My departure was spectacular one minute it was sunny t-shirt weather, 15 mins later all you could see was a vast cloud was coming up the highway with gusts of winds that were making the power poles sway, the noise was pretty incredible and the huge cloud was full of paper, litter, beer cans you name it, it was in there all swirling round way above the swaying power lines. Bit of a change after a week of solid sunshine.

I really loved calgary, think there would be heaps for a family to do there, fairly safe for kids as long as your mindful there's no shortage of hash, crack, homeless etc around, like most cities in reality.

Housing was the biggest downer OMBG, not impressed. Expensive, cheap builds crammed in like sardines, one metre from your neighbours, some have up to 20+ neighbours staring into them, ghastly. But I liked the older streets, the houses are crappy, but if you could buy a nice piece of land and fix one up, might be a better option.

However we cant buy at the moment anyway, when we started this (less than 2 months ago) one aussie dollar bought 98 cnd, now its 73cnd. Totally freaked out now, Calgary is not cheap and we are going to need money to set up, cars and the like even if we dont buy.

So having big discussions with family on the weekend to see if we can still afford to go, I really hope so, frankly getting off the plane into a mild but muggy aussie day, after a dreadful qantas flight and greeted by some rather rude airport staff and the exchange rate!!! made me all the more determined to sell the house and get out to Calgary.

One thing to anyone going out, do yourself a favour, do a reccie first. Some things were not as expected, like housing and much talk of recession on news etc, other things were way better than expected, weather, schools, but you really need to see it like it is IMO.

Thanks for sharing your impressions, jad n rich.

I sympathize with you on the currency exchange issue. Been there, done that.

All the best in sorting out the question of whether or not you'll move to Calgary.
x

when you say houses are expensive, what do you mean?
we bought our first house a year ago. a mid terrace 3 bed for £238k ($480CDN ish)
could you give me an example of the house prices that you found, as mls.ca seem to be cheapish!

Once I got off mls and actually into the estates full realisation hit that many houses are very cheaply built structures, with only one metre between them and overlooked by up to 20 houses as they are so crammed together. Add the fact not a single tree has been left to punctuate the grey and beige houses, many estates actually look pretty grim in reality. IMO I felt the $450,000 - $800,000 being asked for this type of stuff was pretty top whack. In fact the price being asked for what some stuff left me gobsmacked.

Also looked at acerage, there are some complicated issues with sewerage and water supply and land title which means you would really need considerable knowledge to buy this sort of stuff, cheaper stuff could be a hint there are some issues. l

Inner city and older suburbs have some fantastic tree lined streets, but you can still pay $400,000 - $500,000++ for a house that basically is a tiny trailer style/size house and needs extensive work, I also got the suspicion that many of these houses could show quite some defect issues once the winter climate got into full swing.

I think like anywhere real estate on the internet only gives you the picture perfect view, not the pig farm next door, joking seriously not the 20 houses looking into your loungeroom etc.

Just my opinion, I knew Calgary would be expensive, its no secret, Calgarians themself certainly seem to think so. However if your coming from the UK the exchange rate may make it better than someone on Canadian wages or like us exchanging from australian ( toilet paper value ) dollars.

I think the difference of emmigrating from Australia to Calgary rather than England must be fairly large.

Many Many English people grew up/lived on housing estates, in terraced houses all overlooking one another with barely any green space around, these shoebox houses can often sell for lots of money.

I understand the point of the houses only being a metre or so apart, we are seeing that in Red Deer now too, not my cup of tea really, our first house here made us feel like we were in a goldfish bowl - being so overlooked, the big problem was the house to the back of us had glass from top to bottom, so every time we were in the garden or on the deck we could see what our neighbours were upto. We could have fitted 6 of the house we sold in the UK into the 1st one we bought here - for the same money as we sold up in England for.

We moved to an older area where the houses are much older - the lots are bigger and the green spaces/trees are more established, I suppose you could describe it a trailer sized house by looking at the picture but it has 1200sq foot on the main floor, we can still fit 4 of our old English houses into it and it keeps up nice and warm in the winter - stand upto all the weather we have had so far really well actually.

Australia's actually far more suburban than people would think, about 90%+ of the population lives in a handful of cities/coastline. Most of aus, like a lot of Canada is simply uninhabitable. Hence the cram in the cities, the estate lifestyle/overcrowded cities/strain on infrastructure are alive and well in Australia too.

I am from the UK and know what you mean, moving from a 2 up terrace in the UK probably would make the $500,000 goldfish bowl look attractive, if your a Canadian on Canadian wages its probably a crazy price.

Sounds like you were out in the NW of Calgary..............horrible identikit grey houses..........if there is a bit of green space between them its a golf course?

Oh God yeah! Hence why we didn't pay that and we wouldn't pay that. Also a reason we chose a smaller city to live in. I just wanted to reflect for the OP that your expectations maybe different to someone moving straight from the UK to Calgary rather than someone who is moving via Aus.

Are you telling me Aus isn't all like Neighbours and Home and Away????

Another point on housing in Alberta. Houses built so close together are a real fire hazard, especially in a such a dry climate and with most houses of "stick frame" wood construction with vinyl siding. There was a huge fire in south Edmonton a couple of years ago in a new development called MacEwan. It was very difficult to contain because the houses were so close together. I think there is now a move to try to make the exterior walls of houses more fire resistant by adding a layer of drywall under the vinyl. Newer houses also have very small lots - useless if you like gardening or want some space for your kids to play. Buying into an older area would probably give you a bigger lot but you might have to put in a bit in renovations, extra insulation etc. - fine if you're the handyman type but trades people can be expensive and difficult to get these days. New areas tend to have fewer services and shops and are pretty boring so if you don't like miles of "little boxes all made out or ticky tacky' that all look just the same, scout around a bit even in small towns nearby.
Best of luck.

We are thinking of going to Calgary next year for a reccie, so your comments are very interesting. The schools for our two children are of particular importance so it would be very interesting to see what you made of them.

Good luck with your decision.

Firstly the calgary education board determines where your child goes, you have to rent first then make an appointment. Our kids 11 and 14 would be in jnr high and senior high so 2 different schools. they turn 12 and 15 end of this yr and grades would be 7 and 10 so for us they go backwards 6 months ( OZ ) . Kids look very casual going to school jeans and shorts etc, quite funny to see a couple hundred kids launch of of school into the food court at mall at lunchtime in OZ they are not allowed out of school and wear some very silly ( dated ) uniforms, so quite a change for us and I imagine from the UK too.

Work despite going back seems slightly advanced, I think from UK this might be in reverse, so easier. One family from UK I talked to, their kids loved it, t, another family, kids hated it and were being bullied, so I guess from that we can assume like anywere kids/schools/teachers provide a variety of combinations of how things will turn out. Class sizes around the 29/30, well where we saw. One of our kids in OZ has a canadian exchange teacher, we already knew the work would be harder.

From what I saw I would be happy for my kids to have a canadian education.

One concern as a family I did have was not education but the Doctor situation, ads on TV keep reminding you 5 million familes cant get a Doctor, we were advised in Calgary this would mean you rely on 'walk in' clinics and face what can be a lengthy wait. I am sure those in Calgary could advise us more on that but it did worry me, I mean basic stuff like what do you do for health check ups, like girly stuff etc if you dont have a regular doc.

On the Dr front (I'm talking about Red Deer too, but it's still AB) We use a Walk in clinic. We can request certain Doc's and also make appointments, I have made an appointment for girly stuff later this month (Deep Joy) The longest I have had to wait was about 2 hours, we went home and then came back again. I have waited longer than that for a scheduled appointment at the Doc's in the UK, without the option of going home in between times. So it's not all bad.

Re the housing being built, the situation with doctors etc. These are all attributable to the huge boom Calgary has undergone in recent years. It's such a shame that it has become a victim of its own success.

We used to be amazed at the quality of the planning and the amount of space in the new 'communities' that were built, but we started noticing, about 10 years ago, that these grey shoe-box places were springing up all over the place. I am always gob-smacked when I look out the plane window to see how much it is spreading (although I believe this has now started to settle). Spruce Meadows, for instance, used to be quite a drive out of town. Now it has communities right in front of it.

Also, downtown used to be so spick and span but we noticed on our visit this year that it was decidedly grubby looking in comparison. I read on another thread about a Calgary reccie which mentioned the amount of down and outs in the downtown area. I think a lot of this is because the city built a fantastic homeless shelter in the downtown area - they even spent a packet (no pun intended) constructing smoking balconies in the building. When word got around the homeless community, more and more people starting piling in. I think the city has inherited problems that weren't of its making, if you see what I mean.

It is still a lovely city though and Calgarians, well I've always found anyway, are extremely friendly and proud of their heritage.

I'm sorry to hear you had a dreadful flight home, but we are glad you made it back safely. It was really nice meeting you and I guess you have some big decisions to make. Good luck with whatever you choose and stay in touch - Samantha