# If you could live anywhere in North America...



## Guest (Aug 3, 2010)

...with some constraints, but in general you could live anywhere in North America, where would you live?

Here are your constraints:


You've only got CAD$50,000 to buy a house with;
You'll get paid the same salary no matter where you live: CAD$70,000 a year gross in salary;
You've got a wife, two young kids, lets say they're 5 and 3, so they'll need schools, kid stuff to do;
You need to have access to excellent, high speed internet (must be Rogers near-top-tier or better if you're looking for a benchmark);
You need to have access to stable electricity.

Where would you live? What attracts you to that area?

Don't worry about visas to the US: it'll all be taken care of for you. Your moving costs are covered. You only need to worry about a roof over your head.

Hypothetical situation of course...


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## cheezyridr (Jun 8, 2009)

1st choice, ashville north carolina. beautiful area to live in, low crime, minutes from some of the best motorcycling roads on this continent. close to many great bar-b-que joints. winter only lasts 4 months.

2nd choice, northeast tennessee, near kingsport/johnson city somewhere in that area. for most of the same reasons as choice number one, except a slightly lower cost of living, and because of wautauga lake.


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## Big_Daddy (Apr 2, 2009)

Asheville? Awesome area. I now get your screen-name coz I've cruised the Dragon many times. In fact, part of my '03 MINI is hanging on the Tree of Shame at Deal's Gap.  Sorry to drag this off-topic.

My top choice has to be the Gulf Islands of BC. I wouldn't be able to buy a place with the income restrictions but I think I would still be able to rent something.


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

Gee I got all that stuff.... If you're thinking of moving ....


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## Twangbanger (Aug 3, 2010)

Are you serious about $50,000.00 for the house? Is this to own it no mortgage? I would live in Northern Sask. cause when all hell breaks lose and the environment goes for s#@t you'll have lots of fresh water and uncontaminated food to hunt and catch. Better take a good acoustic in case there's no electricity, but until then it's a beautiful and sparsely populated area with loads of room for real-estate growth. It's far enough away from potential natural disaster areas like California, Montana and Washington. Satellite Internet for High speed and Kids can have virtual activities and travel. BTW I live in southern Alberta and lots of people here are buying property there as an investment and just in case. Good luck!


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## Guest (Aug 4, 2010)

Twangbanger said:


> Are you serious about $50,000.00 for the house? Is this to own it no mortgage?


Depends on the area. It's to be used to put a roof over your family's head. If that means buying a place outright, well: cool. Though I can't imagine many desirable places on this Great Earth of Ours where $50k buys you a house outright for a family of 4 these days. You obviously can't buy a huge place with that, especially not with the salary, but I think in just about any place in NA you'd be able to find accommodations for 4 with that kind of downpayment and that salary. Well...maybe not New York City.



> I would live in Northern Sask. cause when all hell breaks lose and the environment goes for s#@t you'll have lots of fresh water and uncontaminated food to hunt and catch. Better take a good acoustic in case there's no electricity, but until then it's a beautiful and sparsely populated area with loads of room for real-estate growth. It's far enough away from potential natural disaster areas like California, Montana and Washington. Satellite Internet for High speed and Kids can have virtual activities and travel. BTW I live in southern Alberta and lots of people here are buying property there as an investment and just in case.


Are Montana and Washington disaster areas? That's something I didn't know. I know very little about the West side of this continent save for the major bullet points.

Satellite isn't going to cut it for internet access though guys. Upload speeds have to be fast as well as download speeds. For comparison I'm looking for 15 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up.



> Good luck!


I said hypothetical, right?


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Well I'd rather you didn't move, but the Gulf Islands and south end of Vancouver Island have a pretty dang high quality of life. Victoria is like Westboro that goes on forever. Average high temperature of 19.6 °C and low of 11.3°C. We had a total of 3 weeks of snow on the ground over a 5-year period. Lawn-mowing begins around February. Daffodils come and gone by February's end. Great bakeries in abundance, beaches and beachfront property everywhere.


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## six-string (Oct 7, 2009)

well i've lived in other places on both sides of the border, but i seem to have wound up back in the Ottawa, Kingston, Montreal triangle because...well the women are just so damned beautiful i can't imagine staying away. =) yeah all that other stuff is around here too. the internet, and houses, and kid stuff.


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

With those requirements does it have to be North America?

I would like to live up in the north end of Tanzania towards Lake Victoria and Mt Kilimanjaro myself.


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## Guest (Aug 4, 2010)

keeperofthegood said:


> With those requirements does it have to be North America?


Unfortunately: yes. That's just where the money flows these days.

Tanzania sure looks nice though...


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## Guest (Aug 4, 2010)

mhammer said:


> Well I'd rather you didn't move


Aww shucks: thanks Mark. This really is hypothetical though. Or maybe more: exploratory. We're embedded here for a few more years yet. This is more me trying to figure out what the next move is. The new job affords me the ability to be basically live...anywhere. So we're trying to make the next move a move we can live with for a while. Hopefully a long while. Moving is exhausting.

Personally: I need more water near me. And this down here sounds pretty darn nice:



> but the Gulf Islands and south end of Vancouver Island have a pretty dang high quality of life. Victoria is like Westboro that goes on forever.  Average high temperature of 19.6 °C and low of 11.3°C. We had a total of 3 weeks of snow on the ground over a 5-year period. Lawn-mowing begins around February. Daffodils come and gone by February's end. Great bakeries in abundance, beaches and beachfront property everywhere.


Anyhow: great thread folks. Keep 'em coming. I'm learning about all kinds of cool places that never even crossed my mind!


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

The shores of BC could be interesting. I have had the want to have a "valley home" literally, tucked away in a secluded valley. I would want to either be able to have "city life" or have it delivered to me of course. Only thing, I want this as an adult, for kids being somewhere where there are no people can leave them mental cases.


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

My brother in law just quit his machinist job in Niagara and moved his family to the boondocks in South Carolina (outside of Columbia) and plans to become a truck driver. We all think that's damn wacky of him (2 young girls and all) but so far they are loving it and he can manage for about a year - of course that's using up the equity in the house he sold here.

It's lovely ....... as long as you're willing to pay a ton for healthcare, will put your kids in a private school, and don't mind some real nasty spiders, snakes, and fire ants.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Oh yeah, I forgot.

Victoria and environs have NO mosquitoes, hence no screens on the windows. Seriously. Apparently the eggs require fairly still water to be viable, and the wind blows in off the straights enough that all relevant bodies of water simply never sit still enough for the eggs to hatch.

The downside is that I have never seen spiders as big anywhere else as I have in Victoria. Not South America big, mind you, but one whole heckuva lot bigger than one is used to seeing in Ontario. *

No snakes or fire ants, but now and then you do get cougar sightings in town. When we lived there, a woman living in the beacon Hill area (equivalent of the Glebe or Sandy Hill) found a cougar in the living room of her basement apartment. Talk about stealth! Absolutely no idea how this thing made its way from the woods to downtown.

People think it rains a lot in Victoria, but the clouds just get a little practice as they pass over Victoria and the Saanich Peninsula, before they get to Vancouver and get stuck there. The autumn we moved away, there was a period of about 3 weeks where there was heavy rainfall, and all these 100ft trees came toppling down. Seems the topsoil is shallow, with solid rock underneath, so the roots grow out, rather than down. Once the ground got soft from the rain, the trees lost their grip. Now ask yourself "If it supposedly rains so much there, how'd those trees get to grow that tall?".

Victoria is the home of IVL (now a Digitech subsidiary: IVL Audio Inc. ) that made the first Pitchriders, and the Electrix folks that made the Filter Factory and similar (though see: Welcome to ElectrixPro.com ). Sidney, just outside of Victoria, has a number of high tech companies, specializing in marine-related electronics and such. And Victoria also can claim Capital Iron ( CAPITAL IRON - THERE'S NO STORE LIKE IT FOR SHOPPING IN VICTORIA, CANADA ), what may be my 3rd favourite store, just down the list from Gruhn's Guitars and Lee Valley Tools.


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## Guest (Aug 4, 2010)

Mark, you're making a pretty convincing case! Sounds like my kind of place really.


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## Jeff Flowerday (Jan 23, 2006)

Another vote for northern Saskatchewan. Think affordable "Cottage Country". Many small towns get ADSL internet speeds comparable to your speeds.

If I could afford to pack up and move back there, I'd do it right now.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

As a big city kid, I was surprised how much I enjoyed living in Peterborough when I was there for teacher's college. Housing is certainly affordable, though I doubt $50k will cover an outright purchase unless you're outside the city. Having said that, just North of Peterborough, the small town of Chemong is really nice and so is Lakefield, though that's a bit pricier. 

Lots of gorgeous scenery around there and waterfront properties are plentiful and relatively inexpensive, though flooding can happen.

Having done teacher's college in the area and been in some of the school around there, I can say that the level of education, equipment and facilities are at least as good as TDSB stuff, if not better.

I've already planned to retire to that area


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## Guest (Aug 4, 2010)

hollowbody: I know Lakefield. Friend of mine went to highschool there. Definitely a nice town.

I have to admit I'm surprised at the number of "inland" areas -- I figured everyone would make a run for the coast given the chance. I know that's where I'm gravitating towards.

So to answer my own question:

We're pondering the West coast. Hadn't considered Victoria, but definitely Vancouver. And Portland, OR is being looked at -- we were there a few years ago and really like the town. There's a small bit of pressures to stay on the East coast. Just because that's where most of us in the company are located. Specifically they'd be very happy if I said I was moving to the Grenwhich/Old Grenwhich/Cos Cob area of Connecticut -- which is costal.

Thanks for the all the answers so far guys. I'm definitely looking in to all the places you guys have mentioned. We'll start to take trips this fall. Check stuff out. Figure this is 2 years out.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Just about anywhere is a great place to live, largely because everywhere you go, there's people (that's my kinda species!) and scenery.

I've lived from St. John's to Victoria, and many places in between (Fredericton, Montreal, Ottawa, Hamilton, Edmonton), and driven from one end of the country to the other, and there is absolutely no shortage of great places. Just depends on what you like. Some folks find small town life stifling, while others wouldn't live in any of the big 3 Canadian cities if you paid them.

I have to say I was mightily impressed by Nashville and Berkeley, CA, and found Binghamton, NY and Madison, WI to be utterly charming.


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## washburned (Oct 13, 2006)

One of those nice ex-pat communities in Mexico...wher you can get McDonald's and Canadian beer and shop at Walmart.......for about $50 000 a year.


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## washburned (Oct 13, 2006)

Actually, I've always been fascinated with New Mexico....Albuquerque seems pretty much the ticket....except it\s hard to spell.


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

Just be aware, that Oregon has some socially punitive laws that are heavily enforced. I have a friend there. She has been ticketed for failing to cross the road before the hand signals had changed. She was under 18 and in college, but she was arrested and detained for the full day for being "truant" from school. Being under 18 and walking into a lingerie store or even Spencer's is illegal. Being a teen and holding hands with your boy friend or any level of intimacy up from there is simply NOT allowed and she was suspended from school for a week for a "Public display of affection" for kissing her boy friend in the hallways.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

washburned said:


> Actually, I've always been fascinated with New Mexico....Albuquerque seems pretty much the ticket....except it\s hard to spell.


And you NEVER want to take left turn there, or else you *completely* miss Pizmo Beach!


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA


Actually, Janet's Candles and Creations | Facebook is a very good friend of mine. She moved to Albuquerque not long ago and LOVES it. Though, coming from coastal Louisiana she has had an un-fun time with the heavy snows there.


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## Guest (Aug 4, 2010)

mhammer said:


> Madison, WI to be utterly charming.


I spend a week in Madison every year for a conference at the university there and I like that town very much. My employer would be thrilled if I moved there. We actually have another guy there now. Great little town.

Did you visit Wando's when you were there? All you can eat Bacon Night is the big outing night for the conference attendees. Fishbowls of alcohol and bacon -- tasty!


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## Sneaky (Feb 14, 2006)

iaresee said:


> I spend a week in Madison every year for a conference at the university there and I like that town very much. My employer would be thrilled if I moved there. We actually have another guy there now. Great little town.
> 
> Did you visit Wando's when you were there? All you can eat Bacon Night is the big outing night for the conference attendees. Fishbowls of alcohol and bacon -- tasty!


You really have to love a place where you can get a beer mug made of bacon, filled to the brim with melted cheese.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

iaresee said:


> I spend a week in Madison every year for a conference at the university there and I like that town very much. My employer would be thrilled if I moved there. We actually have another guy there now. Great little town.
> 
> Did you visit Wando's when you were there? All you can eat Bacon Night is the big outing night for the conference attendees. Fishbowls of alcohol and bacon -- tasty!


Um, bacon is on my no-no list, but I did get to the zoo (the primate collection there is amazing), and had one of the best croissants I have ever eaten in my life, from a place called the Odessa Bakery, purchased at the Saturday morning market in front of the state capital building. I like Wisconsin, although quite frankly, I like it because it's like the best parts of Ontario. Or at least it was in 1982 when I passed through there. Given how omnipresent cheese curds are there, you would think that poutine would have become commonplace by now.


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## rollingdam (May 11, 2006)

want to buy a house for under $20000? Southwest Manitoba near the North Dakota border-


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## rhh7 (Mar 14, 2008)

I was born in New Orleans, lived over 50 years in Cajun Country of Southwest Louisiana, emigrated to Calgary in July of 2001. The past 9 years have been the happiest of my life, by far. I vote for Calgary...incredible climate, great people. I have enjoyed trips to British Columbia, looking forward to Saskatchewan and Novia Scotia.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

I couldn't buy a house anywhere I would want to live for $50,000. but if we consider the $50k as a downpayment, I would likely choose somewhere down east. If you have only one income or your total family income is $70k, the cost of living is generally lower in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia than it is inland.

I would consider a place like Charlo, Dalhousie or Miramichi.

Miramichi is particularly nice. I may very well retire there.


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## david henman (Feb 3, 2006)

...high on a cliff overlooking the ocean.

anywhere...


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## Guest (Aug 5, 2010)

david henman said:


> ...high on a cliff overlooking the ocean.
> 
> anywhere...


I like that.


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

david henman said:


> ...high on a cliff overlooking the ocean.
> 
> anywhere...


MAN Now I want to re-read some of the old Enid Blyton adventure stories!


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## Sneaky (Feb 14, 2006)

I'd like to end up in the Okanagan Valley someday soon. I don't think $50k will even buy you dirt there though, never mind a house.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

david henman said:


> ...high on a cliff overlooking the ocean.
> 
> anywhere...


There was a time when a great many wealthy Americans (and Canadians) were moving to the outskirts of St. John's for that very reason.


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## crashaholic (Mar 3, 2010)

mhammer said:


> Well I'd rather you didn't move, but the Gulf Islands and south end of Vancouver Island have a pretty dang high quality of life. Victoria is like Westboro that goes on forever. Average high temperature of 19.6 °C and low of 11.3°C. We had a total of 3 weeks of snow on the ground over a 5-year period. Lawn-mowing begins around February. Daffodils come and gone by February's end. Great bakeries in abundance, beaches and beachfront property everywhere.


The downside was the amount of property crime. When I lived there it was rumoured to be the highest per capita in Canada in the James Bay area. Lots of transients due to the climate. People would steal the handlebars off your bike while it is locked on your balcony (snip go the cables and off they go) Also, you won't find a house for $50K. You won't even get a mobile home for under $70K...


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

I think I'll stay where I am.

I like it here.

Although if you give me that $50,000 I'd consider moving to a different house in the same neighbourhood.
That way I could have a decent down payment and lower the extra mortgage costs.


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## Guest (Aug 6, 2010)

crashaholic said:


> Also, you won't find a house for $50K. You won't even get a mobile home for under $70K...


I can't think of any place I'd like to live in North America where that money would be anything other than a downpayment on something. Certainly that's all it is in Ottawa.


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## bluesmostly (Feb 10, 2006)

the Southern Interior of BC (Kelowna, Vernon, Kamloops, etc) gets my vote too. We have been here for 18 years - wow. The climate is idilic from a Canadian perspective imo. the dry climate does makes for some interesting fire seasons sometimes though... but the lifestyle is hard to beat.


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## Bobby (May 27, 2010)

Prince Edward Island

my father is from there,so i visited alot. the most relaxed place on the planet. the whole island has a population on like 300k or something,which is nothing considerimg the size of the island. theres virtually no crime.

when i was younger,i remember going to a lebanese restaurant that was there. i never noticed any prejudice or hatred towards immagrants from other places. it was just normal that these lebanese people lived there and had a restaurant. i thought that was remarkable,even at my young age.

the friendliest people on the planet.the most beautiful scenery anywhere. more fresh air then youd ever need in 5 lives. beaches all over,and all kinds of really fkkin sexy women.

also the only place on the planet where they know how to make fries as good as quebec, must be our acadian connection.

i should work for their travel bureau or something. but its an awesome place. im gonna retire there someday.

Bobby


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## al3d (Oct 3, 2007)

Hum, 50$K in my pocket for a down payment on a house..and a 70$K salary?, jesus, i'de stay right here. with such a high salary wife could stay home and raise the kid, we would have a pretty low mortgage, and we would still be able to put aside quite a lot of cash for retirement realy.


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## DrumBob (Aug 17, 2014)

It would be western USA; Montana, Wyoming, Colorado. 

We thought about Asheville, NC, but it's pricey for seniors to live there.


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## Guncho (Jun 16, 2015)

iaresee said:


> ...with some constraints, but in general you could live anywhere in North America, where would you live?
> 
> Here are your constraints:
> 
> ...


Wow in 2010 you could buy a house for $50k! What a time it must have been to be alive!


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## colchar (May 22, 2010)

Holy necrothread Batman................................


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## laristotle (Aug 29, 2019)




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## bzrkrage (Mar 20, 2011)

colchar said:


> Holy necrothread Batman................................





laristotle said:


> View attachment 359737


I mean, Iaresee isn’t even on the forums anymore...(if you are I’m sorry...)

Did you move to *Asheville, North Carolina?*


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