Relocating to Canada?
February 1, 2009 – 3:35 pm | Comments Off

Thinking about mov­ing to Canada?
Just arrived and try­ing to fig­ure out how to get settled?

You’ve come to the right place!

This web­site — Living Abroad in Canada — has all the infor­ma­tion you need about liv­ing, work­ing, going to school, or retir­ing in Canada.

Read the full story »
Culture

All about Canadian culture, from people and language to food, drink, books, music, and film

Daily Life

From health care and education, to local eating and shopping, to festivals and things to do, get the scoop on life in Canada

Housing, Jobs, & Money

Finding a home, working, saving, and investing in Canada – here’s how

Immigration

What you need to know to live in, work in, or immigrate to Canada. Citizenship information, too.

Travel

Travel ideas and tips for visiting, touring, and deciding where to live in Canada.

Housing, Jobs, & Money »

The 10 Cheapest Cities to Buy a Home in Canada
December 6, 2012 – 8:02 am | No Comment

Along the riverfront in Windsor Ontario CanadaIf you want to buy a four-​​bedroom, two-​​bathroom house, the cheap­est city in Canada is Windsor, Ontario, where your “dream home” will cost an aver­age of $170,991.

But if you’d rather set­tle in Vancouver, which fre­quently ranks among the best places in the world to live, that same home will set you back a cool $1.8 million.

A new study by Coldwell Banker Real Estate found that five of the ten most afford­able mar­kets in Canada are in Ontario, with three addi­tional mar­kets in Atlantic Canada, one in Alberta, and one in British Columbia.

Surprisingly, Niagara Falls — often con­sid­ered Canada’s top tourist attrac­tion — is one of Canada’s least expen­sive cities to buy real estate, rank­ing #6 in the Coldwell Banker study.

The 10 cheap­est Canadian cities include:

City Rank Average Home Price
Windsor, ON 1 $170,991
Rimbey, AB 2 $201,950
Welland, ON 3 $218,354
New Glasgow, NS 4 $218,641
Amherst, NS 5 $224,662
Niagara Falls, ON 6 $228,858
Trail, BC 7 $232,300
Smiths Falls, ON 8 $232,343
Trent Hills, ON 9 $237,800
Cornwall, PE 10 $239,750

 

Vancouver is the nation’s most expen­sive hous­ing mar­ket, with the Vancouver sub­urbs of Richmond ($1,181,654) and Burnaby ($917,968) close behind.

Among Canada’s other large cities, aver­age prices were $500,233 in Ottawa, $468,474 in Edmonton, $466,183 in Toronto, and $409,900 in Calgary. The study did not include Montreal or Quebec City, where prices are typ­i­cally below those in Canada’s other major met­ro­pol­i­tan areas.

Click here for the full Coldwell Banker Home Listing Report.

And for another take on Canada’s cheap­est cities, see our recent post, Canada Real Estate: The Cost of Buying a Home, which recapped the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s fourth quar­ter 2012 report on Canadian real estate prices.

Windsor Ontario river­front photo by Andrea_​44 (flickr)

Vancouver Ranks #1 in Quality of Living Among Cities in the Americas
December 4, 2012 – 3:39 pm | No Comment
Vancouver Ranks #1 in Quality of Living Among Cities in the Americas

Canadian cities took four out of the top five spots among cities in the Americas in the 2012 Mercer Quality of Living sur­vey, an annual assess­ment that com­pares the qual­ity of life in 221 urban …

Canada Real Estate: The Cost of Buying a Home
November 19, 2012 – 5:43 am | One Comment
Canada Real Estate: The Cost of Buying a Home

How much does it cost to buy a home in Canada? And where are the cheap­est cities for hous­ing?

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) recently released their fourth quar­ter 2012 report on real …

What Languages Does Canada Speak? A New Census Report
November 15, 2012 – 7:27 am | No Comment
What Languages Does Canada Speak? A New Census Report

Twenty per­cent of Canada’s pop­u­la­tion, or nearly 6,630,000 peo­ple, speaks a lan­guage other than English or French at home, accord­ing to a recent report from Statistics Canada.

The most widely spo­ken lan­guages include …

Quality and Cost of Life in the US versus Canada
November 12, 2012 – 6:29 am | No Comment
Quality and Cost of Life in the US versus Canada

Is it cheaper to live in the U.S. or Canada? And which coun­try offers a bet­ter qual­ity of life?

A recent Investopia post, U.S. Or Canada: Which Country Is Best To Call Home?, con­sid­ered a …

New Opportunities for Immigrant Entrepreneurs in Canada
November 8, 2012 – 6:49 am | No Comment
New Opportunities for Immigrant Entrepreneurs in Canada

There’s been lots of good news for Canadian entre­pre­neurs, par­tic­u­larly for immi­grants and poten­tial immi­grants who want to start busi­nesses in Canada or work in the country’s tech­nol­ogy sector.

But immi­gra­tion poli­cies are in …