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Relocating to Toronto, need tips to settle down with family

reezoo

Member
Hi Toronto Gaf,

I am permenantly relocating to Toronto with my family (total 4 pax). Need tips/advice on dos/donts. Plan is to get a 4 bed home ASAP and settle down somehwere in GTA area. I am looking for
  • Advise on areas good for family with kids which are safe with good schools. Currenlty exploring Oakville & Milton.
  • Advise on property buying, again exploring Oakville & Milton as of now.
  • How much cash I should have in my pocket when I land there to execute my home buying plan?
I already have a job arranged as I am just moving my job to TN and company agreed to it, I will be earning well over 250K if all goes well.
 
I will be earning well over 250K if all goes well.
Yeah, in Canadian currency.
giphy.gif

JK. Happy for you eh!
 

Biff

Member
You need a realtor and you should find one NOW.

Do not try to buy a new home in another country on your own - especially Canada and EXTRA ESPECIALLY Toronto (I live here). Realtor fees suck but you can get utterly skullfucked if you get duped into a shitbox because you panic and overpay during a bidding war. Real estate has been such a gold rush in Toronto that there's many bad actors in the industry and our government agencies are too overburdened to do anything about it.

Reputable real estate agencies are Re/MAX for the upper-middle income zone and Sotheby's for the high-income zone. From there just try to pick a veteran agent who specializes in your target area and ask for references AND ACTUALLY CHECK THEM (very important!!!).

Oakville is nice but very expensive. I hate to break it to you but $250k/yr household income for a 4 bed home with 2 kids in Oakville is not as easy as you may be thinking. Canada is a beautiful country and I love it here, but taxes are extremely painful and way worse than the US as we have a much more socialist bias, and it needs to be paid for somewhere.

Where will you be physically working? If in downtown Toronto you need to consider commuting and public transit access. If work from home then it doesn't matter and I'd probably pick Milton over Oakville to get more bang for the real estate buck.
 

Batiman

Banned
Welcome brother! Tbh I don’t really have great advice to give when it comes to shopping for homes. I have a decent sized condo in the city and we’re content with it for now. The market is pretty messed up here now but apparently it’s slowly getting better.

I have a couple of coworkers from Oakville and our old manager was from Milton. Don’t know too much about Milton besides a rumour of my workplace moving there sometime in the future. We’re in Vaughn now and love my short commute.

Oakville is nice from what I hear. Pretty sure it gets pricey in that area but haven’t been following the market.

Where is you’re workplace located?
And where are coming from?

Also get yourself a Leafs jersey so you can share the pain
 
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PSYGN

Member
You need a realtor and you should find one NOW.

Do not try to buy a new home in another country on your own - especially Canada and EXTRA ESPECIALLY Toronto (I live here). Realtor fees suck but you can get utterly skullfucked if you get duped into a shitbox because you panic and overpay during a bidding war. Real estate has been such a gold rush in Toronto that there's many bad actors in the industry and our government agencies are too overburdened to do anything about it.

Reputable real estate agencies are Re/MAX for the upper-middle income zone and Sotheby's for the high-income zone. From there just try to pick a veteran agent who specializes in your target area and ask for references AND ACTUALLY CHECK THEM (very important!!!).

Oakville is nice but very expensive. I hate to break it to you but $250k/yr household income for a 4 bed home with 2 kids in Oakville is not as easy as you may be thinking. Canada is a beautiful country and I love it here, but taxes are extremely painful and way worse than the US as we have a much more socialist bias, and it needs to be paid for somewhere.

Where will you be physically working? If in downtown Toronto you need to consider commuting and public transit access. If work from home then it doesn't matter and I'd probably pick Milton over Oakville to get more bang for the real estate buck.
Yup. People often think they can do it themselves because the Interwebs but having a good realtor is basically insurance that things go properly.
 

TransTrender

Gold Member
Enjoy your mortgage anchor.
I hope you have double income.

Yeah, in Canadian currency.
giphy.gif

JK. Happy for you eh!
I just left Canada today.
They love American cash USD money.
I couldn't believe the prices when you offer American cash money for things. Except fuel. That explains the low speed limits.
 
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Dr.Guru of Peru

played the long game
I would expect to pay 1.5-2 million for a decent house in Oakville, 1.2-1.8 in Milton. You may see houses listed for less but these are not expected to sell for that much - they're hoping to get a bidding war going.

You'll need a minimum 20% down to purchase so will need about $300k for a down payment, $30-40k for the land transfer tax, then lawyer/insurance/inspection fees etc. Probably best to budget $400k cash for initial costs.

As far as good area, the suburbs are all the same - endless sprawl, only differ in their demographics really and based on the natural features nearby. Oakville is on the lake, which is nice. Burlington is a cheaper option on the lake but a bit further away from the city. Of course if you want a property with actual lake front access you would have to pay significantly more than the cost of a "decent" house.

The western suburbs tend to have more south asians, whereas the northern suburbs tend to have more east asians. The eastern suburbs are generally seen as less desirable and have a more blue collar feel to them, but this is changing. I actually think the northern part of Pickering is somewhat desirable now if you're not looking to be in the city and don't need to commute. Its probably best if you actually tell us roughly where you'll be working, because each suburb is massive and there are good and bad areas within each.

Within the city, there are a few nice neighborhoods. Bloor West and The Beaches are nice and safe but you're going to be paying more and having to deal with a lot more traffic. Our public transit is also not that nice.

If you're working in the city you should really make sure you either live close to work or if living in the burbs live close to a GO transit station.


Good luck. Hopefully your spouse is also making a similar salary because you're going to lose half your income to the tax man.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Welcome! It's not cheap to live here, but it's safe (just avoid Jane/Finch area lol) But looks like you make good money. Assuming you want a good house with two car garage etc... you got options. There's a lot of car theft lately. They like to target SUVs and nice cars. Park you car in the garage. I do.

If you really got good money, you can do the core Toronto high end stuff like near Yonge/Eglinton, Forest Hill etc... But it looks like you already scouted and prefer the burb cities. I never lived or knew much about east of Toronto, so your pre-scouting fits with what I know which is Toronto or west. So I'm assuming you already want something west.

Here's the lowdown IMO:

Healthcare. There is some kind of policy where every newcomer gets approved for OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan). Everyone born here gets it automatically. But as a newbie, there's going to be some kind of process or qualification or duration of stay before you get (I think). Look into it. Once you get it, certain medical stuff is free. You get a OHIP card. And every time you see a doctor or hospital you show them your card and they handle everything. When you're done, you dont have to do anything. Just walk out the door. Doctors visits and surgery being the two main ones. Not everything is covered though. A good employer benefits plan will cover most/all dental and eye care and drugs. So really at some point you'll have most stuff covered except some small deductibles you pay or some obscure drug the company doesnt cover some reason. At my company, I got to pay $50 a year for dental coverage. I can get as many tooth cleanings, xrays and cavity fillings I want. Its costs one flat fee of $50 the first time I visit. Prescription drugs are covered by my work I think 90%.

Price of home will vary a lot. But in any place below, a good sized family home that is nice, has a yard, two car garage etc.... will be minimum $1.5M. As Peru said above that $1.5-2M range sounds about right for something decent. Just note that $1.5-2M in Toronto will get you some small, old crusty place. pick a place 20-30 km away and it'll be bigger, newer and you'll guaranteed get a front and backyard and your own driveway and garage. In Toronto, there's lots old school neighbourhoods you got to park on the street and get annual permits. Or you get that shitty shared parking lane and you and your neighbour share it parking your cars in the back. You dont get that hassle in the burbs.

Mortgage, Property tax and Land Transfer tax. Mortgages are done different here than the US. You buy a mortgage based on terms (length of years). After it's done, you got to renew again at whatever the going rates are. Most people I think do 5 year terms. If you break the mortgage, you'll pay penalty fees so watch out for that. Mortgage interest is not tax deductible in Canada. Your annual property tax will be roughly 0.7% of government assessed value of your home. Not the market price. Market price is always higher than what they value your home. From my experience, the market value is probably like 25% more than the assessed value. Land transfer tax is a one shot fee you pay buying a home. It's a weighted scale, but budget the full 2% to play safe on the market/sale value of the home. The second link says as a first time home buyer, you get a $4000 rebate. So look into any government rebates.


The GTA has shit public transit. So if you really care about busses, trains or subways it's limited. The subway only services some parts of Toronto. Something called a GO Train hits more places (kind of like a shittier version of Amtrak I guess). It spiderwebs out from downtown Union Station. Other than that, GTA is a car town. It helps if you're kind of near a main highway like 401, QEW, 403 etc... We got winters here, so make sure you got all season tires for year round driving (I prefer this). Or some people swap in winter tires in November prepping for snow. Your choice. Just avoid year round performance tires.

To me, since Toronto is the hot spot for stuff to do downtown, it comes down to how much you give a shit about that or if you and fam prefer the suburb life. If you guys really crave downtown busy living, you'll hate commuting there since highway traffic can be terrible and there's only a handful of exits. So if it's busy that night with a Jays or Leafs game, good luck getting there fast. You'll have to either leave extra early or just take a GO Train downtown, do your thing and find a late train back to the burbs (assuming there is even a late bus or train at midnight). But youre lucky that a bunch of construction finished lately on highways so you missed like 5 years of gimped lanes we had to go through. The burb cities are basically strip malls, power centres and most have their one main shopping mall.

Anything near the water = high prices

Milton. I know people who live there. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere and the only way to really get anywhere is taking 401 east. Its the total definition of a suburban place to live. Growing a lot. I dont think it's that cheap to live there. Its used to be though, but starting maybe 15-20 years ago everyone started moving there (including coworkers). That $300k big family house they bought off the floorplan in 2004 is probably worth $1.5M now.

Toronto is almost all old homes. So the farther out you go the newer the homes and developments. The key exception is Toronto has tons of new condos going up. Toronto streets and roads are way different than the burbs. It's a lot more cramped, windy, less grass, and pending where you are paid parking. Typical metro city. The burbs are more grid like, spacious and almost zero street parking needed.

West Etobicoke. Burbs of Toronto. Older houses. High prices. Mostly white people

Mississauga. The sweet spot for being near TO and prices. The biggest city aside from TO so you got options as it's a big plot of land. The biggest mix of ethnicities outside of TO

Oakville. Pricey. Unless you got tons of money or grew up in the upscale area I mentioned above where your family already had a house for 50 years, most people I know with decent coin live in Oakville. It's a drive east down the QEW to get downtown. Oakville is nice, relatively newer homes. Pretty sure Oakville and Burlington skew more white people.

Burlington. West of Oakville near the golden horseshoe bend towards Niagara Falls. From what I know from people who live there it's like Oakville but just farther out west

Brampton. Is north of Mississauga. For pure value for your dollar, it's probably the best place in the GTA that isn't way far out. Getting downtown takes longer as you got to wind your way to different highways. Also, to be perfectly honest many people avoid it because it's known to be Brown Town (tons of Indian people). Every strip mall is indian places, grocery stores skew to Indian food etc... Depends how much you care about this. Some do some dont.

Woodbridge. North of Toronto (above Steeles Ave). Historically a lot of Italians live there but I dont know if that stereotype holds true anymore. Pricey area. Very suburban feel. I know family who live there and they like it. But they moved there 10 years ago. It's a super busy area in that Hwy 400/Hwy 7 area. Crazy expansion. They still like it there but hate that it's become so busy now. That intersection is one giant power centre area with tons of new condos and roads under construction to alleviate traffic.

Markham. East of Woodbridge/NE of Toronto. Heavy in Chinese/Asian people. Every strip mall has Chinese restaurants and signs you cant read from whatever store that is. Not cheap place to live either as tons of immigrants move there with money. Aside from downtown Chinatown, if you crave real Asian food and a big mall called Pacific Mall known for knockoffs Markham is the place to be.
 
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Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
My best advice would be to not buy a house, rent for a couple years then leave to someplace else lol
And thrown money down the drain for a few years with nothing in return? He ça always sell the house at the end (mind you, might not be so simple with real estate sale costs, etc., the OP needs to look more into it).
But yeah, if I was moving countries it has to be 10 years at the very minimum, anything below with kids is an enormous hassle.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
And thrown money down the drain for a few years with nothing in return? He ça always sell the house at the end (mind you, might not be so simple with real estate sale costs, etc., the OP needs to look more into it).
But yeah, if I was moving countries it has to be 10 years at the very minimum, anything below with kids is an enormous hassle.
Yup.

As along as someone can afford it and doesn't need to leave right away (land tax and closing costs), always buy. These two costs are probably about 6% combined. The market for real estate typically trends up. Ya, as an owner you got to pay property tax and repairs, but owners are gainers over time. Everyone knows someone who the past 20-30 years still rents (I do) who keeps saying "prices will come down, I'll wait". Good luck. It's not like prices nosedive into the toilet aside from that global crisis where some places got nailed with foreclosures with weird mortgages. But under normal times, trying to time the real estate market waiting it out is a losing cause. Prices have been trending up since the 2000s. You snooze you lose. It's not like all homes doubled or tripled in price in two weeks. People had time to react. But they didn't. Now for many it's too late and they'll be playing catch up for years.

Even right now when rates have doubled or tripled lately, home prices are still up there. Maybe prices dropped 10% tops. And still way higher than 20 years ago.

Even in 2017 when prices supposedly peaked and then dropped when the stress test and foreigner tax came in for the first time (in Canada), real estate still trended up peaking more in 2022. It took a ton of mortgage rate hikes to drop things down. But prices are edging up again. Not at that peak yet, but maybe give it another year and we might be back.

Situations like this weed out the fringe people who really shouldnt had even bought in the first place. But right now at "sky high rates of 5-6%" isnt even that high. Back in 2006 when oil broke $100 my variable mortgage was like 5.5%. My mortgage went from 3% or so to 5.5%. And anyone buying in the 1990s was even higher.

It takes money to buy. If someone barely has enough they shouldn't buy. If someone doesn't have enough earning power to even afford a cheap place 20 years ago, they'll never afford anything. Some people just don't have enough salary to save enough no matter how much they try since everyone has monthly living costs. But if someone can safely float the boat and are gonna be living in that place for a while, it's almost always better to buy. There are situations where it's worse to buy.... like if someone bought right at the peaks and got burned for a bunch of years of drops or boring flatlining. But it's been a steady gain for decades in the long run. Or maybe you got to relocate to some dumpy town where the population is going down and home prices are depressed for decades. Then ya, it's probably better to rent for 5 years and then bolt with zero obligations.

Renting gets you nowhere except paying off the mortgage of the landlord. Which every landlord will do their best to rent it out at a price to cover the monthly costs so there's zero out of pocket costs. Save money and buy a place. Even if the only thing to buy is a small starter condo.
 
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Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
Renting gets you nowhere except paying off the mortgage of the landlord. Which every landlord will do their best to rent it out at a price to cover the monthly costs so there's zero out of pocket costs. Save money and buy a place. Even if the only thing to buy is a small starter condo.
And while I understand the hustle it’s funny / sad to see people on the Internet preaching “renting for life”, playing right into landlords’ hands. Likewise with suspicious number of articles popping up in recent years all advocating for renting….
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
And while I understand the hustle it’s funny / sad to see people on the Internet preaching “renting for life”, playing right into landlords’ hands. Likewise with suspicious number of articles popping up in recent years all advocating for renting….
I know a guy I used to work with. Known him for 15 years. Makes good money too. Has been living in the Park Lawn condo area since it built up renting a 2 bed/2 bath unit. He's one of those money spenders. He's had endless time to save money to buy a place. And when you live in a condo like that you arent going smaller. So since then when it comes to time to buy, he's like "these condos sell for around $1M now".

Well, hey man. That's youre problem. All you had to do is save some cash and that unit you live in was probably $300-400k 10 years ago. You had your chance.

He'll probably be a renter for life. I dont see him as the type of guy who'd dumbed down to a 1 bed/1 bath for $400k in the burbs. Unless it's retirement time to downsize at age 65, most people moving unit to unit always want to move to a same or bigger better place. And that means way higher prices.
 

John Marston

GAF's very own treasure goblin
This is a huge move and must come with at least a minimum of stress.
I wish you a smooth transition without too many hassles ❤️

Signed, your future new neighbor from Montreal who hates the Leafs 😄
 

Sleepwalker

Member
And thrown money down the drain for a few years with nothing in return? He ça always sell the house at the end (mind you, might not be so simple with real estate sale costs, etc., the OP needs to look more into it).
But yeah, if I was moving countries it has to be 10 years at the very minimum, anything below with kids is an enormous hassle.
Lol I don't have anything about owning your place, me and my brother own a few houses across 2 countries. I just don't really enjoy Toronto, as someone who didn't grow up here (like OP) there's a ton of things I don't like. So if I was in OPs place I would just come and rent for a few months to see if they're even gonna like the place before commiting to buying. He can live anywhere in Canada.
 

Lasha

Member
And while I understand the hustle it’s funny / sad to see people on the Internet preaching “renting for life”, playing right into landlords’ hands. Likewise with suspicious number of articles popping up in recent years all advocating for renting….

Buying a house is a hedge against rent. Any gains in a property are offset by your need to buy a new place to live at current lrkces. The interest in your mortgage payment is your rent. You're also responsible for all taxes, fees, and maintenance for the property. If you can rent a place for less than the interest + expenses of a house renting is a good idea provided you sock the money you would be spending on principal into an investment of some type.

I rented for over a decade for this reason. My investments outpaced property values. I only stopped renting because the balance shifted. I was in the odd position of being a landlord while renting cheap. Renting for life can make sense if make use of the benefits.
 
I’m just across the water in Michigan USA. I went to Toronto once with my brother and some other friends, he is a battle emcee. Don’t know if you are into it, but a lot of the graffiti in Toronto is amazing. Side note, the car load of us came back and ended up with the avian flu. We were all down bad for a week. Are at a sushi place, so we thought it was food poisoning, but ended up being terrible. Note - do get the avian flu 😂. Don’t think it’s very prevalent anymore at all though, this was back in probably 2011 or 2012.
 

Batiman

Banned
Does Toronto have good public transit or is it a garbage car-centric city like in the states?
I always thought it was good or it used to be. Now a lot of people complain about it. I think the population got to big for its current transit system. I always see packed busses in the morning. I personally never had an issue with it growing up but now I don’t really have a proper opinion because it’s been a while since I’ve used transit.
 

Reckheim

Member
I live in Mississauga, I'd say avoid both Brampton and Mississauga, just boring ass flat ugly cities. If me and my wife didn't have decent jobs in the area we would move.

Like you said in your post, Milton or Oakville would be nice places to live however everything in the GTA and around it is super expensive. I don't know your financial situation; but even making 250k salary, you probably wont be able to afford much more then a small house in any of those areas.
 
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