scrubbedexpat091

Family reunification for one, such as spouses who are not Canadian relocating to Canada to live with their spouse.

dbd33

That implies that one spouse lives in Canada and the other does not. Apart from arranged marriages and green card scams, how does that happen?

Regardless of how it happens, why don't they reunify in the other country? I suggest it's for economic reasons; they can buy more stuff in Canada.

scrubbedexpat091

I only used that example as that is what her dad speaks as his first language. He was born there and lived there until his 30's when he came to Canada.

dbd33

Fair enough, if you wanted to live in Zug you'd need Swiss-German. In other cantons you might not need Swiss-German but you might need French, Italian or high German.

scrubbedexpat091

One thing I certainly cannot do in Canada is buy more stuff.

Siouxie

SIGH. A good amount of people relocate/emigrate to Canada because they met someone, fell in love and got married... or were brought here by their parents!

I actually said Don't take what I said out of context. Thank you. With 2 wage earners on $30,000 or a combned income of $70,000 they could afford a house in my city 4 years ago - now they cannot.

What about the other reason - i.e. This is where their jobs are?

That isn't feasible for many people SIGH.

Yeah, whatever. What might have worked for you 35/40 years ago when you came to Canada isn't the reality for most people today. I think if you were to arrive in Canada today you would be hard pressed to afford a 2 bedroom apt.

As I said - 2 viewpoints here, with little empathy of the other viewpoint - 'them and us' - I think I can guess which camp you are in...

dbd33

Well, this is an argument I have all the time. "I can't quite afford a house around here". "So, move to North Van, other people have to", "Nah, we'll save some more".

So, I am familiar with the plight of the would be house owners of today, I just don't see it as being markedly different from the plight of would be house owners of the past. The options are the same; share ownership, rent out part of the house, move somewhere cheaper, earn more. Where we differ is that I don't value any part of Canada more than another part, I don't feel a compelling need to stay wherever this is and that I've always moved for the money.

Perhaps people who can't afford Oakville should look at Montreal, worse weather, better culture, low cost housing or, if they're posters here, Manchester or Norwich or Glasgow.

When I came to Canada, of course, I couldn't afford a two bedroom apartment. We lived in a studio until kicked out for overcrowding.

Siouxie

5 years ago you could buy a decent small 3 bedroom house in a reasonable area in Hamilton for under $200,000. That same house today will cost $600,000 or more... and even a house or apt in a crappy area will cost over $350,000 (whereas 5 years ago you could have bought it for under $140,000. This is the issue. This is what is meant by affordabiliity - the eejits coming from the GTA have priced the locals out of the market. Without the people who do the base jobs being able to afford housing, the infrastructure breaks down.

I don't value any part of Canada over another - but the reality is many people can't afford to physically move to another area, they are in between a rock and a hard place. You are fortunate that you have a career that allows you to 'move for the money; - thousands do not... that's the reality. Not just expats - cradles too.

scrubbedexpat091

Not like North Vancouver is much cheaper these days though or even Surrey or Langley.

I was curious, 500,000 to 1 million in North Vancouver just 1 listing, some sort of boat house.

dbd33

You make Hamilton sound like Cornwall. I suppose they do both have a coastline. What happens isn't that the infrastructure breaks down but that people who will live more cheaply come and take the jobs. They live in HMOs or caravans or whatever. That's the root of the Brexit vote in rural England.

I accept that Greyhound service is now limited but there's a train to Montreal. If one had a job there for an extra $2 an hour the fare would quickly be amortized.

Choosing a job with a high hourly rate and no other remuneration is a conscious choice. An immigrant's choice. The luck is in not getting injured or sick and in the job staying in fashion.

HGerchikov

I am really struggling to make sense of this figure. I looked on TREB (Toronto Real Estate Board) and the Home Price Index for one of the cheaper areas on Etobicoke is over $900k for detached homes, Looking at the listings on the page that is linked also seems to suggest something is awry. The cheapest detached house sold in the past 20 days in a northern part of Etobicoke was $950k (was listed at $700k). I know it says detached homes but either they mean from 8 years ago or they really mean single family homes, including apartments.

Siouxie

What you don't appear to understand is that there is no cheap housing in Hamilton any more.. and this isn't the UK, so no caravans.. and duplex's / triplex's and the like are already overpriced. There is nobody to 'come and take the jobs' - because there's no housing. DUH. Get your head out of the UK - and listen to what people are saying about Canada
Choosing a job is a luxury many don't have.. no choice in it for more people than you know..
You apparently don't get the difference between affordability and a wind up.

dbd33

They're selling houses so the numbers have to be taken with a bucket of salt, something that's also true for the comparable UK figure. Still, even at $900k, Etobicoke is half the price of East Finchley. By comparison with the UK, within the M25, Toronto is still not expensive. It is, of course, expensive compared with two years ago.

dbd33

The relevance of the UK is that most people posting here have the option to be there or here. There's no point in considering the price of houses in Sydney or Tokyo or Bora Bora because most of us don't have work permits for those places. We do have the option of working in the UK if that's where the money is. It's silly to think only of Canada if you have the paperwork to be able to have broader horizons.

And, now that I think, there are caravans in Hamilton. I remember going to a caravan park in Hamilton with the Newfie upstairs in the middle of the night when his stash ran out. He had a Camaro Z28 which I drove. The place was full of construction workers sleeping in a heap. Same in Barrie, same in Mount Forest.

CanadaJimmy

Not surprising as it’s even harder to build new homes in the UK than it is in Canada. Limited supply drives up prices.