Having already linked up with one Toronto realtor, Renate, at the UK Emigrate shows, we are also lucky to have access to the insights of a second realtor in one of our hosts, Paul, at Accommodating the Soul.

Yesterday Renate showed us some of the somewhat random selection we had sent her to give some idea of the sort of houses that might interest us.  This was helpful in giving us a sense of good and bad locations, different standards of renovation and what Canadian houses are like in a very general way.

Today Paul gave us a good sense of two of the neighbourhoods that we will probably be looking in, Beach and East York.  We established that we probably don’t want to be in Leslieville – although there are some pleaseant streets, we just don’t like the feel as much.  We are going up to Greektown (in Riverdale) later, which is another area that may appeal to us.

We are not in a position to buy right now, but it has been really useful to see a range of types of property, including duplex and triplex houses where we could use our investment to generate income and capital growth and still potentially live in a lovely area and pleasant home. We like this idea and there seems to be a strong rental market.

 I particularly love the leafy streets and houses with porches where you can sit looking out onto the street, the birdsong mostly louder than the traffic. On a glorious summer’s day like today, it is more relaxing than I would ever have believed a city could be just 20 minutes from downtown!