Planning to move to vancouver.. just want to know how good it is on the below perspectives. Excited to see it making to top 5 livable cities.. i am currently working as a devops engineer. I do not want to live in vancouver city as such but the plan is to get a job in vancouver city and buy a house in suburbs. - Kids education(got 2 kids) - Rental/Housing market - IT job market
Housing :One of the worst in North America (read about it online) Weather: Best In Canada but pretty bad otherwise Education: Should be fine Jobs: pretty bad-Toronto is the only city with a somewhat decent job market in Canada -at least for tech jobs
Wheather isn't that bad if you get used to it. Education is so so. Other points are valid.
Thank you Everyone.. i recently came on PR to Canada from States.. i dont feel like moving back.. i like it here.. heard vancouver has great weather compared to other cities in canada.... I have never lived in PNW.. my earlier stay has been in LA, Calif. Currently living in edmonton.. weather is quite harsh during winter.. but the rest is great.. trying to settle down in Canada before i make any major moves...
Good luck. IMO I’ll take cold weather and sun over temperate and gloomy (10 months of the year). There’s a reason depression is high in that region. I couldn’t take it.
Weather is great for Canada’s; it doesn’t go below 0. It will rain and be overcast for 9 months.
Full of hippie liberals... stay away.. major drug problems
I'm from Vancouver. I no longer live in Vancouver. End of story.
Extremely inflated housing market, even in the suburbs (recent article of seller trying to bait people into buying townhomes by offering free Tesla’s). Cost of living is incredibly high. Public education is crap and full of woke bs, when I went to university most kids from other provinces knew more than what I was taught here. Weather is pretty neutral compared to the rest of Canada though. Lots and lots of rain from Sept-Apr. Lots of greenery though, mountains and ocean etc if you like that. Huge homeless problem here, kind of becoming the next SF. Apparently dev job market isn’t great from what I’ve heard. We do have Microsoft, EA, and a crap ton of startups around town though.
Thanks for the inputs.. i dont have much choices to escape from cold being in Canada.. :) I have been in Ottawa, Montreal, Edmonton and Calgary.. Cold has won over me.. i just feel like i am in paradise in summers but once cold starts i feel like i have to go somewhere else.. i work 9-12 hours in office but still it gets me .. having said that which suburb would be good of all.. ?
Yep we are on the milder side in terms of weather. I guess it depends where you’ll be working, but Burnaby and Richmond are the most popular ones near Vancouver. I don’t recommend Surrey, it’s notorious for its gang activity and isn’t safe for kids at all. I’ve heard many couples are moving to the farther suburbs like Coquitlam, Maple Ridge, and Delta but that depends on whether you can stomach the commute if you work in Vancouver!
If you are truly considering Vancouver, despite the broken housing market and limited tech job opportunities, I suggest to settle in either Squamish, Bowen Island or Langley/Maple Ridge area. Some parts of Delta (Tsawwassen) and South Surrey (White Rock) can be recommended as well. Any other suburb I wouldn't recommend with kids -- you'll feel safer in dodgy parts of LA. In particular I'd strongly advise against Burnaby, Surrey, New Westminster, or East Van if you got kids and look for a decent education for them, besides avoiding gang crime and drug abuse. If you have 1-2m C$ for a down payment, you might consider UBC, North Van or West Van as well, but if not, your odds are best in Squamish IMHO.
Thank you for your time .. the advices/suggestions are valuable for me.. i understand that most of them(who are already in vancouver.. i guess ??) have a very bad experience living there.. i have not seen any +ve responses so far and these suggestions are helping me a lot to even consider vancouver now :) Ive got a few days during my winter break.. i would probably do a visit to vancouver to see it myself and any hint of the above will make vancouver a tourist destination for me... Lastly, i would like to know how the IT culture is.. do the organizations have any empathy towards the housing prices in downtown and allow the employees to wfh ? do they even entertain or its very common for people to wfh.. have a good day!
Good idea to check it out during winter rain, you can extrapolate from that experience as a worst case scenario weather wise. Bare in mind that from Oct-Apr you will observe on few hours of sunshine and if it's not pouring it'll stay grey all the time. It only brightens in May-Sep... The IT culture is mixed. Vancouver has two kinds of IT engineers -- on the one side the very smart imports from overseas working for FANGs, on the other side the mediocre Canadian crowd that was rejected by US companies, so they face their fate and have to work in low ball positions for startups or weird medium/small companies that have no bright future prospects. I have been around for 2+ years and it gets depressing to say the least. WFH is not a problem for most Vancouver based employers. You will struggle with promotions however if you tend to WFH >1 day per week, as you will not be perceived as "lead". One idea might be, if you wanna move to Van just for the surroundings, try to work for a US company as part of its remote workforce. With this you could probably make most of it.
I’m from Vancouver. Weather is unbelievably rainy. You won’t get the full experience in a short trip. I thought it was normal until I moved away. Summers are amazing though, and in the winter if you ski or snowboard the mountains are so close it’s great. Housing market is terrible, especially since the local wages are low. One of the worst in the world. I think public schools in the suburbs are pretty good. I went to a public school in one of Burnaby/Richmond/coquitlam. Don’t listen to the guy who says to live in maple ridge...you need to google maps how long that drive will take during traffic hours. Vancouver is judged in driving time, not distance. IT market is bad compared to US, especially because Seattle is only 2hr drive away. If you can get a job at a US tech company branch like amazon or Microsoft you will make good money compared to other locals (but worse than your peers in the US)
Thank you so much ! yup, i did search in the maps some of the places are too far with more than 1-2hrs of commute. .. The housing is pretty bad though i cannot find a decent house even in suburbs(delta, burnaby, whiterock) for <600K... may be a condo(1b and 1bath).. I would have to be explicit about working remote or WFH at least 3 days before i accept the offer.
No problem. Vancouver is a great city, there is a reason why it is so high on all the livability lists. Just be aware of the downsides. I think as a city it is better than the Bay Area. The main negative is the housing and job opportunities. Housing under 600k (CAD) will be hard to come by in any suburb. You can get a 1Bed 1 bath condo for that but if you can I think it makes more sense to spend a bit more and get a 2bed (I assume you have kids since you are thinking about education). I think the rental market is actually better than buying, but do your own research for that one. Everyone is so negative about Vancouver in this thread. I would be there if it wasn’t for the job opportunities in the US. Here are some positives: Nature, mountains, food scene (especially Asian), safety, less busy, public transport (good for North America). Every time I go home I think about how I took for granted the ocean/Snow capped mountains that you see when you drive from the airport into Vancouver.
Exploring a city for a couple of weeks is a great way to get some fantasy about life here but nothing else. For job market, except amazon and few big companies, it won't be easy to find companies offering more than 100K(TC). For your kids, you may oneday consider moving to Toronto if your kids don't like coding because vancouver doesn't have many good jobs other than IT. Finally, about living in suburb, (I am living in metro van suburb. I will call suburb for langley, coquitlam or farther east. Burnaby/richmond is still too expensive to call suburb.) Bsed on my life here so far, good - cheaper housing(but still very pricy comparing to local average income) - relaxed feeling - less homeless - people is more friendly bad - traffic. getting worse every year - lack of medical resources for yourself and your kids as well (longer waiting to meet specialist, less doctors than vancouver city. but don't expect Vancouver city's medical to be good either). I am currently waiting for my knee mri for 7 months. - boring
Thank you for taking time over weekend for the suggestions/advice ! Sad to see that you have to wait for 7 months to get your knee MRI. I understand mere visit does not help much but the comments in the thread are helping me a lot tbh.
Have you ever lived in the PNW? Assuming you mean Vancouver BC... Housing market: horrible Weather: horrible Education: I assume good Job market: probably strong but nowhere near Seattle to the south
How good is the housing market in suburbs if not in Vancouver City... is it the same ? Planing to explore the state during winter break..