Yeah I realized it was worth living in Quebec when I discovered I can live: in the middle of a city, 10 min walk from downtown, and alone, for 400 a month all included. And that hasn't gone up once in the 5 years I've been here. This is coming from growing up poor spending most of my money on rent in Vancouver.
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
Yeah I realized it was worth living in Quebec when I discovered I can live: in the middle of a city, 10 min walk from downtown, and alone, for 400 a month all included. And that hasn't gone up once in the 5 years I've been here. This is coming from growing up poor spending most of my money on rent in Vancouver.
vancouver's still alright sometimes
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
edited May 2020
Yeah ...
Somehow we've got a 2-bedroom in west-end Halifax that's about to finally go over $1200/month after we renew, but the units are up to over $1400 if we were just moving in now. And that's probably better than average for the city at this point. The cost of a residence in Halifax is completely fucked given the actual job market and traffic issues if you dare to live outside of the peninsula.
Living in Québec City is far better than living in Montreal. It's not even comparable. But hey, if you love over-paying to live in a crammed and dirty downtown or living in a pointless suburb where you need 1.5 hours of transit to go do anything worth doing, you be my guest.
So, since we're on the subject of Quebec, we're contemplating it as a landing spot when we move back to Canada in the next couple years. We currently live in Austin, TX, both work in health (me a software company, her a hospital system) and are trying to figure out a good spot.
My French is minimal, hers is non-existent, but we had planned to start doing lessons now. We've gravitated to looked at the Ottawa-Gatineau area, but I'm also intrigued by Montreal. Are there any other areas we should possibly look into?
Also, we own a home now, but are thinking of renting at the outset once we move.
Yeah I realized it was worth living in Quebec when I discovered I can live: in the middle of a city, 10 min walk from downtown, and alone, for 400 a month all included. And that hasn't gone up once in the 5 years I've been here. This is coming from growing up poor spending most of my money on rent in Vancouver.
vancouver's still alright sometimes
With the way rents are going in Vancouver better hope for sunny weeks , cause each month the sky might become your roof
So, since we're on the subject of Quebec, we're contemplating it as a landing spot when we move back to Canada in the next couple years. We currently live in Austin, TX, both work in health (me a software company, her a hospital system) and are trying to figure out a good spot.
My French is minimal, hers is non-existent, but we had planned to start doing lessons now. We've gravitated to looked at the Ottawa-Gatineau area, but I'm also intrigued by Montreal. Are there any other areas we should possibly look into?
Also, we own a home now, but are thinking of renting at the outset once we move.
Sherbrooke has a significant English-speaking population, if you want to live away from huge cities.
Living in Québec City is far better than living in Montreal. It's not even comparable. But hey, if you love over-paying to live in a crammed and dirty downtown or living in a pointless suburb where you need 1.5 hours of transit to go do anything worth doing, you be my guest.
Since when is downtown dirty?
Also, good transit and not terribly pricey compared to other major Canadian cities and lots of great stuff.
So, since we're on the subject of Quebec, we're contemplating it as a landing spot when we move back to Canada in the next couple years. We currently live in Austin, TX, both work in health (me a software company, her a hospital system) and are trying to figure out a good spot.
My French is minimal, hers is non-existent, but we had planned to start doing lessons now. We've gravitated to looked at the Ottawa-Gatineau area, but I'm also intrigued by Montreal. Are there any other areas we should possibly look into?
Also, we own a home now, but are thinking of renting at the outset once we move.
Montreal is a great city and your need to speak any french is fairly minimal if it even exists. I knew people who grew up there with barely any french to speak of. It's useful in the job market though.
Ottawa area is a nice smaller city. Never lived there myself but I know people there and they like it.
So, since we're on the subject of Quebec, we're contemplating it as a landing spot when we move back to Canada in the next couple years. We currently live in Austin, TX, both work in health (me a software company, her a hospital system) and are trying to figure out a good spot.
My French is minimal, hers is non-existent, but we had planned to start doing lessons now. We've gravitated to looked at the Ottawa-Gatineau area, but I'm also intrigued by Montreal. Are there any other areas we should possibly look into?
Also, we own a home now, but are thinking of renting at the outset once we move.
From the experience of colleagues, you should not have much trouble doing software in English in Montréal, but French is essential for most of the healthcare system.
Federal work is supposed to be bilingual, and if you believe that, I have multiple bridges to sell you.
Also, and I suspect this hold for Ottawa-Gatineau, don't expect much of any texmex restaurants. Just don't. I heard nothing positive from Texans and Mexicans.
Some were reacting like I did when I saw what was sold as poutine in Phoenix.
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El SkidThe frozen white northRegistered Userregular
So, since we're on the subject of Quebec, we're contemplating it as a landing spot when we move back to Canada in the next couple years. We currently live in Austin, TX, both work in health (me a software company, her a hospital system) and are trying to figure out a good spot.
My French is minimal, hers is non-existent, but we had planned to start doing lessons now. We've gravitated to looked at the Ottawa-Gatineau area, but I'm also intrigued by Montreal. Are there any other areas we should possibly look into?
Also, we own a home now, but are thinking of renting at the outset once we move.
Montreal is a great city and your need to speak any french is fairly minimal if it even exists. I knew people who grew up there with barely any french to speak of. It's useful in the job market though.
Ottawa area is a nice smaller city. Never lived there myself but I know people there and they like it.
I can definitely recommend Ottawa.
Moved here from Toronto a couple decades ago and never looked back.
Although with the Federal government here, it might be more important jobwise to speak French here than even Montreal...
Aldo files for bankruptcy. They blame having too many stores given that half their sales are now online, along with covid-19 of course. On the first point I can certainly understand - between their three brands, Aldo, Spring and Globo, they have 5 of their stores in the 2 malls near my house. That doesn't seem efficient.
I lived in Ottawa and then moved to Toronto, by way of Oakville. Oakville I do not recommend.
Ottawa is great, but if you're looking to work as a developer, your salary and job prospects will be limited. Rent's much cheaper, but you will almost definitely need a car if you want to go anywhere interesting, because transit is at best tolerable.
Toronto is great, with great salaries for tech work, but if you want to live anywhere affordable, you are going to be doing some serious commuting. I have a decent place for a decent rent, but only because I moved here like six years ago and refuse to leave. Transit, though we love to complain about it, is leagues better than any other transit system in Ontario.
That said, none of this really matters right now, since a lot of folks now work remotely or not at all, so the job markets everywhere that we knew are completely different. And none of this will hold true in a few years when we've sorted all this out - certain provinces/cities will have weathered this a lot better than others, so whatever we know to be true today is likely to be very different by then.
Hell, entire governmental systems will be different - cities in Ontario are by law not allowed to go into debt, but the only way Toronto will save people, industries, and itself is either massive funding help from the province or federal level, or by that rule changing, which changes entire dynamics of funding for the future in cities.
Shit's gonna get very weird, very slowly, for a long time.
So, I have previously lived in Ottawa (well, Orleans), about 20 years ago. Used to do the cross town commute to Algonquin for school, so I'm fairly familiar with Ottawa itself (or was). I love Ottawa, and it's probably our first choice, except we can't live in Ontario (we have two Pitbull mixes). Toronto area would also be on our list if not for the dog situation.
Other than doing some paintballing up in the Gatineau hills, and a night out on my 18th in Hull, I don't really know much about the Quebec side of the area. It does have more appeal on it's own, since it seems to have a lot of access to outdoor activities.
As for Montreal, we visited about a year and a half ago (when we were living in Maine), and we loved it. It would tick some boxes, but we were mostly worried about the need to speak French. I did immersion when I was in primary school, but am sorely out of practice. We're going to try to take some classes though, and I feel if we can get semi-proficient Montreal may go higher up our list.
EDIT: There is an outside chance we may be able to keep our current jobs, as we both work remotely. Mine in particular, since I work for a multi-national company.
FYI, Pitbull are also on the list in Montréal. The municipal ban was suspended, but the point was to rewrite it. It's probably back next time a pit bull kill someone.
I love Ottawa, and it's probably our first choice, except we can't live in Ontario (we have two Pitbull mixes)
Ottawa doesn't enforce the pitbull ban. I've lived here for a couple years, and have met several.
Also the Ontario government is flirting with ending the ban, there was a member's bill introduced or planning to be introduced late last year to remove the breed-specific language. Not sure where that fell out, I presume that the pandemic kind of put legislation like that on hold.
I love Ottawa, and it's probably our first choice, except we can't live in Ontario (we have two Pitbull mixes)
Ottawa doesn't enforce the pitbull ban. I've lived here for a couple years, and have met several.
Also the Ontario government is flirting with ending the ban, there was a member's bill introduced or planning to be introduced late last year to remove the breed-specific language. Not sure where that fell out, I presume that the pandemic kind of put legislation like that on hold.
This may be the first Ford government action I would wholeheartedly agree with.
Mind you, once they have the actual bill written, I'm confident they'll find a way to fuck it up.
So, since we're on the subject of Quebec, we're contemplating it as a landing spot when we move back to Canada in the next couple years. We currently live in Austin, TX, both work in health (me a software company, her a hospital system) and are trying to figure out a good spot.
My French is minimal, hers is non-existent, but we had planned to start doing lessons now. We've gravitated to looked at the Ottawa-Gatineau area, but I'm also intrigued by Montreal. Are there any other areas we should possibly look into?
Also, we own a home now, but are thinking of renting at the outset once we move.
Montreal is a great city and your need to speak any french is fairly minimal if it even exists. I knew people who grew up there with barely any french to speak of. It's useful in the job market though.
Ottawa area is a nice smaller city. Never lived there myself but I know people there and they like it.
I can definitely recommend Ottawa.
Moved here from Toronto a couple decades ago and never looked back.
Although with the Federal government here, it might be more important jobwise to speak French here than even Montreal...
Working for the feds, I can tell you that french is important for a lot of management roles, but you can get decently high up speaking only English and there's a lot of english-essential positions on the ottawa side.
JeanHeartbroken papa bearGatineau, QuébecRegistered Userregular
I live in Gatineau!
I didn't like it when I was a teenager but now than I am older and appreciate a quieter life, I love it here!
I plan on spending the rest of my life here. Zero interest in moving anywhere else.
Pros
Great job market
Affordable housing
Affordable education
Affordable childcare
Lot of parks (des cèdres park , Gatineau park, Leamy lake park , Beauchamp lake park to name a few great ones)
Very low crime rate
It has everything I need shopping wise
Easy access to downtown Ottawa for jobs
In short, it's a great city to raise your familly in!
Cons
Nightlife is pretty meh
While improving, healthcare is still subpar compared to Ottawa. At least you have acccess to CHEO if you have kids.
Lots of potholes. I don't have an explanation for that one!
"You won't destroy us, You won't destroy our democracy. We are a small but proud nation. No one can bomb us to silence. No one can scare us from being Norway. This evening and tonight, we'll take care of each other. That's what we do best when attacked'' - Jens Stoltenberg
Yeah I realized it was worth living in Quebec when I discovered I can live: in the middle of a city, 10 min walk from downtown, and alone, for 400 a month all included. And that hasn't gone up once in the 5 years I've been here. This is coming from growing up poor spending most of my money on rent in Vancouver.
vancouver's still alright sometimes
With the way rents are going in Vancouver better hope for sunny weeks , cause each month the sky might become your roof
luckily I own my house here in the city (well i suppose i pay a mortgage lol)
Every city I've lived in I've met locals who complained it had the worst pothole problem ever, and I've met plenty of people from places I never lived in who also complained their hometown had the worst pothole problem ever. I've come to the conclusion that potholes are a "grass is always greener on the other side" thing.
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
Every city I've lived in I've met locals who complained it had the worst pothole problem ever, and I've met plenty of people from places I never lived in who also complained their hometown had the worst pothole problem ever. I've come to the conclusion that potholes are a "grass is always greener on the other side" thing.
naw it's usually a city taxes thing. potholes aren't really a problem here but if i go visit say seattle, massive issue there. it's either not a priority for cities or cities don't have the money to fix it, or a combo of both depending how that municipality is setup
Toronto vs Montreal was definitely a difference in terms of potholes. I assume the weather is a big part of it personally.
Edmonton they didn't even bother plowing it seemed to me, so who knows.
Roadwork is a constant in northern prairie cities. You get such a variance in temperatures throughout fall, winter and spring that it will fuck the roads up no matter what.
Edmonton did have some particularly bad years though. 170th south of the Whitemud in ~2011 was a disaster and actually resulted in the city paying for a quite a few car repairs.
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JeanHeartbroken papa bearGatineau, QuébecRegistered Userregular
At least we can all agree that Thunderbay is a hole...
I have a friend who visited pretty much all of Canada. He recomended I stay far away from Thunder Bay and Winnipeg.
And re: potholes, I was pretty shocked when I used to live in Alberta. It's actually even worse out there than in Québec! Even the highway linking Calgary to Edmonton was god damn awful.
New Brunswick, on the other hand, have surprisingly nice roads!
"You won't destroy us, You won't destroy our democracy. We are a small but proud nation. No one can bomb us to silence. No one can scare us from being Norway. This evening and tonight, we'll take care of each other. That's what we do best when attacked'' - Jens Stoltenberg
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
At least we can all agree that Thunderbay is a hole...
I have a friend who visited pretty much all of Canada. He recomended I stay far away from Thunder Bay and Winnipeg.
And re: potholes, I was pretty shocked when I used to live in Alberta. It's actually even worse out there than in Québec! Even the highway linking Calgary to Edmonton was god damn awful.
New Brunswick, on the other hand, have surprisingly nice roads!
Saint John feels like the first and only city I've seen that you can actually see them fixing the roads. They just pick the same day to do them all. Like you'll just go out one day and every other road you see is cordoned off.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
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BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
I haven't gone looking in Vancouver, but believe me when I say that the 1 bedroom/studio situation in Toronto is usually an impressive shitshow. It wasn't great when I needed a new place a few years ago, and based on my friend's experiences home hunting and articles about the increases in the area, it has only gotten worse. I'm talking $1600-1700+ (plus hydro and gas) for 600 square feet in a downtown condo with en suite laundry and central air being a major deal for those of us who didn't simply sit on a place for decade or two.
I'm sure that Vancouver is awful in that regard as well. I'm not arguing that Toronto is somehow worse. But since we're on the topic I thought I'd share, and despite being pretty damned lucky to have the place I do, rent plus gas plus hydro are starting to push 2k before I even get into phone/internet bills and groceries.
I briefly glanced at the costs of buying a condo even a bit out on the subway line, and when I was seeing prices in the 700k range for like 500 square feet, I figured I'd just go back to renting until things got better or I won the lottery.
(again, rent and mortgages are expensive all over, I'm not disputing that, just sharing the experiences of one little Torontonian Zergling)
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
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DaimarA Million Feet Tall of AwesomeRegistered Userregular
It bypasses the weirdness that Toronto Real Estate Board mandates (they want all sales information of all house prices kept hidden to buyers) by keeping a history of prior house transactions, so you can see what the house looked like and sold for when it listed previously. This lets you see just how crazy the market has gotten with some of its increases.
One of the first things I'm doing as Prime Minister of Canada is making a National Online Housing Registry/Marketplace. Everybody sells on one website, everybody searches one website, everybody buys or rents on one website. Already "Moving is hell", as my grandmother would say, so let's make searching for a new place to live as simple and as convenient as possible.
Children's rights are human rights.
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JeanHeartbroken papa bearGatineau, QuébecRegistered Userregular
Toronto and Vancouver truly are in a world of their own when it comes to real estate prices. $2k a month would get you nearly any appartment in my town! Hell, I don't even pay that much for my house.
"You won't destroy us, You won't destroy our democracy. We are a small but proud nation. No one can bomb us to silence. No one can scare us from being Norway. This evening and tonight, we'll take care of each other. That's what we do best when attacked'' - Jens Stoltenberg
Posts
vancouver's still alright sometimes
Somehow we've got a 2-bedroom in west-end Halifax that's about to finally go over $1200/month after we renew, but the units are up to over $1400 if we were just moving in now. And that's probably better than average for the city at this point. The cost of a residence in Halifax is completely fucked given the actual job market and traffic issues if you dare to live outside of the peninsula.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
My French is minimal, hers is non-existent, but we had planned to start doing lessons now. We've gravitated to looked at the Ottawa-Gatineau area, but I'm also intrigued by Montreal. Are there any other areas we should possibly look into?
Also, we own a home now, but are thinking of renting at the outset once we move.
With the way rents are going in Vancouver better hope for sunny weeks , cause each month the sky might become your roof
Sherbrooke has a significant English-speaking population, if you want to live away from huge cities.
Since when is downtown dirty?
Also, good transit and not terribly pricey compared to other major Canadian cities and lots of great stuff.
Montreal is a great city and your need to speak any french is fairly minimal if it even exists. I knew people who grew up there with barely any french to speak of. It's useful in the job market though.
Ottawa area is a nice smaller city. Never lived there myself but I know people there and they like it.
Federal work is supposed to be bilingual, and if you believe that, I have multiple bridges to sell you.
Also, and I suspect this hold for Ottawa-Gatineau, don't expect much of any texmex restaurants. Just don't. I heard nothing positive from Texans and Mexicans.
Some were reacting like I did when I saw what was sold as poutine in Phoenix.
I can definitely recommend Ottawa.
Moved here from Toronto a couple decades ago and never looked back.
Although with the Federal government here, it might be more important jobwise to speak French here than even Montreal...
Ottawa is great, but if you're looking to work as a developer, your salary and job prospects will be limited. Rent's much cheaper, but you will almost definitely need a car if you want to go anywhere interesting, because transit is at best tolerable.
Toronto is great, with great salaries for tech work, but if you want to live anywhere affordable, you are going to be doing some serious commuting. I have a decent place for a decent rent, but only because I moved here like six years ago and refuse to leave. Transit, though we love to complain about it, is leagues better than any other transit system in Ontario.
That said, none of this really matters right now, since a lot of folks now work remotely or not at all, so the job markets everywhere that we knew are completely different. And none of this will hold true in a few years when we've sorted all this out - certain provinces/cities will have weathered this a lot better than others, so whatever we know to be true today is likely to be very different by then.
Hell, entire governmental systems will be different - cities in Ontario are by law not allowed to go into debt, but the only way Toronto will save people, industries, and itself is either massive funding help from the province or federal level, or by that rule changing, which changes entire dynamics of funding for the future in cities.
Shit's gonna get very weird, very slowly, for a long time.
Other than doing some paintballing up in the Gatineau hills, and a night out on my 18th in Hull, I don't really know much about the Quebec side of the area. It does have more appeal on it's own, since it seems to have a lot of access to outdoor activities.
As for Montreal, we visited about a year and a half ago (when we were living in Maine), and we loved it. It would tick some boxes, but we were mostly worried about the need to speak French. I did immersion when I was in primary school, but am sorely out of practice. We're going to try to take some classes though, and I feel if we can get semi-proficient Montreal may go higher up our list.
EDIT: There is an outside chance we may be able to keep our current jobs, as we both work remotely. Mine in particular, since I work for a multi-national company.
Ottawa doesn't enforce the pitbull ban. I've lived here for a couple years, and have met several.
This may be the first Ford government action I would wholeheartedly agree with.
Mind you, once they have the actual bill written, I'm confident they'll find a way to fuck it up.
Working for the feds, I can tell you that french is important for a lot of management roles, but you can get decently high up speaking only English and there's a lot of english-essential positions on the ottawa side.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
I didn't like it when I was a teenager but now than I am older and appreciate a quieter life, I love it here!
I plan on spending the rest of my life here. Zero interest in moving anywhere else.
Pros
Cons
Quebec has a pothole field. Once you cross the border, they randomly spontaneously generate themselves in any piece of pavement.
naw it's usually a city taxes thing. potholes aren't really a problem here but if i go visit say seattle, massive issue there. it's either not a priority for cities or cities don't have the money to fix it, or a combo of both depending how that municipality is setup
Edmonton they didn't even bother plowing it seemed to me, so who knows.
Roadwork is a constant in northern prairie cities. You get such a variance in temperatures throughout fall, winter and spring that it will fuck the roads up no matter what.
Edmonton did have some particularly bad years though. 170th south of the Whitemud in ~2011 was a disaster and actually resulted in the city paying for a quite a few car repairs.
I have a friend who visited pretty much all of Canada. He recomended I stay far away from Thunder Bay and Winnipeg.
And re: potholes, I was pretty shocked when I used to live in Alberta. It's actually even worse out there than in Québec! Even the highway linking Calgary to Edmonton was god damn awful.
New Brunswick, on the other hand, have surprisingly nice roads!
I mean...okay yes.
Currently DMing: None
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[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Saint John feels like the first and only city I've seen that you can actually see them fixing the roads. They just pick the same day to do them all. Like you'll just go out one day and every other road you see is cordoned off.
$2000 month maximum, 2 bedroom apartment, long-term rentals only, no room-shares.
Toronto
Montreal
Calgary
Ottawa
Vancouver
I haven't gone looking in Vancouver, but believe me when I say that the 1 bedroom/studio situation in Toronto is usually an impressive shitshow. It wasn't great when I needed a new place a few years ago, and based on my friend's experiences home hunting and articles about the increases in the area, it has only gotten worse. I'm talking $1600-1700+ (plus hydro and gas) for 600 square feet in a downtown condo with en suite laundry and central air being a major deal for those of us who didn't simply sit on a place for decade or two.
I'm sure that Vancouver is awful in that regard as well. I'm not arguing that Toronto is somehow worse. But since we're on the topic I thought I'd share, and despite being pretty damned lucky to have the place I do, rent plus gas plus hydro are starting to push 2k before I even get into phone/internet bills and groceries.
I briefly glanced at the costs of buying a condo even a bit out on the subway line, and when I was seeing prices in the 700k range for like 500 square feet, I figured I'd just go back to renting until things got better or I won the lottery.
(again, rent and mortgages are expensive all over, I'm not disputing that, just sharing the experiences of one little Torontonian Zergling)
realtor.ca is the only one I've used, it's nice to browse around and see what is out there.
The best for the Greate Toronto Area is House Sigma
https://housesigma.com/web/en/
It bypasses the weirdness that Toronto Real Estate Board mandates (they want all sales information of all house prices kept hidden to buyers) by keeping a history of prior house transactions, so you can see what the house looked like and sold for when it listed previously. This lets you see just how crazy the market has gotten with some of its increases.
https://housesigma.com/web/en/house/RdXze3eoG4Ly8m9K/139-Indian-Rd-Toronto-W4729650