the amount of people that think everything east of cambie or boundary is mars blows my mind

quite the overlap with those that hardly steps out of vancouver and when they do it's like vegas or mexico

Is seeing parents often something that is considered "normal" for a lot of you that have moved out (and married if that changes the situation)?

I know friends who see their parents every weekend. But I probably only see mine maybe once a month, if even. Now with the pandemic, I haven't seen them in like 3 months... And we live about 20 mins away.

^Yes i see my parents pretty often, maybe 2 times a week which will now probably be 5 times a week since i dont trust to put my kid into day care.


I moved to Surrey 3 years ago, and i went from seeing my Vancouver friends 2-3 times a week to maybe seeing them if im lucky once a month. Of course i have to go to Vancouver cause apparently Surrey is too far for them. But Surrey to Van isnt far...............

I think cultural norms and other variables contribute to what is "normal." My friends visit their families regularly because they have a good relationship with them, or will ask their parents to help take care of the kids when they've got work-related duties (i.e. travel for work / parental leave is over etc.) On the flip side, I do have friends who see their parents maybe once a month, mainly because their parents are still working, or distance is what keeps them from seeing each other regularly.

Me, girlfriend, brother + wife/kids have dinner with our parents every Sunday.
One of my dogs lives with them due to height restrictions at my place so going there and playing with his is an added bonus.

Mine live halfway across the Country, I'm lucky if I see them once a year. I went 3 years without seeing my dad before and that was after seeing him 5 days a week for 13 years when I worked for him. I wish I could see them more, my mom used to come back here 3-4 times a year but now her health doesn't really allow it. I talk to my mom 2-3 times a week on the phone though.

My wife would only see her dad maybe once a year at Christmas and he used to live 15 minutes from us.

I've got a 13 month old so the grandparents are either over nearly every day or there's a daily FaceTime call. We chose our location (East Van) so that we could be close to them (we're a 5-8 min drive away) as they're retired and my wife and I know we'll be taking care of them as they grow old.

Makes it tricky as it does limit our housing options - we don't have a usable garage or backyard and upgrading near our area is gonna run a few hundred grand that I don't really want to spend. I'm likely to stay mostly WFH after the pandemic ends but I suspect my wife will still need to go downtown most days (federal gov't) so moving out to the sticks with the longer commute just isn't in the cards for us.

Marriage, childcare, and aging parents can often impact real estate options for better or worse. Bit of a double edged sword when it comes to buying a place in the GVRD (or anywhere for that matter.) Childcare is expensive!

I’ve said this before but Van is almost like a black hole once you live there lol. I used to get pissed off when my wife and I lived in Burnaby by Lougheed mall and most of her friends from Vancouver wouldn’t come over when we had parties etc. Even though we were right off the highway and right on the sky train

But now that I live there it’s almost like the automatic reaction to not want to leave lol.. my parents still live in Surrey (Fraser Heights) as do a bunch of my friends still and from East Van to Fraser heights it couldn’t be easier really

However, if you live south Van, west of Main, etc. Driving from Vancouver east becomes much more of a chore and I probably wouldn’t do it nearly as often

Childcare expenses are the primary reason why we live in a small townhouse in the suburbs rather than own a house.

$2000+/month after tax is a lot of money for all but the top 3-5% of income earners and getting into a house would take away money from other things, like RESPs and savings outside of our company retirement plans.

Childcare expenses are brutal, it's the sole reason we only had one kid. In hindsight should have sucked it up and just dealt with it, regret not having a second child but I'm to old now and zero chance I'm going back to diapers when I have a kid that is only a couple years away from driving.

My parents lived in the area when my son was 0-6 but no way they would have helped me with looking after the kid, I can count on one hand the times they babysat for us in that time to allow us to go out for dinner without child. Those of you whose parents are willing to help are really lucky, don't take it for granted.

How's your relationship with your parents before and after?

Honestly it's fine, they just didn't want to be parenting little kids. That said when my sister past away 2-1/2 years ago they adopted her daughter who's now 15 so that's happened anyway mind you a 15 year old (13 at the time) is quite self sufficient for the most part.

The reason I don't see my parents that often is because both myself and my dad are workaholics. The limited vacation I do have I feel like I'm wasting it going to the prairies, I hate the place so much I'd rather go to Mexico or somewhere nice where it feels like a vacation. Every time I go there I'm like am I going long enough? Then I'm there for 8 hours and I'm like shit when am I going home. It's not that I don't want to see my parents, of course they can always come visit me but because of my moms health unless my dad comes it doesn't happen and because he works so much and never takes time off that doesn't really happen.

Good thing MG1 is retired and can watch the little dookies. :awwyeah:

wat

bcrdukes you ok? I just clicked on New Posts after not viewing for a few days and you're like the last poster for like 30304252654 threads

:fuckyea:

stock and noob meet time

My opinion on the Vancouver black hole is that it is such a PITA to get anywhere. I only lived in Vancouver (Kitsilano) for 6 years, but Jesus man. I even hated going downtown. Unless you don’t mind paying out the ass for cabs the city is a nightmare. I spent more time in Squamish then places out of “my zone” within Vancouver.

Now being in PoCo, I’m still in Vancouver visiting family once a week, but the traffic once off the highway just about blows my top everytime. We don’t have too many people come visit us, but at the same time I don’t think we put out the offer very often. Haha. But when we do, people do come. It’s enjoyable to be a good host. I will move back to Van eventually, it has its +‘S but man, their is also a lot of -‘s lol.


320? I’d be moving off this place in a heart beat if you really do hate it. Living on the island is amazing (I grew up there). It is getting waaaaay busier now though and will just continue to get worse.

The Island was too busy for Harry and Meghan, so they moved to Los Angeles. :troll:

I just want my 3-5 acres, 2k²ft rancher,100' from the road and big ass red barn. Let the dogs run around, work on my cars, maybe get a chicken coop, nice garden and have bigass bonfires.

I grew up in East Van, by 29th station, my spouse over by Van Tech. We're in Poco now but North Pitt Meadows is the goal.

You could easily do that with way less than 3 acres unless you wanted to actually farm.

My neighbour has a 3800 sq ft 2-story on 1.3 acres with a chicken coop with a half dozen chickens, bonfire area, and like a 1/2 acre area for the dogs to roam. Could easily put a barn in. Their driveway is large enough to fit 4 pickups, a welding truck, and several cars (there are like 4 families living there).

As for the island, anything north of the Malahat is way less busy than the Greater Vancouver region.

https://www.rew.ca/properties/257900...+Meadows%2C+BC

Something along the lines of this, where I could live, then build. Anything over 3acres and I'd try to lease the land for farming or as a hay field, to maintain ALR status, keep the tax low and get some income out of it. Who knows, maybe the area gets developed in 20 years and I can piece it off.

Personally if I had to look at Mission etc. I’d probably be moving to Penticton instead

Don't completely rule out living somewhere outside of CoV. I have at least 2 friends who used to work in DT, and they lived in the TriCities. WCE worked really well for them, and given that your wife works for the fed gov, it will likely be OK as well as far as standard office hours and the WCE schedules are concerned.

Another option is, when one of my friends relocated from CoV to Surrey, he convinced his parents to move out to Surrey as well. It worked out for his parents because they would still be close to the grandchildren, and they were able to pocket a small but still healthy sum from the RE price difference in CoV vs Surrey.