What 250,000 quid will buy you in New Scotland...

[Canada Bob]

Just in case any of you might consider buying a house in Nova Scotia, I've got one for you...

Check out the link below to see what 250,000 quid would buy you over here...

The house was built a few years ago by a Captain of a fishing boat from the Faroe Islands, he used to drop his catch off here in Nova Scotia, and liked the place so much that he designed and built his own house here, and what a house it is. The guy is retired now and is going back home to the Faroe's, that's why the house is up for sale. I don't know what 250,000 quid buys in Inverness, but it don't buy much in Wigin...

http://www.capebretonestates.com/property_mulgrave.html

If any of you are up for this kind of lifestyle one thing you might want to know, you don't need to be a Canadian to hold property over here, and you don't need to be a Landed Immigrant to live here for 6 months at a time, add to that I believe that there's a reciprocal agreement between the NHS and the Health Care system here in Canada, so unlike the US you don't need to take out health insurance...

I'd like to know what this place would be worth in Wigan !!! it's no just the house, I believe there's 30 acres that goes with it !!!

Bob.

[Scotty]

What it will buy you in Toronto !!!

THIS, THIS, or maybe even THIS !!!

although for a mere 15 million you could have THIS

[Canada Bob]

For Gawds Sake !!! hard to believe the prices in Babylon the Great, that's what Nova Scotians call Ontario, grin...

If I wanted to rough it I'd live in this, asking price ?180,000...

http://www.capebretonestates.com/property_baddeckbb.html

Nice area too, seemingly favoured by Scots, Alexander Bell spent much of his life in Baddeck, and no just for the salmon fishing either...

Mind you, if yer money is a bit tight, then this for ?150,000 is a reasonable "fixer upper"...

http://www.capebretonestates.com/property_pleasant_bay.html

Here's another that looks OK {ish} from the outside, but then when you look at the interior photo's you'll see why the asking price is ?85,000...

http://www.capebretonestates.com/property_...at_seaside.html

Or... you could take over this run down B&B for around ?135,00... as you can see, it needs work though...

http://www.capebretonestates.com/property_...ourg_manse.html

Folks think that life is easy for us immigrants to Canada, until they see how we live...

Canada Bob.

[FortressICT]

Where do you like to live more?  Scotland or Canada?

[Jay_7]

Canada is the easy answer to that question.  Just about everything is cheaper, you get taxed less, it's probably a lot safer than Scotland to live in and I do believe Canada are actively looking for folk to work in the IT industry, so getting a work Visa should be a doddle!

The only thing that's stopping me from going are friends and family!

[FortressICT]

The only thing that's stopping me from going are friends and family!

And Tuesday night football. :004:

[Jay_7]

Ah yes, Tuesday night footie as well.  My aplogies for no-show last night, I fell asleep when I got home from work.  Don't tell TWS

[Scotty]

Where do you like to live more?  Scotland or Canada?

Thats a hard question as its like comparing apples and oranges .....

Things I like about Canada:

[li] Standard of living is higher[/li]
[li] Prices seem lower for most things (although there are exceptions ... like property [see below])[/li]
[li] Universal Health care. Unlike the USA we have the equivalent of the NHS and dont have to pay for medical bills[/li]
[li] There is more opportunity workwise. I had to go to college for a year to formalise my IT skills but after that found work at the Globe and Mail newspaper within a week of graduation and was then head-hunted a year later for my current position at double the salary !![/li]
[li] People are (for the most part) friendly[/li]
[li] It actually has a summer !!![/li]
[li] Toronto FC !!![/li]
[li] Decent Beer[/li]
[li] Multiculturalism[/li]

Things I dont like about Canada:

[li] The downside of having a summer is that it also has a winter and although the last few have been reasonably mild, the one we just had was brutal (-30, 8 feet of snow over the space of a couple of months etc)[/li]
[li] House prices in Toronto are ridiculous ?200,000 (yes pounds, not dollars) and upwards for a small semi or even a flat in 'mid-town' with prices increasing exponentially the closer you get to downtown[/li]
[li] Taxes. I disagree that we are taxed less because we have three levels of taxation - Federal, Provincial and Municipal. The feds take income tax and the equivalent of national insurance from us, the provincial government adds a health tax to that and in the end i feel I am paying more tax than i did when i was in Scotland but maybe thats because I am earning more. We also have the equivalent of VAT with our sales taxes - the feds charge 8% GST and the provincial government adds a further 5% PST to that for a total of 13%. At a city level we pay for water, property taxes, and they just decided to start charging a fee depending on what size of rubbish and recycling bins you have ... the bigger the bin, the more you pay. The city also just hiked car tax to renew your license plate and the land transfer tax when you sell your house so all in all we are getting taxed from every angle ![/li]

Things I miss about Scotland/Inverness

[li] Friends and Family[/li]
[li] Seeing ICT FC in person[/li]
[li] A 'sesh' in the Innes[/li]
[li] UK TV. Believe me, with a few exceptions it IS far better than the US/Canadian equivalent[/li]

[CaleyD]

You could build a house like that over here for ?250,000.  The problem is the cost of the land which you'd want to put it on.  Don't think I would be too far off the mark saying that land in and around Inverness which you would be allowed to build on would cost somewhere in the region of ?150,000 per Acre.  If you were fortunate enough to find 36 Acres with permission for even a single dwelling then your going to be looking at 7 figures for the site alone.

Like Jay_7, if it wasn't for family and friends I'd be off to Canada in a flash.

[Guest birdog]

CaleyD and Jay7 you guys sound like a bunch of ex-ICT employees, "family reasons" my erse  :016:

[Scarlet Pimple]

Scotty --the Canadian  Federal Goods and Services (GST) tax is currently 5%-remember it started at 7% in 1991 and has been reduced twice.  Provincial tax (at least in British Columbia) is still at 7% on virtually all goods.

Property taxes per annum for me  have gone up 17.7% on the net tax position even after the application of the Seniors grant of $845 which is a deduction from the gross taxes and this year  the net is again up another 4.7%.

Property in Vancouver and District here on the WEst coast of Canada  costs a fortune.

That house that Bob shows you would almost certainly be situated in the British Properties (highest prices in Canada) in West Vancouver overlooking the Pacific Ocean and there would probably go for at least 2 to 3 million or more. A bachelor single flat in the heart of downtown--$1,000,000;  a townhouse of 2600 square feet in a decent district on the outskirts of town comprising 4 bathrooms, 5 bedrooms, living room/dining room and kitchen would be at least $430,000. A two bedroom apartment in the suburbs about $300,000 depending on location and quality. In a choice high-rise building overlooking the Burrard Inlet then the price would more likely be upwards, or over, $400,000 with  the penthouse definitely near to $500,000.

On the other hand,  a perfectly acceptable accommodation for a young couple would be a mobile home with two bedrooms  in a decent Mobile Home park going for $70,000 or less even .It would have a parking pad, a shed , some grass round the unit , a bathroom, kitchen and a living-room and the pad rental would be $600 per month.And a wee deck on the side upon which to sit on a Summer's evening with a glass of wine watching the occasional sun going down.

Price of gas (petrol) here is now $1.31 per litre ---two pound sixty ,roughly. It's getting to the point that people are scared to run the car and I am selling my SUV which only gets 23 MPG since I have now formally retired from my presenty occupation. It's fi nancial pruning time for me  and no mistake.

It rains here in Vancouver for up to nine months steady and three months of good sunshine if you are lucky. Winters are relatively mild but in the past a snowfall would last a couple of days but now it is 3 weeks on the ground. Rivers flooding is also now a real problem and we missed a big flood last year by one inch. Phew!  This past Winter was the coldest on record (see Scotty's comments above) and I put my long-johns back on a week ago I was so cold (imagine that --in June).

Standard of living here in Canada is indeed high--high-speed Internet is now becoming standard, every family has at least two cars  and often the teenage kids have their own. MKany families either have a jacuzzi or a sauna.

But University or College is very costly and , unless you are lucky to get a Grant you pay for all of it.  My stepson, aged 21, has just paid $16,000 (after a Grant of $5,000 reduced the cost ) to go one year for a computer graphics course downtown. He is up at 5 a.m. , then bus to train, train into downtown.Returns home by reversing the route and gets home at about 4.30p.m. Then he studies until midnight.But he likes it and that is a relief  since he also paid a whack for a culinary course , passed O.K. but then quit because the trainer Chef shouted at his pupils.  I told him that he should have told the guy to shout at his ears and not his eyes..but? :004:

Canada is great for all kinds of sporting activities , especially hiking and downhill skiing. Lots and lots of great ski hills especially at Vancouver and 80 kilometers up the road Whistler and Blackcomb which have so many runs that your head will spin just reading the run guide.Cross country skiing is also very popular, trail bike riding, horse riding (dude ranche which apparently is a lot of fun), river rafting (EXCITING), rock climbing, skydiving is big if you are a granny (rightenuff), gliding and many other things.

Check us out for a holiday . Scotty and Scarlet will help you along with the Canajin language. And the beer is quite good too-- what is the favourite--you guessed it, "Canadian".

Cheers

S.P.

[Scotty]

Scotty --the Canadian Federal Goods and Services (GST) tax is currently 5%-remember it started at 7% in 1991 and has been reduced twice. Provincial tax (at least in British Columbia) is still at 7% on virtually all goods.

I always get the two mixed up !!! Ok its 5% GST and 8% PST (in Ontario) but it still adds up to 13% ... in fact, PST can go as low as 5% for hotel accomodation or as high as 12% for buying booze in the LCBO (off license).

Price of gas (petrol) here is now $1.31 per litre ---two pound sixty ,roughly.

Got yer multipliers mixed up Scarlet old chap ...... its the equivalent of about 65p per litre .... Its usually a bit over $2 to the pound.

[Canada Bob]

A quick one about the telly Scotty...

No need to miss the UK programming, you can watch all the Freeview stuff ore here, even SKY etc if you have a Slingbox set up "back home", works a treat for me, I watch that linked up via a laptop straight into a 52" TV, the picture is good {not Hi Def or owt due to the available bandwidth} but still better than watching a lot of the shyte that comes down the cables ore here, to me it's program content rather than how good the definition of the picture is... pity we can't yet have both...

Other than that, I watch "MYP2P" a lot, still not sure if what they broadcast is fully legit, especially the live soccer games, but they carry quite a bit of UK live broadcast stuff, not to mention a lot of live broadcasts from around the world... You might want to take a look at that, see what you think, my guess is that much of it is legal rebroadcast, but some of the content may well be regarded as pirate, but that arguement still goes on in the forums...

An alternative would be the live webcasts that ITV and CH4 {not sure about the BBC} put out, but they are blocked if your IP address comes up as outside the UK... Add to that, Betfair now carry live horse racing, every race, every day {almost}, they also carry a lot of soccer games live too, it's not PPV but you need to have bet at least 2 quid on the game, a safe bet if yer a Rangers fan hey, grin...

I recall Rod {aka the Scarlet Pimple, out there in the wilds of BC} sent me a sort of Pay Per View site {that must have been legit ?} where you could watch a lot of UK games, and the costs wasn't bad, neither was the picture quality...

Canada Bob.

[Canada Bob]

Where do you like to live more?  Scotland or Canada?

That's a hard one to answer...

IF you can find a decent place to live that isn't knee deep in social upheaval, and IF you can find a place where the craic is still there, then Scotland would be {this Wiginers} choice, mainly because I like the robustness of a good pub atmosphere, IF you can find a good pub that is.

If there's a downside to Canada it's that folks aren't as quick witted as you MIGHT find in Scotland or the Untidy Kingdom in general, try telling a joke over here and you die a death, they hear the punch line and still don't recognise that it's a joke, in general they take things way too literally. Mind you, things have changed for the worse "back home" in the last 30 years, folks seem to have lost the ability to socialise they way they used to.

Although Canadains aren't as raucous as I'd like them to be, it's hard to fault them in any other way, they are easy to make friends with, most of them will go out of their way to help you, and you don't feel that there's the stress in society here that you can see in the UK.

Taking people/society/jobs/ taxes/opportunity to gain a better life/standard of living etc {which to me are all better/higher over here} out of the equation it would be down to a comparison of geography, and seeing as how Nova Scotia {aka New Scotland} is actually part of Old Scotland {it broke off a while back and drifted across the Atlantic}. you'd be hard pressed to know which country you were in.

We have the Highlands, the salmon rivers {where you can fish to your hearts content, no "Private Stretches here", add to that there are more Pipe Bands here in Nova Scotia than in Scotland, we have the gathering of the Clans every year. Nova Scotia has it's own tartan, not to mention our own Highand Games and so on...

Anyone from Scotland who values their heritage yet seeks the proverbial "better life" wouldn't feel any loss at all over here, fair enough football is yet to get established, but the sacrifice of 90 minutes a week for a better life is well worth it...

It's not that Nova Scotia is a mirror image of all the good things of Scotland, it's not a sham imitation, the place is knee deep in folks from Scotland, there's a Million people here, and 80% of them are within 3-4 generations of being Scottish...

Bottom line is, if society wasn't as stressed out as it seems to be in Scotland, if the cost of living was cheaper there than here, if prospects for getting on in life were better there than here, if the working man had the same respect there as he has here, if you didn't have to carry the scroungers etc, then Scotland would be a great place to live... Until those things turn around, say 50 years from now, {if ever} then Nova Scotia or Canada in general is a better place to be...

This ain't "some foreign field" this place was settled by Scots, and won by their kilted legions under General Wolfe @ Quebec, so you're heritage is alive and well here, if that means anything to you, there's nae problem integrating into society ore here...

Canada Bob.

[Scotty]

Yeah considered Slingbox Bob but problem is I dont really have anyone whose TV I can monopolise and I see little enough of it these days anyway that I struggle to get through the stuff i record on the PVR !

When you say MYP2P i take it you are referring to MYP2P.eu site ? I can say with fair certainty that the football they broadcast certainly infringes copyright in most countries not sure about anything else but its a fair bet that the rebroadcasting is not entirely legit. In the absence of any SPL coverage over here I have been known to toddle along to it on certain days and the quality is decent enough. We do however remove links to this site during the season  :004:

[Scarlet Pimple]

Scotty -you are right on the ball. I doubled the dollars and cents instead of  halfing it. Just threw that in, of course :002:, to see if you would pick up on it. ****, he did. :004:

I went to the pump again  today and nearly died when I saw the price--$1.48 (74 pence) per litre. I know that trying to sell my van (SUV 3.3 litre engine, getting 23 mpgallon, will be a hard road. The car dealer offered me $600 for a trade when I deliriously thought it was worth $6,900. Good job I had paid it off a while back.

With even Saudi Arabia stating that the price of oil/gas is needlessly high (because George Bush phoned the King and said .." look here, if this increase continues we will all be in the poor house and the the economy will also be with us there so, come out with a statement that will help us..blah..blah.." the King he did complieth because he sold the oil shares to George an his father  originally and THAT's why nobody was allowed to leave the U.S. immediately after 9-11 EXCEPT the Saudi Princes!) it is clear that we are being literally robbed blind by the oil barons so what's the answer? Park the car and take the skytrain --and I won't miss it one bit-the traffic is horrendous here in the big city.After a couple of hours trying to get home you arrive feeling like a wet dishrag which has just been wrung out . And you poor folkd over in the U.K even drive on the wrong side of the road which must be totally  :015:frightening....

[Canada Bob]

It's not just down to the house that you get ore here, more importantly it's the lifestyle...

http://property.timesonline.co.uk:80/tol/l...icle4308144.ece

After living in Nova Scotia for almost 18 years I can vouch for what the Times has to say...

Canada Bob.