sell, we didn`t use her.

Both are good points (below) and I am sure you don't have to use a realtor. However, we received an excellent service from our and while she may not be everyone's 'cup if tea' she did us a great service. For example we received a map book, the loan of a Sat Nav and the loan of a Mobile Internet Stick (very expensive to set up and not really worth it if you want to get internet when you get your home). Plus other stuff.