rianedern360

Hamilton seems to be on top of everyone's lists if you do a quick google search about "the best places to live in Ontario"

Mordko

I must have a different Google.

More seriously... It depends on what your circumstances and interests are.

abner

In a friend's case, it takes one from a nice house and neighbourhood in Runnymede, to a Hamilton-equivalent nice house and neighbourhood, with enough left over for retirement (I've visited--it's beautiful). Her friends and interests long since went on-line, and her now-adult offspring have escaped GTA one by one, so now find it easier to visit her in person.

katehul

Hey, we moved from Leeds City Centre to Burlington December 2nd. So far I have been surprised at how mild the winter has been, I was expecting it to be much colder. We came on a reccy visit for the whole of October and it was in mid 20s to give you an idea. Due to COVID we haven't seen much but to give you my thoughts so far.
Everybody is so lovely and friendly life is laid back .
Despite being on the opposite side of the road driving is easy and navigation is simple due to the grid road systems.
Food is generally the same sort of price but I'm vegetarian so don't buy meat. Then random things are really expensive, the other day I paid $7 for a cauliflower! Likewise some things are cheaper.
Wine is about +20% and you can only buy it in the approved wine shops (LCBO) you can't buy at the supermarket.
Cars are cheaper, even German brands which surprised me.
You cannot transfer a driving record so have to be insured as a "new driver". The insurance is EXTORTIONATE. I pay $435/month for a 5 y.o X4 BMW. Likewise house insurance they quoted me $395/month for tenants insurance but we do have some expensive watches. And yes i shopped around a lot.
Phone contracts and internet are expensive. I pay $60/m without a handset to have unlimited calls and texts within Canada and 5GB data and calls only to USA (which I need for work). O2 have an offer on in UK which gives worldwide calls and data for £20/m which is currently on offer for £10/m. this is good to get you started. I have an iphone 11 so it has the dual SIM option so I have the UK and Canadian numbers on the same handset which mean friends and family can call for free. $119/m for broadband and basic TV package (like Freeview sort of channels)
I took the advice on the forum and rented instead of buying for 1 year and so glad we did. I have seen so many areas i like so want to explore before we commit to buy. It costs around 4% to sell your home if you don't like the area. We are central Burlington and are in a luxury 3 bed, 4 storey townhouse with a huge 360* roof terrace and it is $3000/m, bills around $300 total and that's in Winter when we are WFH for 24 hours. Nice properties are available a lot cheaper but we splurged on this as getting a good rental income from the UK.
If you don't have one already open an HSBC bank account in UK which easily allows you to open one here and can transfer money between UK and Canada for free. It wasn't possible last year due to COVID but in normal times you can open the accounts from the UK in advance. It also recognised my credit file and so I automatically qualified for a credit card with $7k limit which I'm using to build up my credit score to get a good deal on mortgage.
Driving Licence simply go to a Service Ontario office and they swap it for a Canadian one, it was around $80.
Health card again go to Service Ontario and set you up there and then with a temporary number before card arrives in the post within a few weeks. We get Greenshield insurance with my partners job so everything is paid for privately and the service has been amazing. If you had to pay for dental it would be expensive. I had an exam and clean and it was about $500 but got paid back in full the next day via insurance. Registering with GP and dentist really easy.
Really easy to find work, we came with me on a spousal visa thinking I would be out of work for a while due to COVID but I got a job on our reccy visit. to give you an idea I work in sales and got $70k basic, so roughly same as UK, and have already made $20k in commission since I arrived.
For me my ideal location would be Oakville as we are 40yo couple, no kids, and it has nice restaurants and the centre is very upmarket whilst being fairly close to Toronto. We probably wont be able to afford it though as you wont get anything for under a million. Burlington is a bit cheaper but still expensive. When we arrived I took a walk and saw a house for sale, thought it would be a good small "starter home", when i googled it was $2.1m!
Our belongings were collected November 25th and we opted for groupage but still dont have our container so don't believe them when they say 6-8 weeks. It's currently in the Suez canal so no idea when we will get our furniture.
Lots of random info there but as we are so new to the process feel free to ask me about any other up to date experiences I may have forgotten to mention.

Hurlabrick

Not true. You can buy wine (and beer) at some supermarkets, but by no means all supermarkets (I can buy wine in London Ontario from at least 3 supermarkets we regularly go to locally, Farm Boy, Metro and Sobeys). BUT, I agree, it is certainly not like the UK where every supermarket sells booze of all sorts. And honestly, for the best selection, yes, LCBO is the place in Ontario.

clp93

thank you very much, all the info is useful, especially the comparisons !! All the best for your life in Canada !!

dbd33

Only domestic wine though so probably no help if you want it for drinking.

bats

What did I miss? Why does furniture from Leeds to .Burlington travel via the Suez Canal? Manchester Ship Canal I can understand but Suez?

Jerseygirl

Sounds like the ship turned left rather than right.

katehul

The Suez canal bit is definitely a strange one cant understand why it has gone that way. Just want my sofa :-(

BristolUK

JGK

Bear in mind i haven't lived in the GTA since 2007. I lived in Oakville (closest to downtown Toronto) for a while, commuting at peak hours was 90-minutes each way (minimum).

abner

Congratulations! It's refreshing to see a relocation story from a couple with a positive outlook and a "deal with each challenge / difference as it arises" attitude.

DMajor

Yes, it seems Brantford is booming too.
Did a job there this week in a small property that was listed at $379,000 and sold for $625,000.

Lichisadave

Some good points already made here. The one thing I will say is you adjust to the cost of things quite quickly if you don’t compare costs to the UK we have been here 3 years and I have managed to stop my husband price checking everything against the UK. We are originally from Hull in the North of UK and a family of 4 our weekly groceries are around $280 ish. We aren’t big drinkers and would happily settle for a £5 of wine in the UK that’s $14+ here. The one thing that I will say is expensive here is kids clubs and sports clubs my son played for a team in our home town in the UK £18 a month including kit etc. here $300 for 14 weeks this is in house League so not like in the UK where the kids play against teams from different towns or parts of the town. We live in Oakville our rent is $2300 (but rents are now $2800 for similar) for a decent 3 bed with finished basement and utility bills are roughly $350 a month.
The weather here is very much 2 extremes very very cold and very very hot lol but not much rain 😁
I would say after talking with lots of expats that the consensus is Oakville is a very nice place to live but there aren’t many people in the position to buy here so unless you need to live close to Toronto I’d look farther out Stoney CreekI hear is nice, London Guelph it really depends on where you will be working. Canada is such a lovely place to live and we aren’t planning on returning to the UK. Good luck with everything.