Trials
Well-known member
phone a friend
Putting down roots
- Thread starter bigpoppa
- Start date
Green Meenie
Well-known member
You're right on the money here!
I'm about to go down to NB in a couple of weeks to start clearing out my mother's house (she went into care recently). We have two appraisals on the property, both at about $400k. This is a custom built house that overlooks the Kennebecasis river, outside of Saint John. Includes beach frontage with an out building above the beach and even a sauna on the lower level of the house. The west facing view over the river that is spectacular, particularly at sunset. You couldn't buy a place like that for under 2 mil anywhere in Ont but, it's the Maritimes where winters are long and brutal (by our standards) and the summers are a real crap shoot weather wise. Better riding roads in general than Ont. and if you're into snow-mo's; you're golden
Biggest issue is leaving family behind here if that's an issue for you. Money wise and what you get for your house dollar - it's a no-brainer!
Mad Mike
Well-known member
Family stopped us from taking it further, my wife more than me - she’d be dragging us back here within 2 years.You're right on the money here!
I'm about to go down to NB in a couple of weeks to start clearing out my mother's house (she went into care recently). We have two appraisals on the property, both at about $400k. This is a custom built house that overlooks the Kennebecasis river, outside of Saint John. Includes beach frontage with an out building above the beach and even a sauna on the lower level of the house. The west facing view over the river that is spectacular, particularly at sunset. You couldn't buy a place like that for under 2 mil anywhere in Ont but, it's the Maritimes where winters are long and brutal (by our standards) and the summers are a real crap shoot weather wise. Better riding roads in general than Ont. and if you're into snow-mo's; you're golden
I found a beautiful 3500sq’ house in Shediac. Had a 1500sq’ shop, 5 acres with 800’ riverfront with deep water ocean access for $625k. The owners offered to include 2 year old Silverado and sled combo into the deal.
Green Meenie
Well-known member
^^ Lol - the wife is the only reason I'm not moving there myself!
Pre casino when it wasn't as busy as it is now, any time during the week or spring/fall weekend. NRP wouldn't come on the parkway unless requested by the Parks Department, and the Niagara Parks cops were running propane powered Reliant K-cars.
So July home sales in Canada set records, both for volume and price, CDN average is now $571K , so for every 249K home in Zippity Sask, there are a lot of 1m + homes sold to balance that out.
The pandemic has a lot of work from home and condo dwellers looking at more personal space. Aug and sept should be equally kookoo
The pandemic has a lot of work from home and condo dwellers looking at more personal space. Aug and sept should be equally kookoo
bigpoppa
Well-known member
What are your thoughts on Gatineau? Its just a bridge across from ottawa, houses seem nice but priced way better than ontario
(full disclosure my french is non existent)
#edit
I hear healthcare and hospitals in quebec arent as good, but with a young family this is less of a concern
Some people also mentioned commuting to ottawa for work is a pain, but there's like 5 bridges from gat to ottawa, so not sure how big of an issue this is
(full disclosure my french is non existent)
#edit
I hear healthcare and hospitals in quebec arent as good, but with a young family this is less of a concern
Some people also mentioned commuting to ottawa for work is a pain, but there's like 5 bridges from gat to ottawa, so not sure how big of an issue this is
Last edited:
Green Meenie
Well-known member
If you can find suitable work in Ottawa with a decent commute time then that could work if home prices are cheaper in Gatineau. There's usually a reason home prices are cheaper. Finding out what that reason is may be difficult until you live there.
Do your research on municipal taxation levels one location to another. I remember when we moved to Brampton decades ago, we looked at places just over the municipal boundary line in Caledon. Taxes in Caledon were 25-30% more than similar homes in Brampton. We ended up choosing a house in Brampton over the one we liked in Caledon because taxes were a lot lower and taxes only go in one direction no matter where you live.
Do your research on municipal taxation levels one location to another. I remember when we moved to Brampton decades ago, we looked at places just over the municipal boundary line in Caledon. Taxes in Caledon were 25-30% more than similar homes in Brampton. We ended up choosing a house in Brampton over the one we liked in Caledon because taxes were a lot lower and taxes only go in one direction no matter where you live.
I've had to make a similar decision and came up with the opposite conclusion as the right one for us. We picked a higher tax municipality as the prestige (and much more importantly, house price increase) had been higher in the more expensive municipality. Yes, taxes were 20% higher but the yearly gap in house price appreciation was roughly equivalent to 100 to 200% of property tax. I figure we paid ~$5,000 to 10,000 more tax but sold for ~$100,000 more than a similar house in the neighbouring municipality after eight years. Buying on the cheap side of the line can be ok if it is your forever home, but if you plan on moving, odds are you will be forever frozen out of the more desirable market.
At one point my brother was thinking about living in Illinois or Wisconsin. They had different ways to achieve their revenue. One had sky high property tax and low income tax, the other one the opposite. Depending on your income and the property you wanted to own, one side of the border could be a clear winner over the other. GM is correct, taxes are forever. Picking the wrong side puts constant pressure on your cash flow and ultimately net worth.
I have no idea about qc income tax or legal system BP other than to know they are different. Personally, I would rather be in an ottawa suburb than having to deal with a commute with choke points and a province that is absolutely screwed if the federal rain from above dries up. With the current dumpster fire and Alberta no longer kicking much uphill, I dont know how long transfer payments can survive. That could cause a huge step in some form of qc taxation to fix their books. This would put further pressure on their house prices. If taxes diverge, it becomes like condo fees and each $6000 a year is roughly equivalent to a 100,000 price hit (if people are spending to cover expenses, they dont have the money to pay off a larger mortgage).
Last edited:
Green Meenie
Well-known member
Stay away from the shoreline of the Saint John river and some of it's tributaries in N.B. Spring flooding has been a huge issue spring 2017/18.
Priller
Well-known member
I lived in Ottawa for a year and loved it, but not being bilingual, it became very clear very quickly that my career prospects would be limited. This was over ten years ago, so real estate wasn't such a national obsession, so I didn't know a single Anglo that lived on the Quebec side, even if all the construction companies were there...
I'm late to this thread, but I wanted to offer a counterbalance to some of the Hamilton skepticism I've seen here. Just as some background, we moved back from BC partly because we wanted a walkable urban neighbourhood. My wife and I had bought an acreage when we lived in BC, and while it was amazing in many ways, spending time in Italy, particularly Rome, made it clear to both of us that we were urbanites, and wanted to live somewhere that was both more walkable and felt like more of a vibrant are, including interaction with neighbours that extended beyond a wave through a car window.
Our budget precluded anything decent in Toronto proper, complicated by the fact that we needed something with a bit of space to accommodate my in-laws, who live with us. Hamilton offered the best mix of affordability, amenities, density and services. Most other places we looked at were extremely suburban, which ends up being no more walkable than living in the country, it just has a shorter drive to the closest Boston Pizza or Wal-Mart.
Most people see the Hamilton you get from the Skyway, belching smoke and flame, with piles of slag and scrap metal. While those things are definitely there, and some areas are on the sketchy side, there's lots of great areas too. We're in the shadow of the escarpment, on a tree lined street in an area full of unique century homes. There's a great park just a couple blocks away, and a number of amazing bars, restaurants and shops within a 20 minute walk, not drive. Our neighbours tend to be on the front porch as much as in the backyard, and most are super friendly.
The biggest problem (for me, not my wife!) is that the riding is crap. There are a few twisty roads, but they all have crazy low speed limits (60 or less), are mostly jammed with houses and driveways, have crowds all week, or have a healthy police presence. South, north, and west offer little respite, leaving northeast with a trip from one side of the GTA to the other in the way. It's why I'm spending a lot more time at the track, and why I just bought a beat up RC51 to get my cornering fix.
If I worked in Ottawa, and didn't care about any sort of urban living, I'd be living to the west, with access to all those amazing roads...
I'm late to this thread, but I wanted to offer a counterbalance to some of the Hamilton skepticism I've seen here. Just as some background, we moved back from BC partly because we wanted a walkable urban neighbourhood. My wife and I had bought an acreage when we lived in BC, and while it was amazing in many ways, spending time in Italy, particularly Rome, made it clear to both of us that we were urbanites, and wanted to live somewhere that was both more walkable and felt like more of a vibrant are, including interaction with neighbours that extended beyond a wave through a car window.
Our budget precluded anything decent in Toronto proper, complicated by the fact that we needed something with a bit of space to accommodate my in-laws, who live with us. Hamilton offered the best mix of affordability, amenities, density and services. Most other places we looked at were extremely suburban, which ends up being no more walkable than living in the country, it just has a shorter drive to the closest Boston Pizza or Wal-Mart.
Most people see the Hamilton you get from the Skyway, belching smoke and flame, with piles of slag and scrap metal. While those things are definitely there, and some areas are on the sketchy side, there's lots of great areas too. We're in the shadow of the escarpment, on a tree lined street in an area full of unique century homes. There's a great park just a couple blocks away, and a number of amazing bars, restaurants and shops within a 20 minute walk, not drive. Our neighbours tend to be on the front porch as much as in the backyard, and most are super friendly.
The biggest problem (for me, not my wife!) is that the riding is crap. There are a few twisty roads, but they all have crazy low speed limits (60 or less), are mostly jammed with houses and driveways, have crowds all week, or have a healthy police presence. South, north, and west offer little respite, leaving northeast with a trip from one side of the GTA to the other in the way. It's why I'm spending a lot more time at the track, and why I just bought a beat up RC51 to get my cornering fix.
If I worked in Ottawa, and didn't care about any sort of urban living, I'd be living to the west, with access to all those amazing roads...
bigpoppa
Well-known member
thank you for the thoughtful response
Mad Mike
Well-known member
If you live in the place and are able bodied, stay away from condos with strata/condo fees - the fees, assessments and mostly the condo board decision making process will drive you nuts. Take care of maintenance yourself - it will be way cheaper!
I've had $25K in assessments over 20 years - one for roof, one for windows, and recently one for driveway replacements (there were others too).
Unless you are on the board you have virtually no say in the contract awards. Many boards will delegate the quote process to a Property Management company - it's my experience this will result in some outrageous quotes, I suspect some kind of commissions or kickbacks are part of doing business this way.
I've had $25K in assessments over 20 years - one for roof, one for windows, and recently one for driveway replacements (there were others too).
Unless you are on the board you have virtually no say in the contract awards. Many boards will delegate the quote process to a Property Management company - it's my experience this will result in some outrageous quotes, I suspect some kind of commissions or kickbacks are part of doing business this way.
Priller
Well-known member
I work in concrete repair and restoration, mostly on ICI and heavy civil. I have worked on condos in the past, and it's an absolute nightmare from the contractor side. If I never deal with another strata or condo board, I'll be very happy.
First off, many condos keep their maintenance fund far too small, usually because people simply don't understand the scale of costs when dealing with a 30-story concrete building. A window designed for use at 300' is not the same as the crap one you get at Home depot, for example. This leads to band-aids on top of band-aids, while the underlying issues grow exponentially. 90% of the building is convinced there is overpayment, so every item becomes a matter of obsessing over minimum cost, which is rarely the best long-term approach.
Second, condos often hire cheap property managers, which results in very poor property management. In order to keep costs down, they hire kids who have zero experience, then assign them way more buildings than they can cover effectively. This results in poor decision making and little oversight on the project.
Third, again in the 'economising' department, they will hire the cheapest engineer to oversee the work, again getting a lack of experience, very few billable hours assigned to the project, and often specifications designed to mollify the board through artificially low cost projections. When combined with the lack of experience from the property management side, and a board convinced that $0.01 is too much to pay for anything, this leads to the band-aids described above, as well as catastrophic failures down the line that result in huge special assessments when the bill finally comes due.
Lastly, when the board changes annually, and everyone is convinced that everyone else is an overspending idiot, they'll often undo decisions made by previous groups out of spite, resulting in lots of wasted work and costs.
From the contracting side, this leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy: by being so cheap, good contractors avoid doing condo work as soon as possible. This leaves the less reputable ones to find ways to manipulate the system and take advantage of inexperienced property managers and engineers by milking extras and threatening lawsuits. Obviously, this isn't universal and many decent contractors do good work on condos, but the overall percentage is much lower than in other types of work.
And all this is for an existing building. When you add that condos are often built by the shadiest of shady general contractors who are experts at cutting corners and squeezing subs (resulting in more cut corners), you're often starting with a poorly built structure with inherent issues.
Obviously, none of the above is universal, and my experience is confined mostly to concrete structures, which doesn't cover most townhouse complexes without a shared parking garage. When we got involved, it was usually because things had gotten really bad, which obviously distorts my perceptions.
And if my lifestyle made it work, I would buy one too. I would just spend more up front to have a detailed inspection done by an experienced structural engineer familiar with concrete, cladding, and other major systems. I would also be leery of artificially low maintenance fees (this is very real in new builds) and an amateur hour property management group...
First off, many condos keep their maintenance fund far too small, usually because people simply don't understand the scale of costs when dealing with a 30-story concrete building. A window designed for use at 300' is not the same as the crap one you get at Home depot, for example. This leads to band-aids on top of band-aids, while the underlying issues grow exponentially. 90% of the building is convinced there is overpayment, so every item becomes a matter of obsessing over minimum cost, which is rarely the best long-term approach.
Second, condos often hire cheap property managers, which results in very poor property management. In order to keep costs down, they hire kids who have zero experience, then assign them way more buildings than they can cover effectively. This results in poor decision making and little oversight on the project.
Third, again in the 'economising' department, they will hire the cheapest engineer to oversee the work, again getting a lack of experience, very few billable hours assigned to the project, and often specifications designed to mollify the board through artificially low cost projections. When combined with the lack of experience from the property management side, and a board convinced that $0.01 is too much to pay for anything, this leads to the band-aids described above, as well as catastrophic failures down the line that result in huge special assessments when the bill finally comes due.
Lastly, when the board changes annually, and everyone is convinced that everyone else is an overspending idiot, they'll often undo decisions made by previous groups out of spite, resulting in lots of wasted work and costs.
From the contracting side, this leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy: by being so cheap, good contractors avoid doing condo work as soon as possible. This leaves the less reputable ones to find ways to manipulate the system and take advantage of inexperienced property managers and engineers by milking extras and threatening lawsuits. Obviously, this isn't universal and many decent contractors do good work on condos, but the overall percentage is much lower than in other types of work.
And all this is for an existing building. When you add that condos are often built by the shadiest of shady general contractors who are experts at cutting corners and squeezing subs (resulting in more cut corners), you're often starting with a poorly built structure with inherent issues.
Obviously, none of the above is universal, and my experience is confined mostly to concrete structures, which doesn't cover most townhouse complexes without a shared parking garage. When we got involved, it was usually because things had gotten really bad, which obviously distorts my perceptions.
And if my lifestyle made it work, I would buy one too. I would just spend more up front to have a detailed inspection done by an experienced structural engineer familiar with concrete, cladding, and other major systems. I would also be leery of artificially low maintenance fees (this is very real in new builds) and an amateur hour property management group...
This is why it is important to have a professional real estate agent that knows the market, buildings and area when buying a condo. Back when I bought mine the guy I used basically told me which buildings downtown were poorly built, poorly run, etc. Steered me totally away from all of the problems you had. Then your lawyer should be looking over the books to double check how it is being run (and what is the reserve fund and the estimated future expenses). While past performance does not guarantee future you at least know you are not buying into a mess.
After I left they did do some cosmetic upgrades that drove up the condo fees a bit but they never had to do any extra assessments. The building was decades old, reserve was multi million.
I've worked for a lot of property managers/boards. None requested a kickback. They were relatively low value contracts and I suspect that is one of the main reasons that PM's require licensing now.
