what's wrong with Brampton?
 

I am currently considering a move to Toronto and am looking at areas of the city to reside. During a recent job interview I was informed that there are loads of expats in the Oakville area, and maybe we should consider this as a place to live. Having checked it out I noticed you can't really buy much for less that $400k, so I looked at the Brampton area and found you can get a really nice pad for about $325k. So the question is, why is Brampton so much cheaper than Oakville?

Also, any ideas of a ball park figure on mortgage interest rates? UK is currently about 5% fixed for 5 years, is it similar over there?

Re: what's wrong with Brampton?
 

Ghettoisation. The population of Brampton is primarily Indian in origin, that of Oakville primarily British in origin. Relatively minor considerations are that Oakville also has better GO train service. Brampton is uglier than the old parts of Oakville though, compared to the parts north of the QEW where $400k will buy a house, there's not much to choose.

Re: what's wrong with Brampton?
 

thanks. Ummmmm, what's a QEW?

Re: what's wrong with Brampton?
 

A road. The dividing line in Mississauaga/Oakville/Burlington between the right and wrong side of the "tracks".

Re: what's wrong with Brampton?
 

For me it'd be a reason to be cautious about moving to the area - I moved to Canada to integrate and live amongst Canadians, not find a British enclave, as nice as Oakville might be.

Re: what's wrong with Brampton?
 

If you mean WASP cradles then I don't think that's feasible in the GTA. There are some such people, of course, but I doubt there's an area that's predominantly cradle. Leaside, perhaps.

Re: what's wrong with Brampton?
 

Really? You like them that much? Seems a bit of a strange reason to move.

Re: what's wrong with Brampton?
 

hehhee I live in Leaside, the good bit too! lol

Re: what's wrong with Brampton?
 

There are some decent parts of Brampton but you need to know where you are looking and your 'really nice pad for $325k' is probably not in one of them. Lets just say, according to an insurance broker I was speaking to the other day, car insurance is a lot more expensive in Brampton compared to Oakville and let you draw your own conclusions. You ask about interest rates example rates are 10 year fixed 4.94%; 5 year fixed 3.64%; 3 year fixed 3.52%; 1 year fixed 2.64%. Or variables 3 years at prime - 0.85% (prime is 3% so that is 2.15%) or 5 years at prime - 0.8% (i.e. 2.2%).
Hope this helps, good luck with the move.

Re: what's wrong with Brampton?
 

That statement is slightly misleading.

At the 2006 census, people of European descent (mostly whites) were still the largest ethnic group in Brampton. Overall they made up a bit less than 50% - but still bigger than any other group.

Yes, the biggest single ethnic group was labelled East Indian but these people only accounted for about 26% of the population. However, when you add up those who were labelled as being of Canadian, English, Scottish, Irish, Italian, Portuguese, French and German descent, then these people combined outnumbered the East Indian group quite easily.

I think it's fair to say that the East Indian ethnic group is the fastest growing. The Springdale area wasn't nicknamed "Singhdale" for nothing!

Re: what's wrong with Brampton?
 

But I think HGerchikov covered that point. The 26% aren't distributed homogeneously. The $325K house is likely in an area where it's easier to fit in if you're part of the 26%.

The upside is that Indian takeaway is top class in Brampton.

Re: what's wrong with Brampton?
 

Car insurance premiums are all about liability, the likelihood of crashing into someone, so I think what we have hear is a transatlantic confusion. It's the "Asians", American usage, who attract higher premiums for their driving, not "Asians" British usage. If an insurance company had the rate granularity to differentiate between Toronto suburbs I can't see that Brampton would necessarily attract higher premiums, though Markham certainly would.

On the question of percentage of population by ethnicity, try catching the GO train to or from Brampton in rush hour, 80+% of Brampton commuters are Asian. I suggest that the white population is aged and likely infirm to the point of being housebound.

Re: what's wrong with Brampton?
 

Looking at who uses public transportation will not always give an accurate representation of a population. Brampton is definitely not 80%+ Asian so that proves my point. I lived in Brampton myself (Heart Lake area) and I still have friends there. I drove to work (in my case to Mississauga) as did most of my friends. My wife is a nurse and also drove to work (at a Brampton hospital).

Where I currently live (in DC's Maryland suburbs), a high percentage of people using public transportation are black or Hispanic. However, the numbers are not representative of their share of the general population. I now work at home (as do most of my coworkers) so I rarely use public transportation at all now. My wife has a short drive to work.

Re: what's wrong with Brampton?
 

I don't see where my point was covered. I was responding to the inaccuracy of the statement that "the population of Bramption is primarily Indian in origin". That is clearly not a true statement.

Re: what's wrong with Brampton?
 

This is getting silly. Do you accept that the population of Brampton is overwhelmingly Asian (Indian subcontinent Asian) or Black? A clue, btw, might be to take a look at the ethnicity of Brampton politicians, cradles don't elect Indian women to Parliament. Failing that, I suppose there's the census, (showing 57% shades of brown in 2006)

http://www.brampton.ca/en/Business/e...20Minority.pdf

If you don't accept the demographics, how do you account for the relatively low house prices in Brampton?