Does 60% utilities mean that it's a houseshare?
Does one floor mean that it's a houseshare?
What's a suite?

Is there council tax or is it just rent + utilities?

Is there a Canadian equivalent to Rightmove?

Where utilities are split, probably a house where the main floor and basement are rented out separately or the owner lives on one floor.

Suite is usually a self contained unit.

Property tax is paid for by the landlord and included in the rent.

No idea what rightmove is so no idea if we have one here.

If only... Canada is incredibly backward when it comes to services on the internet, and incredibly progressive when it comes to realtor protection rackets.

Still to answer you question, kijiji and craigslist are the main places that advertise rentals on the web here. Most are genuine, but there are also lots of scammers too and it should go without saying that you don't send cash to people without seeing the place physically first.

Another thing to note is that most rentals come unfurnished - so you might need to buy furniture and cooking stuff etc. Factor these costs in your budget (if you are here temporarily, ikea and dollar stores are great for this kind of thing)

What I would do (and in fact did) is find a serviced apartment for a couple of weeks and then hot foot it around town looking at rental places. It shouldn't take long to organize something decent.

www.viewit.ca is most popular around here and has fewer or zero scams.

i used www.padmapper.com, puts it on a map, lists whats nears and you can make a short list.

We used pad mapper, it pulls listings from craigslist etc, but we ended up finding it failed to pull all results, so we just trawled through craigslist everyday, watch out for the scams though.

The MLS (www.realtor.ca) is the equivalent of RightMove. It covers both sales and rental but the rental sides lacks a bit.

This has some background info:

http://www.cmhc.ca/en/co/reho/index.cfm

For renting websites try:

rentfaster, rentboard, homerent, rentspot etc

Thank you for all the very useful info. What are strata move in/move out fees?

Fees you pay to the building to move in and out.

Apartments are generally purpose built buildings of rental suites (units). The building is owned by a company whose business is to make money by renting the suites for a commercial return.

Condos (short for condominium - a type of shared ownership) are typically blocks of "flats" where the interior of each unit is owned by individuals. The exterior is owned and maintained by a strata corporation. The owners of the units become members of the strata corporation and they elect residents to manage the corporation (and hence the building) or they appoint a professional building management company to do this on their behalf.

Strata corporations have rules which the owners have to abide by. Sometimes the rules do not allow the owners to rent the units to others. Sometimes they allow a limited number of rentals or sometimes there are no restrictions. Where rentals are allowed the strata corporation can charge the owners a fee whenever there is a change of tenant. It looks like the owner is passing the fee along to the renters.

Thank you everyone. This is all very useful info.

So many scams going on these days, why not just go to a motel for a month then find a rental while you are here?

Rather than start a new thread I thought I would just add on if thats ok - firstly the guys who have linked to the CMHC website and other listings, thanks so much.

There were a couple of further queries I had for people's experience:

a) Credit Scores - Obviously a new person to Canada will not have a credit score and it seems some landlords insist on these, did anyone here have difficulties or offer a higher deposit or similar?

b) More Calgary specific - do people more use Craigslist and Kijiji than a lettings agent? I have looked on Kijiji a few times and although some give good details and pics obviously having an agent know in advance what I am looking for and be ready on day 2 to take me around 10 places is easier and one less thing to worry about.

c) I have just read an article about Cats being restricted to owners property. How strictly is that enforced?

d) Is there an agent anyone has used that they would recommend.

Many thanks.

I'm not in Calgary, but here in Vancouver I've seen a lot of ads where property managers say they won't deal with agents, as they want to communicate with the tenant directly and find out a bit about you in advance. I would recommend doing what I did - book a hotel for 10 days, then when you've arrived check the areas you're interested in and get on Craigslist, Pad Mapper, Kijiji etc and set up appointments to view. I booked my flight for the 20th of the month and booked a hotel for 10 nights so that I'd be ready to move in on the 1st.

Good luck!