[slsba5]

Despite what my expat status says, we still live in the US. We are just starting our expat journey. My husband and I have found ourselves in an interesting situation. We have the opportunity to move out of the country, and we have two options. One of our options is Vancouver, and we'd like to get some information about it.

1) What are the schools like? We currently have a daughter in college, and a son at a boardings school in the US. Our third is in middle school, and looking at boarding schools in Switzerland for high school. We still have two in elementary school, though, so they would be attending school in Vancouver.

2) What is the housing like? How easy/difficult is it to purchase/rent a house? Would you recommend buying or renting?

Any other comments and advice are welcome, too. Thank you!

 

[tomfumb]

I don't know anything about schools, but on housing: are you a millionaire? Expect to pay up to $2m to buy a decent house in a nice area in Vancouver, or at least $800k for a nasty house in a crappy area that needs rebuilding. Renting is not too bad but you are 'competing' with *lots* of other people searching for good rental deals, and it all happens on Craigslist

 

[SANMAR]

Our experience is similar. Craigs list is good to a certain extent but prepare to line up ( 16 or so) for a fairly OK rental and also prepare to be pushed to sign the rental ' NOW' .The landlady who conducted the viewing was ' severe'. We decided to walk out!
House prices are a killer and can disuade anybody to come to Vancouver.
rental properties can be deceiving in pictures.
We got a 2 month rental from makeyourself at home" website -still only a handful of houses for a family and expensive rentals.

 

[jawnbc]

I don't know anything about schools, but on housing: are you a millionaire? Expect to pay up to $2m to buy a decent house in a nice area in Vancouver, or at least $800k for a nasty house in a crappy area that needs rebuilding. Renting is not too bad but you are 'competing' with *lots* of other people searching for good rental deals, and it all happens on Craigslist

Well...if you're taking "Vancouver" to literally only mean the City of Vancouver, houses are stoopidly expensive. A lot of rental property is never advertised: Vancouver is the epitomé of the "networking" world: ask colleague and acquaintances.