r/Halifax- convince me and my GF (Vancouverites) why it would be a good reason to move to Halifax.

Rum_Titan · 1 year

Tonight I am going to my friends new house for a housewarming party. I live downtown, but he lives off the peninsula which some would consider outside the 'main' part of the city. A cab to his house from mine (he lives in Clayton Park) runs a grand total of $12. He has just bought this house for $300k and change. Its has 5 bedrooms.

Vancouver was recently deemed the most expensive city in Canada. Halifax is definitely not, but with the recent $25B shipbuilding contract, we are garaunteed growth over the next 30 years. Buy now!

jbrydle · 1 year

I'm a Vancouverite living in Halifax. Halifax is great. Vancouver is better. If you can stand renting, stay where you are! If not, then yes, Halifax is the best alternative to Vancouver with affordable housing. Be warned - even when the transit is running its an awful system. It's basically where Vancouver was before the Skytrain. I'm talking' pre Expo line. Good luck!

myflyhifi · 1 year

I have been living in Halifax for 2 years, having moved from Chilliwack, BC. I miss the mountains. There are a lot more elderly people. Everyone drives at 10km below the speed limit. House prices are less than in BC and much less than in Vancouver, but higher than I expected. Contrary to what you may be told, it is nearly impossible to find a doctor taking patients outside of Halifax. Taxes are higher, cost of living is also higher than expected. Halifax is small but has better entertainment/night life than Vancouver. Lots of pubs - they are everywhere. Hope this helps.

zerojay · 1 year

Eh... I've always found that when people say "convince us", they're coming into it with the wrong attitude from the start, but good luck with whatever you choose.

catalot · 1 year

As another Vancouverite (I came to Halifax for school) I am looking forward to going back to Vancouver eventually. There are a lot of good things about Halifax if you like those things: ie. small town atmosphere, small size, ocean/mariner aesthetic. I also miss the culture of Vancouver. Halifax has culture, but the international type is in very small doses. And some people like that.

Housing prices are indeed cheap, although rent is the same if not higher. Jobs are also not plentiful, unless you work in shipbuilding.

zane411 · 1 year

No noisy buses on the road to distract you in your day to day commute. Hope you drive.

[deleted] · 1 year

Given that neither of you could be directly employed through the shipping stuff, I would instead move inland to somewhere like Toronto or Winnipeg. Give up on your dream of home ownership - it's not happening with less then six figures banked for a down payment at $60k/yr before taxes.

Halifax has an absurdly competitive labour market, because Cape Breton is emptying out and moving into Halifax. Rent and property prices are also about to explode, and everyone knows it - don't expect any sweet deals. Nova Scotia is economically dead, the only good things happening in the foreseeable future are this shipping contract and maybe some lucky oil/gas discoveries offshore.

Halifax also lacks the big entertainment industry that would generate regular income for your seamstress ladyfriend.

I would advise against it, unless you're willing to retrain as a pipe fitter or welder or something and she's willing to get HR certed so she can work in an office while you work in the yards.

catalot · 1 year

In terms of jobs, I'm in Costume studies at dalhousie and all the profs tell us that there's almost no work for a seamstress or tailor in Nova Scotia. They always reccomend going to Ontario, Alberta, or BC. Not sure about baking/pastry chef work though, or bus drivers.

tifsim · 1 year

Moving from BC to NS is a bad idea.

JohnoTheFoolish · 1 year

With a $30 billion ship building contract over the next 20 - 30 years, the economy is looking more solid than it has for some time.

There are plenty of reasons to move to Halifax so I will sum it up with the following:

The sun comes up on the right side.

fluffityfluff · 1 year

Well, you would make 60k alone as a bus driver. However their shifts are fluffed so you'd be working 45hrs/week but spending 13 hrs a day away from home to get the 9h shift done. I don't know if that's the case in Vancouver.

Halifax isn't very bike or pedestrian friendly, if that matters to you.

Prov tax rates are much higher than BC (http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/fq/txrts-eng.html). Halifax city rates are 1.45%, though surrounding municipalities are about 1.25%.

The shipbuilding contract will supposedly provide some economic backbone for the area. I have my doubts about how much of the money will effectively trickle down into the local economy.

If you move into suburbia and have property then I imagine it will be like any other suburban area around the country, with the differences mostly in tax rates.

I hate driving around the city. But this is true for almost any city.

There are lots and lots of lakes around. If you like the lakes and shore you will love Halifax+area.

Halifax county (along with Kings/Annapolis in the valley area) are the only counties with any real growth in Nova Scotia.

CaptainOmar · 1 year

as far as housing goes for around 250K around here, or even 20 minutes out in sackville you're getting quite a bang for your buck, im currently looking at buying in that price range, and im finding some houses with 4bdrm 2bth for 230ish, so housing is cheap

MJM83 · 1 year

Another question... about the weather: it's not a solid snow winter every year? it fluctuates between freeze/thaw? What's the coldest it gets on average? I remember seeing in the past some serious winter ice storms- are those frequent? thanks guys you da best.

lenisefitz · 9 months

I moved from Halifax to Vancouver. I would not move back. I love Halifax. I love Vancouver. Each for completely different reasons. It is NOT easy to find a job in a city where most people are university educated and may have a couple of degrees to their name. If you are trying to get a job as a janitor in a hospital you have to have some university. Transit operators do not make as much as they do in Vancouver. People are WONDERFUL. You will make friends fast and have many social events to go to and things to do. I love the history of the Maritimes. It is much older than Vancouver but you are going to miss that really cool restaurant that they just opened on Water Street. However, lobster and steaks are only $16.00 at Peddlers Pub, oh wait, that is closed. Historic Properties is mostly boarded up the last time I visited last spring. I hope that has changed. They have some small restaurant/bar/pubs on Spring Garden Road and they never get any great entertainment like Vancouver. I know it is expensive here but you are young. Retiring in Halifax is better than being their when you are 20. I would live in Halifax in a minute if I could have the same job in my field for the same money. It would be so easy to have a house paid off in five years but that is not how economics works. I would never recommend Alberta but if you want to make the same amount of money nad have cheaper housing then Alberta would be it.

hooliganking · 1 year

Do not bother coming to Detroit of Canada. This city is shit. mark my words bro. great ppl but thats abt it.

Walrasian · 1 year

Halifax is awesome, but you will notice a lot of amenities you take for granted are missing. For instance, doing winter stuff. There is no skiing here, in fact there is no snow. Or concerts. Prepare for maybe one or two in the summer and expect them to be things like Metallica or Tom Petty. While those acts are good music, they aren't really contemporary. The acts we see tend to not have a current album and are kind of chosen for having the broadest appeal. A lot of the time i go see the band not because i am excited to see them, but because it is a concert. It is not like in a similarly sized city anywhere else in Canada or the US because it is so far from another major venue (Montreal is 12-14 hours away). In fact, I end up driving to Portland, Maine to see a lot of bands. And Portland is a small town about 9-10 hours away. We have great restaurants, we just lack the same amount of mid-priced cool restaurants that you get in a larger city. We also lack good seafood. It is kind of a weird that we live next to an ocean and most of our fish is haddock or farmed salmon.

For me the positives outweigh the negatives, but I often wish I lived somewhere like Ottawa, Quebec, or Montreal.

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