I would like to offer a suggestion as well -- I'm an immigrant (United States), who has been living in Edmonton now for 3 years. When I first came here, my family and I found it difficult to get settled. We rented an apartment, which was too small for our family; but my employment situation was too unstable to afford a house, and certainly not a house in a nice neighbourhood. We didn't want to buy an old, damaged house in an inner-city neighbourhood with bad schools. Because of this, we lived in the apartment for almost two years, even though it nearly drove us insane (one child, and another on the way).
However, Canada has an institution that I never heard of in the United States -- housing co-ops. These are community associations that own houses or land, accept members, and rent to them at rates that are far under market value. You have to apply to the co-op, go through an orientation process, and then wait for a space to open up. They will ask for references, check your finances, and interview you to see if you will be a good fit for their community. If you're accepted, you go on a waiting list, and will be offered a house (or apartment, it depends on the co-op), when your name comes up. Sometimes the co-op has a community participation request -- that you participate in the self-government or maintenance for a few hours a month.
There are dozens of these co-ops in Edmonton. Their advantages are:
- high-quality living units for families, at very low prices
- you are part of a community, you get to know many people, of all ages and backgrounds
- you are not a renter, you cannot be kicked out, and when your rent goes up, it is because the co-op itself has decided (with your participation) that it needs to raise the rent
- there is no permanent time commitment, you can leave at any point
Why is this good? You can live in a house, in a good neighbourhood, without the commitment of spending your savings for a down payment, or taking out a mortgage. The disadvantage is that you are not building equity in a house (actually, there are co-ops where you do build equity, but ours is not one). Whether that is important to you or not will determine if you think this is an attractive option. For myself, my wife and I get to live in a 5 bedroom house in Riverdale, one of Edmonton's nicest neighbourhoods (no large streets running through, walking distance from downtown Jasper Avenue, wonderful school 2 blocks away, a strong sense of community), for $1170/month. This is probably about 50-60% of what what we would pay to rent a similar house here.
I am sure that many people plan to own a house -- but particularly now, when there is a decent chance that home prices will decline over the next 1-2 years, there is nothing wrong with simply saving money and waiting for the best opportunity to buy into the market. Moving into the co-op here has given us a stable, affordable, way to live that fits us in every way. If anyone is interested in looking at the co-ops that exist, here is a web site:
http://www.nacha.ca/CoopListing/tabid/56/Default.aspx
I'm writing this because this is a distinctive and attractive option, that it is difficult to find out about -- it is only by chance that I learned of it, which is maybe my fault; as an American, one sometimes thinks that they understand everything about Canada, but that is not the case . . .
