I had the chance to meet a couple new PR’s over the last few days. One of them was engaged with the Movnorth site. Considering the extreme cold (unusual) that hit the west cost for a couple weeks last month I was quite interested to know what their opinions of Toronto.
On the whole they seem to be enjoying life here and are quite relieved to be free of the stresses of H1B. One of them has just got a job with a tech. company downtown and was regretting not taking my advice to live in the downtown core. The other person still works remotely for his US employer and is also exploring options locally. I really enjoyed meeting them and plan to try and meet other expats moving here more often.
I also met a few Canadians who have recently moved back to Toronto after many years in the US on TN visa’s. I was surprised to know they found the site quite useful with their search for tech jobs here. Feel free to ask me anything or post your own thoughts I thought we should have some more informal random threads on here.
What are the circumstances of the person who’s working remotely for his US employer? I’m not asking about anything too specific or personal, but am curious how that works.
Was employed with a big name Silicon Valley tech company (on the business side not engineering). He had worked there for a while. He spoke to his manager and explained how he had Canadian PR and would love to continue working for the company and it worked out for him which is amazing.
Varies from employer to employer and field to field. If you work for, say, Microsoft or Amazon in Seattle, they send their visa-issue-employees to Vancouver all the time anyway, till their visa issues are solved and then they bring them back to Seattle. Easier to remote-work in software than many other engineering fields unless you have a physical office in Canada. I also read on TechCrunch (in Nov 2016 ) about a Canadian company whose sole purpose was to create subsidiary of your US company in Canada (for about $6000) so that you can get paid in Canada through the “Canadian” company while working for you US company. I don’t know where that went as I cannot find it online anymore but check that out.
If your company really wants to keep you even if you’re working from Canada, there are lots of legal ways to do this.
Hi ,
Which areas near the downtown would you recommend that has decent sized homes, good schools and access to amenities for kids.
We will be moving from Texas and are used to larger than life homes and were looking to rent in the Mississauga region to have something similar. But would like to check out options near the downtown region as well.
You’re not going to get anything as big as houses in Texas for the same prices you pay there unless you choose to live further away from the city. Even in Texas I doubt you would get affordable large homes close to downtown cores like Austin. I’m not very familiar with Mississauga but here is my list of great neighbourhoods close to downtown Toronto. These are highly walkable, safe, great schools, filled with young families, amazing restaurants, gyms and other such things.
I visited some friends who live in Mississauga and they told me the (good) houses there (with two parking garages, 5 bedrooms) are easily over a million CAD! Some average houses with a single garage and 3 bedrooms can go over CA$600k.
No wonder people prefer buying condos there (much cheaper).
In the US in some states/cities you’ll get a mansion for that kind of money. Buying a house is definitely expensive in most good parts of GTA, similar to SF or NY. You can probably get a house in the US as an investment and then rent it out before u leave.
Technically Mississauga is pretty hot considering its proximity to core Toronto etc. Prices in the GTA have not risen or even dropped a little over the last year additionally there is news of a slowdown in housing sales. I have friends who have bought large houses (5 bedroom kinds) about an hour’s drive from downtown Toronto.
I’ve been meeting a few PR’s recently. A couple are in the process of moving here from the US and a few who are moving here from India. They were here for the landing and a few had scheduled interviews. Do you guys have any questions you’d like to ask them. I was thinking to ask them about their interviewing experience here.
Waterloo Kitchener is a good area it has a major engineering college that is often considered the MIT of Canada. Google also has a big engineering office in Kitchener. It is very much like a college town and life is not as fast moving as core Toronto. It is certainly cheaper and you will possibly get a much larger place for the same money.
Getting to know the interview experiences would definitely help! Also, if they were asked to provide any specific documents, it would help too.
Also, do these new PRs have friends/relatives in Canada? If not, what are they planning from accommodation, travel and job search perspectives e.g are they living in home stays/hotels on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, renting/buying/transferring cars?
I’ll ask them about the interview process I agree that would help. Most had friends in Canada and some had distant relatives. Only two of the ones I had met (moved from India) were planning to move without a job in hand and planned to do short term rentals for about 4 months the runway they gave themselves to get jobs. The ones moving here from the US were flying in for interviews and remotely managing their job hunt. They were planning to transfer their cars but only once they had a job in hand.
Thanks @anon25417004 . I have been doing some research on Waterloo area and it seems like a really cool place. Also, I was recently in Canada and did a drive by of these areas to get feel for the place and I felt really good about this area. The only concern is that would it be too far away from core job locations in Toronto or should that not matter too much since future prospects of Waterloo are quite promising.
I would say focus on getting the job you want and live as close as possible to it. In the end most of our travel is going to and from work so its best to minimize that. It’s always hard to recommend things like places to live to other people since its so subjective. For example if you’re coming from a big city then waterloo might seem a little slow. On the other hand you might want some peace and quite and then waterloo would be good. I know friend who live about an hour north of Toronto. They love their neighbourhood and large house but miss the city, especially in the summer when Toronto really comes alive and everyone is outdoors all the time till very late into the night.
Can you share a little about where you’re moving here from, what field are you looking to work in and what got you thinking about Waterloo?
) about a Canadian company whose sole purpose was to create subsidiary of your US company in Canada (for about $6000) so that you can get paid in Canada through the “Canadian” company while working for you US company. I don’t know where that went as I cannot find it online anymore but check that out.
I should’ve bought one yesterday