Cost of living in Vancouver?
 

Any Vancouver-iets out there? What is an expected cost of living in Vancouver? Average rents? taxes? dinning, etc?

Thanks,

Jay

Vancouver is expensive, but worth it, its a great city with hot girls and lots to do. :2 cents:

Check some rents http://vancouver.craigslist.ca/apa/

Nice place to live but does cost a bit of money these days. ;)

cheap if u know what you're doing

that seems exspensive!

What if you are a US citizen, and working there. Do you get the taxed to death?

Bend over and prepare to be fucked. Now the most expensive Canadian city to live in. Beautiful for 2-3 months out of the year but you'd better like the color gray for the rest of the year.

The people aren't all that friendly and many people find it hard to make friends when they're new to the city. Transportation sucks ass and the way the city and suburbs are sprawled out kind of sucks too.

It's not going to be easy to get legal residence up there either.

:thumbsup:thumbsup

This is really advice that helps! Thanks!

The burbs are probably a little more cheaper but not by much.The man is always digging in our pockets. Taxed to death out here

Vancouver: North America's most expensive city

Vancouver loses its bragging rights as most livable city

this is all true, and the burbs have a bigger problem because gas is sooooo expensive and you have to drive to get anywhere, and traffic sucks all day

it is so expensive to live there, you can go through money so fast and not even feel like you've done anything, and it feels like everyone is a little on edge because the pressure to make enough money just to stay afloat is on everyone's mind (except the guys that grow pot or other things to get ahead of the taxman)

dreary weather more than half the year, still better than the frozen tundra across the rest of Canada, but it is miserable when every day is damp

try checking out the weather at random times and see if you could deal with that view every day. :) http://www.katkam.ca

that is a great quality cam, thanks for the link, reminds me of why I am glad not to be there right now, I can feel the dampness just by looking at that :winkwink:

unless you're a snowboarder/skier and you like to do that a lot or have friends/family living there i can't think of a reason to choose Vancouver over a bunch of other cities in North America. too expensive to live well in the city. so if you're going to be living in the suburbs, suburbs are the same in every city in North America. might as well choose one that's cheaper.

Canada and the US have tax treaties, but US citizens have tax issues whenever they choose to live outside the US while remaining US citizens. The US is a hardass when it comes to taxes, you'd still be required to file US taxes which is a pain in the ass even if you are living in Canada and paying Canadian taxes and won't have to pay the IRS anything, still need to file. I bet the majority of US citizens living abroad don't do it but it is the law.

So what would you all say is a reasonable yearly income to live comfortably there? Minimum 150k?

Yea that's not a bad start if your single :pimp

Sure. I have a friend who lives on 50k, but she rents a 600sq ft basement suite and drives a 1996 Dodge Colt. Scale yourself according to your needs.

other nice places to live in bc as well.

Define comfortable? I think a more accurate question would be "how responsibly can you manage your finances"...

I lived in the west end right on the beach while making like $40k/yr (no car). If you are eating out every meal and partying every night any city will be expensive.

I have a really hard time believing its more expensive than NYC. Unless they are taking all 5 boroughs into consideration when most people consider Manhattan to be all of NY metro area and maybe a part of Brooklyn in the last decade.

No partying. Maybe out to eat once or twice a week. Living and working in the same area. It's more like a bonus than a main job. Just thinking about taking on a new project.

Well, believe it. Rent is probably more in New York but everything else is more expensive in Vancouver.

Everything you buy in Canada has a higher price tag than it does in the USA. It used to be that the USD was worth as much as 1.6 CAD. Now the currency floats around par but prices haven't changed in Canada. Gas alone in Canada is more than $5 a gallon.

sounds like you'd be ok, with economy picking up the housing problem is being addressed with a lot of places selling 250k condos

within the vancouver core this is kinda special

If you want to live with a bunch of weirdos, asians, and drug user and homeless infested streets move to that city.

You would not believe the amount of weirdo kids and people there. They act like having homeless people roaming every friggin city corner is an ok thing.

If you want to run shoulders with tree hugging goof balls, city street drugs users you can find this anywhere in the city.

Vancouver was nice a decade ago. Now it is ruined.

Calgary is pretty ruined too, actually

I don't live in Calgary any more I travel in and out.

And if you think Calgary is a ruined city you're a complete idiot.

Calgary is probably realistically the most rich city in all of Canada.

Do you have any idea how much of the worlds oil is put out from Canada? And where the biggest oil offices are?

The Calgary down town is all new buildings. It is a small city but it is filthy oil money rich. Everyone with half a brain knows that. Anyway the chicks are hotter in other places. But "ruined" is the exact opposite of what is happening.

ruined meaning a bunch of scum hanging out on the streets, bikepaths, etc everywhere you go

Vancouver is not a place I'd choose to live if I had a choice of anywhere in North America. It has some advantages but unless you have a LOT of reasons for wanting to be there, it's not that great. As WarChild said - 2-3 months out of the year it's nice.

If you're looking for a cool/weird city with lots of homeless people I hear Portland is nice... and it's not Canada. So it wins.

Crackhead central and a small downtown core that you can walk in a few minutes, by all means give it a shot but please visit first.

As I moved here full-time in June, my opinion on the city:

- People are super-friendly

- Real estate (downtown especially) is ridiculously priced - especially if you want something with space; but you can find decent spots (I have a townhouse right downtown for only $4500/mth for 2400 sq feet)

- Plenty of very attractive women

- Lots of events, activities, festivals, etc... come through town

- Super low crime/violence (just lots of "missing people")

- Closeness to awesome nature

- Restaurants & Bars are the same as any major city; you can find clubs for $15 cocktails or cheap pubs for $2 beers.

- Taxes are not bad at all for Canada; esp. versus say, Quebec.

- I live here now. That alone jacks the city's reputation up a few points :winkwink:

- Dark and gloomy thing is over-blown; although I enjoy dark and rainy, every 2nd day right now has quite a bit of sunshine and the winters are super warm.