Hi everyone,

I'm looking around for our move (in about 3-5 years hopefully), and was hoping that some forum members could give us advice about locations in the GTA.

Our plan is to move into a house (hence the years of saving $$$). I'd prefer to be in reasonable distance to the airport (job), and within commuting distance to U of T (girlfriend's 2nd masters). Ideally, we'd like to have access to public transportation for at least one of those destinations (hoping to curb our auto dependency).

What I need your help on is to fine tune our selection. Especially, are there any dodgy areas that are to be avoided altogether? We live in the States so I can't imagine much being seedier than where we already live, but you know what I mean. We've mainly been focusing around the Brampton area. It seems that housing in the rest of west GTA is really up there cost-wise. I've noticed housing on the east side cheaper, but have heard less than favourable things about T.O.'s east-end. Should I be looking in Oshawa and just suck it up in terms of our travel times?

And finally (a lot of questions, I know) here there are a lot of what we call 'cookie-cutter' houses...new or upgrading homebuyer type developments at fairly reasonable prices? I've noticed things like "master-planned communities" but those are for $400k-type homes.

Well thanks for any input!
*jared

Surely somebody lives in or around Toronto, yeah?

I'm sure they do, but its really not realistic to expect anyone to answer the question "where should I live".

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the East of the GTA, although Scarborough gets a bad rep for various reasons. But if you are working at the Airport and your partner is going to UoT there is no point commuting further than you have to, trafic around the airport is bad enough at the best of times.

Best bet would be to rent somewhere at first, there arent too many dodgy areas, but an experienced realtor will help you out. Once you've been there for a while you will have your own opinion of what suits your needs and what doesnt. Only you know what you really want.

I have been to Brampton and Mississauga a few times, and both seem pretty reasonable, if you like that sort of thing. They are certainly ideally located for the airport, and I have never felt in any danger at all in either place at any time of night. But, as iaink said, no one can really tell you where you'd be happy living.

If you are going to UofT then definately you should be living in toronto and not really in the wider GTA simply because of the inconvienience of the commute. It's bad enough commuting into the city when you are just going for a 9-5 job but if you have irregular lecture hours and late sessions etc it all becomes overly complicated. Much better to live on or by a TTC route, whether it's subway or bus etc. The airport area is fairly easy to get to from anywhere because it's the airport. There are highways or shuttle buses etc that all go there. If you are living in Toronto, say in the west end that's closer then driving there isn't too bad because you aren't commuting into the city so you can avoid all that rush hour stuff and deal with mainly regular city traffic.

I would avoid any cross city commuting as in living East and working west so you have to drive completely through the city. Oshawa is pretty far East, the same way Hamilton is far West and it would take a good hour or more to drive in from there before taking traffic into account.

I'd say start in the city and then once university is done move out. West end near High Park / Bloor West Village is nice (i live there so i am biased) but it has good ameinities and has quite leafy streets but is close to subway and buses. Also good are north york areas and so forth.

If you have specific neighbourhoods in mind ask about those and it's easier.

Drew

That has always sounded lovely to me. Is it horrendously expensive, though?

Thanks for the replies,

I didn't intend to be too general, sorry if it came across that way.

Anywho, we won't be able to go up to Toronto again until early next year so we're trying to hone in on certain areas to explore further on our next visit.

Funny you mention the High Park area because we loved it when we were last up there, it was actually the first time we both thought "I could definitley do this".

I think the UofT commute will really be the clincher for us, of course wanting to be close to TTC.

Thanks all again!
*jared