# Want to leave BC Canada to US due to high cost of living



## lorel (Nov 10, 2010)

BC cost of living has been out of control for years. I want to buy a house...but the prices are so insane, how can anyone who is single on a regular income even come close to affording a 600,000 house in surrey? in Vancouver every house is over a million dollars.

Are there any Americans who agree with me it no longer makes sence to live here? 

What would I loose other then my citizenship? What about my SSI insurance that I have had taken out of my pay check...can that be withdrawn when I retire? I do not have old age pension and no assets in Canada. 

I want to live in a city/state where most people can afford a home some where in the pacific nw...forget Seattle! its cost of living is just as horrid as Vancouver BC Canada. 

As for me, I am now 50. My body does not agree with physical work like it used to and would be glad to give up using my tools as a telecom technician in order to change careers. I have thought about sales or management as my careers choices. 

Thanks much

Lorel


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## WestCoastCanadianGirl (Mar 17, 2012)

Those $600k suburban homes that you refer to are now CAD $1million +.

I know this for a fact, as a former school mate's childhood home near No 10 Highway and the Alex Fraser Bridge recently sold for >$1million.

If you were to return to the US, you wouldn't automatically lose your Canadian citizenship... that wouldn't happen unless you intentionally renounced it.

As for your Canada Pension Plan contributions, I don't know what will happen to those, but I highly doubt that you could take it out as a lump sum when you retire. You could apply to have payments sent to you but an on-demand payout is highly unlikely.

As for finding a place in the PNW, I highly doubt that you could find anywhere that is affordable enough to retire to. You might be able to find a cabin or small house on one of the San Juan islands, but there again, if you needed to get to the mainland, there are transportation costs to consider, and given how popular the area is in general, I would be surprised if you could find anything out that way that wasn't starting to venture into the ballpark cost of something in Seattle/Tacoma/Olympia.


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## lorel (Nov 10, 2010)

I was looking at homes in Tacoma, far more reasonable then say Surrey..where a junker house on a tiny lot is only 989 thousand dollars. Same house in tacoma would be 120,00-150,000. I intent to bring in investors for rehabbing such properties. 

City payed wages are good if working for Tacoma. Not sure about what private industry pays. 


I am a Canadian Resident not a citizen. So not sure what I would loose if moving back to the us.






lorel said:


> BC cost of living has been out of control for years. I want to buy a house...but the prices are so insane, how can anyone who is single on a regular income even come close to affording a 600,000 house in surrey? in Vancouver every house is over a million dollars.
> 
> Are there any Americans who agree with me it no longer makes sence to live here?
> 
> ...


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