Hi
I have lived in Vancouver for a year now.
I am considering a relocation to Toronto for work reasons.
Could you assist me with the following

1. good family neighbourhoods in central toronto.
2. Cost of housing there. I would require a 3 bed townhouse.
3. Daycare facilities (they are pretty grim in vancouver, most facilities wont accept children under 2 1/2
4. neighbourhods to avoid and why
5. cost of flights to uk!
6. access to usa

i would be grateful for as much insight as poss on the above

cheers!!!!

Good luck with your move.

I am sure you will get good info from this forum, but you might want to ask the folks at Brits2Toronto too

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/brits2toronto/

Clare

1. good family neighbourhoods in central toronto.

Need to know, how "central", walk everywhere, take subway, how convenient does it have to be? Also, how much money do you have? A friend of one of my daughters lived at the back of the Manulife centre at Bay and Church, I guess that's Rosedale, nice house and very convenient but I expect it's a little pricey. Have a look at the recent thread on the Danforth, that's either a suitable neighbourhood or "too smelly" depending on one's point of view.

2. Cost of housing there. I would require a 3 bed townhouse.

All depends on the location. For seven years ending in 1999 I rented a three bedroom townhouse in the safe, but decided unfashionable, Leslieville area (Greenwood and Queen). I expect the rent there is $1500-1600 now. I'd guess townhouses there are worth $250,000 and up, move east a few blocks and they're $400,000.

3. Daycare facilities (they are pretty grim in vancouver, most facilities wont accept children under 2 1/2

There are lots of daycare here and they take newborns. There's a sliding scale of cost, iirc, in 1999 the daycare in the building where I worked charged $1300 for a newborn down to $500 for an older child. Here's a place to start :

http://www.toronto.ca/children/childcare.htm

This says the average cost now is about $800 :

http://www.moneysense.ca/spending/cr...23_142424_4924


4. neighbourhods to avoid and why

Jane and Finch, inaccessible and dangerous. Anything with "Driftwood" or "Heights" in the name (the latter is a good rule of thumb for North America in general).

A Scarborough address requires thought. Scarborough is a huge area, neighbourhoods vary from very rough to very nice indeed. Any mention of Scarborough makes people turn up their noses so, if you're looking at one of the nicer parts you could be looking at a bargain.

The inner east end is, er, colourful. Say Church to the parkway, Queen to Bloor.

I agree with 99% of the comments in the "neighborhoods" section of this site, persevere with the inexcusable background :

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

I don't really know the west end, High Park and Bloor West Village seem nice enough, the numbered streets of Etobicoke are cheap and rough, that's been tipped as the next neighbourhood to be gentrified for as long as I can remember.

5. cost of flights to uk!

Am monitoring April/May flights for a daughter, best seen so far was $600, $700 is quite common, you can always get one for $850.


6. access to usa

It's 26 miles across the lake, that's a bit far to paddle but we've been by sailboat. Otherwise, it's two hours by car to the Buffalo airport, I often drive there where travelling by air to US destinations. There's a Greyhound terminal and a train station in Toronto, both offer service to the US. There's also an airport, YYZ, in Mississauga but there's no real transit to it and it's hideously disorganised when you get there. If all else fails you can walk across the bridge at Niagara Falls, lovely view from that bridge.


Oh, and it's obligatory to mention that there's a suburb called Burlington, poster jcexit sells houses there.

thanks so much for the info!
i would prefer to be in the city itself, but am open to taking the subway, if the neighbourhood is right.
i am a lawyer (dont even get me going.this is why i am considering moving, just not the work here in the field i practice in, so will have to article first (yawn), so income will be approx $40 in private practice. Would also consider condos.
thanks in advance!!!

Try also www.mls.ca for housing prices

How easy are you finding it to article in Ontario? I have a friend who graduated from UBC with a Law degree and there is FIERCE competition in Vancouver and BC for articling (sp?) posts.

hi claire
depends on the type of law.
if i was a commercial lawyer, i would have no problem, but i am criminal defence. the bar in van is teeny, just not the work.I have spoken to several lawyers and the police are so under budget, the cases are not being bought to court.
to be fair, have only just starting seriously looking, but have found in Toronto, people get back to you quicker, and are more helpful. Theres heaps more criminal lawyers and I have already been advsied to apply for articles with the government there.
cannot believe i have to article AGAIN!!!!! huh!!!!
good luck to yout frined, what type of law is she wanting to do?
i am hoping that with my qual, (5 years qualified) someone will snap me up!!!

I know another (Dutch and English speaking) lawyer who left Vancouver for much the same reasons - went to TO, articled again and then did some fancy footwork to sit the bar in New York. She's a criminal lawyer too. LAst I heard she makes so much money I think that I need an appointment to see her. The upside is that if Vancouver ever drags itself into the 21st century and installs a legal infrastructure that can deal with the level of crime going on, you will easily get a job back here with Ont bar qualifications if you want to in the future.

I know a lawyer here who qualified as a mature student then got her start in the court system in Hamilton, she does corporate work in Toronto now. I mention her only because, despite having a decent job, she lives in Burlington.

Anyway, if you were to take a condo in the jungle of them along the lake you'd be able to walk to the major courthouses and everything else downtown. I loved living near the St. Lawrence market as I found it to be a real neighbourhood with families, local characters and the like as well as, of course, the market. There's no predominant ethnicity nor income group, it's either delightfully mixed or requires one to be ready for anything depending on your point of view. There's no green space of course but the ferry to the islands is nearby.

Until recently my family lawyer worked out of a condo on Bay St, near the Four Seasons hotel, that's also handy for the courts but it's a bit of a sterile area, I don't know what the condo dwellers do for fun but they don't do it locally. Moving uptown there's another band of buildings around Yonge and Eglinton (known as Young and Eligible locally), not many families there, it's more about bonking. Beyond that there are more buildings in North York at about Sheppard, that used to be very much a Jewish area but it's now mainly populated by Koreans and Iranians.

I think what I would do would be to use a real estate agent or www.viewit.ca to find me a condo between say, Bathurst and Parliament south of Queen on a longish sublet, six months maybe, and use that to have somewhere to start while getting the place sussed. Harry Stinson and Brad Lamb are two much hyped agents in the condo business, I guess the former is somehow related to a big shot at the Toronto Star since he gets a puff a month, still, odious or not, he has an office at Harbor Square with lots of rental ads in the window.

thanks for the helpful replies. Dingbat you are so right. Only today we have received a letter from our strata, saying that we may not rent out our units anylonger, due to concern over meth labs, vancouver has a huge crime problem, but no one is doing anything about it!!!! have to say, the apathy/denial here really irritates me!!!!!

I live in Forest Hill which is considered 'Mid town' its a really nice area very safe and i believe good schools and day care (dont have kids yet so not really up to date on that) we are located at the St Clair subways stop and we can be in the downtown core in just under 10 minutes. visit www.viewit.ca for rental prices there a little more expensive but its a very good neighbourhood.

Avoid Scarborough as someone else mentioned anywhere along Finch.

Access to the US is probably via Niagara, about a hour / hour and a half drive along the QEW highway.

Hope that helps