All of our research on where to live has focused on a straight choice between Vancouver and Halifax. In the last couple of days I've found out that my Company is opening up in Toronto, and there may be an opportunity to transfer out there. I have a couple of days to work out whether its somewhere I want to go, and part of this research is based upon housing.

For those of you that know the Toronto area, where would you recommend as a lace to live ? Some criteria:

1) We have two young children (5 & 3) so I would have to be suitable in schooling, rec centers etc for them
2) Job would be based downtown, so commute should be reasonable (ideally no more than 30 mins,but would do longer as long as no more than 1 hour)
3) Pricewise I'll have a look on MLS, but would be looking to spend up to $600k on a 4 bed house

Any advice would be appreciated

I'll be the first to pull a worm out of the can you've just opened....

A 30-minute commute to downtown means living downtown, realistically. Do a search on "The Beach" to read some of dbd33's comments on what it was like living there with a family.

Otherwise, to push to your upper limit of an hour, that puts you in Oakville to the West, so long as your employer isn't too far from Union Station. I have a journey of under an hour door-to-door along the Lakeshore West Go train line, which in my experience over the last year has been reliable and easy to use. We have a 4-bed place on a decent sized lot near good schools, rec centres, playgrounds etc, and would have taken a fair chunk of change from your upper limit for housing costs.

Others have said Oakville's some sort of suburban hell like a worst-case version of Milton Keynes - I would actually disagree, although I'd grant there is an element of cookie-cutter identikit housing on high-density lots in some of the newer areas. There's no denying the place is growing very rapidly with all the connotations of new subdivisions without mature trees to break up the suburban streetscape. There are nice bits, though - we like to think we live in one of them!

I'm sure others will be along to add their twopenn'orth shortly...

I'll add Novo's standard bit, Roncesvalles, High Park and Bloor West Village are comparable parts of town to the Beach. I pretty much agree with the comments about neighbourhoods on this site:

http://www.boldts.net/Toronto.shtml

What about places like Mississauga, Milton and Brampton ? Are they worth me considering, and what sort of commute would I be looking at ?

We need the approximate location of the office. Brampton to downtown is possible but I hit the 410 in Brampton at 6:10 in order to be downtown for 7:00am and I can never get back there in an hour.

The office is First Canadian Place, Downtown. Not sure if that means anything to anyone

Yes. It's walkable from Union Station and on the subway. It's expensive to park there. If a one hour (ahem) commute is acceptable you could live along the Lakeshore GO line as far out as Oakville or equivalent the other way :

http://www.gotransit.com/publicroot/...le/sysmap.aspx

or along the green or yellow subway lines :

http://www.toronto.ca/ttc/pdf/subway_rt.pdf

or in the Beach, commuting by tram.

What do you look for in a neighbourhood (don't say beauty, clean air or architectural quality as we don't have those)?

Leaside.

http://www.bonniebyfordrealestate.com

Trust Me.

Brampton, more house for money, long commute, violence has been an issue in many of their schools.

You won't lose money by buying in Leaside, downtown in about 15 minutes, GREAT SCHOOLS, SAFE SCHOOLS.

Bayview/SE Eglinton.

Brampton.. if your in the 9 -5 world then I'd give serious thought to the Go system, at peak periods a pretty neat way to travel and Brampton has I think three stations with sizable carparks
Out of peak period the schedules are awful

I'm not sure I'd agree with violence being an issue in our local schools, granted some of the GTA shootings last year occured on the grounds of school up here, but apart from that they appear to be as dull and deary as any other school in the GTA area

FCP is on King st between Bay and York, two blocks north of Union Station, so about 5 minutes walk (or nearer 10 if it's peeing with rain and you take the underground PATH network rather than walking at ground level).

As an example of commuting times from Oakville, I leave the house at around 7.40, catch the train just before 8 (there's one that starts at Oakville and runs non-stop express to Union, so it's waiting warm/cool/dry/empty at the station when I arrive - bonus!) and am in the office before 8.30.

By helicopter. It's a nice neighbourhood, in a suburban, Ealing type of way, but the timing is unrealistic and the $600,000 isn't enough.

Good schools and a decent rec center. I don't want acres of land, but a decent sized back garden in a house that isn't too overlooked, Some shops would be good (For Mrs Southcote you understand, although this may just be a small mall with somewhere to get basic groceries). Not too built up, but i don'twant to be living out in the sticks either.

In terms of the house, I guess we're looking for something that doesn't need too much doing to it, so is more likely to be new (or an old one that's been refurbished)


What area (for MLS purposes) is The Beach classed as ?

The Beach is E2 but I don't think you'll get the size of garden you're looking for. Our lot was 22' wide.

Mississauga's a concrete jungle, except a couple of nice bits near the lake at Port Credit and to the north of the suburb in Streetsville. The latter, though, is on the Milton line for the Go network so only gets trains in peak hours and buses at other times - not sustainable as a mode of commuting unless you're pretty much guaranteed to start between 7 and 9 and to finish between 4 and 5.30. Driving you'd be joining the hordes of others on the same journey and as dbd has commented parking right downtown gets expensive.

Milton has the same Go problem, plus outside of train operating hours it won't meet your 1 hour criterion. It's also the fastest-growing municipality in Canada, so has lots and lots of identikit new build and not a huge amount of character.

I've not spent much time in Brampton but from what I hear it has a lot going for it for families, reasonable commuting links to downtown, good facilities, and I'd agree that the comments about unsafe schools are rather overstating the case.

Note that nobody's really mentioned suburbs to the East - Scarborough, Pickering, Whitby, etc. From my limited knowledge (mostly gleaned from driving through them) there's a good reason for that, but I'll stand corrected if anybody thinks they're wonderful places...

Brampton has a large Indian population. That may or may not float your poppadom. The nice and commutable bits of Mississauga are getting up there in price, even the battered bungalow I've just given away is worth over $700,000 now.