Moving your life from once city to another is never an easy proposition.

But what if you plan on purchasing a new home to move into?

Where do you start?  And how do you actively shop for a property when you don’t even live in the city?

My blog is read by more than just Torontonians, which is really just a by-product of the Internet which has no home.

In the past three months, I have received several emails from people who are in the process of relocating their lives to Toronto, and need help finding accommodations.

A few of these people plan on buying, and a few of these people plan on renting.

While the propositions of buying versus renting has much greater long-term ramifications, the search process itself is basically the same.

A quick question pops into mind: where the heck do you start?

Well that depends: have you ever lived in Toronto before, or are you moving here for the first time?

If you’ve lived in Toronto before, then perhaps you know the city well enough to narrow your option set or maybe you even know exactly where you want to live.  But for people new to the city, it can be a daunting process!

My first experience with a relocation-purchase came about three years ago when a former client named Dara asked me to help her parents, Stan & Anya, find their retirement castle.

The family started out in Toronto but about a decade ago, Stan & Anya moved out to Calgary and Dara stayed behind to go to school and eventually start her career.  Now, Stan & Anya wanted to retire, and moving back to Toronto would enable them to be closer to their children.

Stan contacted me in January of 2006 and said that they were “exploring the possibility” of moving back to Toronto.  We started a dialouge and discussed some properties, but eventually the conversations fizzled out.

But it wasn’t until February of 2007 that Stan called me and said, “We’re coming to Toronto, and soon!”

However, with Stan & Anya living in Calgary full time, how were they supposed to make an informed purchase decision?

And since they were looking at upwards of $1,000,000, how could they possibly make this decision rationally?

That’s when their daughter, Dara, entered the picture with her video camera.  Dara and I went around to dozens of condos taking photos and making virtual-tours of various 3,000 square foot condos in the west end and on the waterfront, and we sent the results to Stan & Anya in Calgary.

The process took about two months, but they narrowed the search by area, price, age of the building, and size of the unit.

Stan came to Toronto and viewed 3-4 units that we were contemplating, as well as 4-5 others that he had turned down, but wanted to compare against the properties in play.

Two weeks later, Anya came from Calgary to rubber-stamp the purchase, and a gorgeous penthouse condo at Palace Pier was bought for $1,100,000.

Now, consider what we would have done if daughter-Dara had not been in the picture!

I’ve made a three contacts from Vancouver in the past month, and all three potential buyers are moving to Toronto for the first time.  How do you know where you want to live if you don’t even know the city?

The first question I always ask: Where are you going to be working?

Most people want to be close to work in a new city, so it makes sense to see what properties are like within spitting distance of your new office.

Obviously price plays a factor in any equation, but ideally you’d start with your focal point (job location) and work outwards from there.

Or, you could use the city-centre as your focal point and work outwards.

In Toronto, you could claim that the city “centre” is any of the following:
-Yonge/Dundas Square or Eaton Centre
-Financial District
-“Mid-Town”
-Waterfront
-Rogers Centre & Air Canada Centre

The last one is an intriguing one, since once-upon-a-time, all sport stadiums were right in the heart of downtown.

I have a friend travelling to Montreal this weekend, and I told her I’d get her hooked up at my friend’s bar.  I googled the location of his bar, and wouldn’t you know it – the bar is a couple of blocks from the Bell Centre:

I don’t know Montreal that well, but it would seem that “the action” is right in the city centre and a block from the home of Le Canadiens.

In most North American cities, this is true.  But think about Ottawa where the Senators actually plan in Kanata, and our theory goes to waste.

Geographically, you might argue that Yonge & Eglinton is the “city centre” since it’s right in the middle of Toronto, but I think most people consider the “city centre” to be, more specifically, the centre of the downtown core.

While I’m not advising that every single person moving to Toronto should automatically move downtown, I would have them start their search there.

Majority of condos are in the downtown core, and majority of houses are not.

It seems to reason that if you’re looking to move into a condo, you’ll start your search downtown.  If you’re looking to buy a house, you’ll be looking anywhere but.

Determining where you want to live is certainly among the toughest steps in the process, but how does the rest of the process play out?

When and how are you going to buy when you live out of town?

And while relocating from St. Catharines one thing, relocating from the west coast is another.

Somebody living in Vancouver can’t afford to fly to Toronto every weekend for six weeks to search high-and-low for the perfect piece of real estate, so surely majority of the leg-work must be done in advance.

So do you make plans to fly to Toronto on the weekend of June 19, 20, and 21 in order to view, evaluate, and negotiate the purchase of a property?

Do you schedule two trips?

Where do you draw the line in the sand?

Obviously a renter could make due with spending a weekend in the city and picking a place to lease for a year, but it’s a little more intense if you’re going to be purchasing and living there for five years.

Thankfully, we live in the age of technology, and a potential purchaser can spend as much time as he or she desires, researching neighborhoods and condominiums to try and narrow the search field as much as possible before coming to Toronto to buy.

If you decide you want to live in a house in Leslieville and take the Queen streetcar to work every day, then maybe there will be 8-10 properties for sale when you come to Toronto to buy your new home.  Or, maybe there will only be 1-2 in your price range…

Obviously price and location will dictate your option set, so looking for a condo in “downtown” for under $300,000 will provide you with about 400 possibilities.

The process is daunting.

The decision is mind-numbing.

And the results have to be lived with.

But if you do the legwork in advance, and chant “be flexible” as your mantra in terms of where to live, when to visit, and how much to spend, it will simplify the process as much as possible.

Thankfully, I don’t plan on ever moving out of this great city.

Do we live in the best city in Canada?

How would I know…..it’s the only home I’ve ever had…