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Comment by dkonieczek | Hacker News Reader

I'm a Toronto native and have been working as a dev for the past two years. COL is extremely high compared to salaries. This is likely the biggest problem for anyone looking to move here. For example, a small 1 bedroom condo downtown will run you at least CA$2k a month. For a larger 1 bedroom or 1+den your easily looking at $2-3k in today's demanding market. Public transit is usually a hit or miss during rush hour. I'd suggest looking into Kitchener/Waterloo, Markham or Ottawa area if you're considering moving here. COL in these areas compared to Toronto is drastic and many of the bigN companies (Shopify, Google, IBM, etc..) are located here.

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I can definitely second Kitchener/Waterloo. Absolutely fantastic place to live!

Shhhh..

I'm trying to buy a house in Waterloo. Inventory is already staggeringly low.

You don't need to live downtown. I commute via car from Port Credit where I have an $850/mo bachelor apartment and work at Queen and Bathurst.

The rates of $2000+ quoted above are for newly built condos with lots of amenities and are walking distance to lots of places filled with 20-30 year olds

You are comparing apples to oranges

Even in port credit you cannot rent a brand new bachelor in a new building that’s not in a basement, which has new stainless steel appliances, dishwasher, air conditioning and at least a gym or pool.

I’m not knocking the idea of paying low rent to save money to get ahead in life, I think that’s something all young people should do.

But comparing port credit bachelor unit life to a new build 1 bedroom in the core is just a bad comparison

I wasn't saying it's the same, I'm saying there are other options. For the record I don't live in a basement, I live street level in a real apt (not a sublet) in the hottest neighbourhood in Mississauga. I'm a half block from Lakeshore and 3 from the GO station. You can find similar apts in Etobicoke, which is also in Toronto.

> hottest neighbourhood in Mississauga

Mississauga ... lol.

What's funny is I remember when the downtown waterfront condos were $50,000 each and nobody wanted to buy - long walk to downtown and freezing cold in winter. How things change.

Mississauga has a larger population than Vancouver, it's not some backwater suburb of Toronto. Have you ever been to Port Credit? Come around and I'll buy you a drink. You'll eat your words lol.

I hope for your sake you bought one of those 50k condos. I'm 25 so I missed the boat on cheap real estate.

> Mississauga has a larger population than Vancouver, it's not some backwater suburb of Toronto.

Big backwater suburb of Toronto?

Good one.

You lost me at "commute via car". Toronto has a reputation for some of the worst traffic in North America.

It might be cheaper to live that far away, but the cost in quality of life + hours commuting isn't worth the trade. Instead you can just go to a smaller town like Waterloo or a cheaper city like Montreal or Ottawa.

Takes me around an hour each way. I prefer it to public transit which takes me 45 minutes. I've lived in the GTA my whole life, I'm used to the traffic. The KW and Ottawa are cheap but they're really boring. If you're starting a family or something they would be great.

You could easily take a GO train from Port Credit to downtown. Very easily. We did it from Clarkson (the next stop West).

So you pay at the least around $300 a month to commute via GO train and then you need a car which is at the least another $500 when you factor in gas + insurance + lease. That's another $800 to your monthly expense and add commuting time to that.

At least with commuter rail you get a few extra productive hours per day, unlike driving. My uncle commutes from Guelph to Toronto on GO most days and makes full use of the silent railcar for work.

I bought my car outright, and I would have got that and my insurance whether I need it for work or not. For me the GO train + TTC is approx $13 a day. Driving is $18, which includes parking and gas. Why would I pay for the GO and driving daily (500 + 300)? That doesn't make any sense lol. Even if I included the cost of my car, insurance, gas, parking and (to make it fun) my cable bill, I still pay less than the base cost of an entry level apartment downtown. I don't consider my time driving wasted, it's leisure time.

EDIT: On second reading you may be talking about driving to the GO station, in which case I agree... although I can easily walk to the GO station in <5 minutes myself. Your parent comment might also live a short walk or bus ride away from the Clarkson GO station

+1 Waterloo/Kitchener area; As for commuting via car, the TTC hasn't fared well as well. Satisfaction keeps dropping month over month in polls. Driving isn't an ideal option either due to the traffic - it is the worst indeed.

No one is taking account the demographic that are likely to move to Toronto.

If you have a partner or significant other, it's not worth relocating to Toronto. Tech job's salaries are already considered extremely high here, but the majority of other jobs don't come close outside a few industries such as medical. Not to mention, non-tech industries are not booming like the tech industry, so even finding a decent job is a challenge.

Therefore, the demographic of people that would even consider relocation to Toronto are singles. After I graduated college and moved downtown from Etobicoke, I have so much more free time to actually live life. That 2 hours of commuting is extremely valuable, and this is coming from someone who was born and raised in Toronto. If you're a newcomer and single living outside of downtown or at a distance from work, commuting 1 hour to work, then working for 8 hours, and finally commuting 1 hour back - that's already 10 hours gone from your day. Factor in daily tasks and you're left with very little time in the week to find friends or socialize.

For me at least, I like driving so I would probably spend 2 hours driving anyway. I listen to music or podcasts and destress before I get home. I really don't mind it.

Not sure why you aren’t upvoted more

People just don’t understand how valuable time is. Commuting 2hrs each way daily x 5 days is 40 hours a month you will never get back.

Also I find that people with long commute times rarely admit how bad it is in the winter. I work from home 70% of my days and when I commute it’s 30 minutes by car each way. On a bad winter day it’s 3x that! Taking an Uber home to port credit after a night of drinking on a winter day would take 3 hours!

I recently spoke to a man who lives in the east end and commutes by car everyday to Cambridge! He said it’s 3 hours each way in the winter, blew my mind! (His wife worked in the east end)

Socialize? People are too busy working to afford living in the big smoke. :)

All joking aside, some folks I've known driven from St Catherine every day to work in the core. Summer wasn't too bad, winter they left at 4am and got home around 10pm just to rinse and repeat. Hardly got to see his kids. Truly not sure what they told themselves to keep doing it every day as to me it was simply insane.

You're right, no one has to. But why would I want to take a job somewhere that pays less, and has me live out in the middle of nowhere if I don't want to live out in the middle of nowhere?

I totally agree, which is why I live and work in the GTA. Am I missing something?

Wow, CDN$2k for a nice 1-bedroom shoebox? That's great! Take a look at San Francisco's equivalents, where you'll pay USD$3k or more for rough equivalence; that's about 2x the price. Things get more extreme when you start talking about home ownership.

Toronto COL might feel expensive now but it can definitely get a lot more expensive.

You need to also take in to account average income when looking at COL, which is significantly higher in SF than in TO. If you're spending 2x the price in SF, but making 3x then you come out way ahead.

Assuming you don't spend every red cent you earn, you're better off even if you're spending double and earning double.

The weather in Toronto is god awful compared to San Francisco. Honestly, it's bad compared to almost any US city. I get why Vancouver is so expensive, but never understood Toronto's prices.

Just curious, what cities are you referring to? I've spent time in NY, Chicago, Minneapolis, Milwaukee/Madison, Des Moines, St Louis, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Auston, San Antonio and many more. Toronto's weather is pretty similar to more than half that list. No, it's not California, but neither is 97% of the US.

> I've spent time in NY, Chicago, Minneapolis, Milwaukee/Madison, Des Moines, St Louis, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Auston, San Antonio and many more. Toronto's weather is pretty similar to more than half that list.

Which half? Did you include the rest as an exercise? Lol.

Rich from all over the world come to Canada to live or spend money, not to say, local *median" (emphasis, not average) income is quite high.

Except in SF, your take-home is ~4-6k/mo higher.

I don't care how much rent costs, what I care about is the delta between income and expenses.

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