Moving to a small town for cheaper housing? Prepare to pay more to get around, for insurance and repairs
After spending the pandemic living and working in a 550-square-foot apartment in Toronto’s Junction Triangle, Ian Cable and his girlfriend Amy Stewart began searching the neighbourhood for more living space.
“We just looked at what it would take to buy a house, and it would have been within our means, but very, very stretched,” Mr. Cable says. “We would have been house-poor.”
Instead, the couple – who are both in their early 40s – moved two-and-a-half hours north to Ms. Stewart’s hometown of Owen Sound, settling into a modestly-sized three bedroom home on a one-acre lot. While the house cost a fraction of a similar property in Toronto, Mr. Cable says they’ve run into a few costs they hadn’t expected.
Since the pandemic struck, thousands of Canadians have left big cities in search of more room and affordable real estate. But moving to rural areas comes with unanticipated changes in living expenses, such as higher transportation costs, repairs and insurance