I have been researching Swift Current, Regina, Saskatoon as places to move to in SK. I basically know nothing about SK at all... only what I am reading about it.

I like that SK is not really expensive to buy a house.
The kind of work I have done for the past 15 years is in the printing industry and Regina and Saskatoon have alot of print shops, so finding work seems promising.

The wages are similar if not a tiny bit higher in SK than in BC, but when I factor in the price of houses, then it works out to be alot better.
I spend as much of gas to get to work as I do on food for my family of 4 because you have to live really far away from the cities to afford to own a home.Then there is all that time wasted sitting in traffic that could be spent with my kids and relaxing.

I need to be where there is good selection of shopping, short drive to work, have community centers and places to bring my family.

So I want to be close to the city area of wherever I do move to.

Anyone have any tips or info I could use??

like where is a good place to live and where are the bad places?
what are the names of some close suburbs to regina and saskatoon?

I see alot of houses selling pretty cheap in an area called washington park in regina? whats that place like?
In saskatoon the cheaper places seem to be in pleasant hill, whats it like?

I dont mind living in a diverse sort of area, but i dont want to walk out my door to see hookers on the streets and worry about my truck being broke into all the time...

thanks in advance for any insight

Rick

 

Hey Welcome and hope to see you in the flatlands where you can watch your dog run away for 3 days.
Check out some of the smaller communities around Saskatoon. Living in those can be really inexpensive. A little more travel, usually a lot safer. Vanscoy, Delisle, Asquith, Abeerdeen, Clavet, Delmany, Langham, Warmen, Matensville,Maybe even as far out as Borden or Radisson, I live in Radisson but don't have to drive in every day. But lots of people do Its about 60km to the city. The rest of the towns are closer You might even be able to get an acerage or 1/4 of land with a house for a decent price. You would have to come to the city and have a look around
But you want closer to work. IMO stay away from pretty much anything around 20th street in saskatoon and also areas of Confederation but just areas lots of Confed seems OK.

 

In saskatoon the big oad is a half-circle road called circle drive. The areas inside of it are the places you may want to avoid buying a house, Pleasent Hill is one of tese areas where I would caution buying a home for kids. I guess the east side of the river is the side developing faster and with wealthier clents.

I think in terms of the FTE Saskatoon has more activity and meetings.
Have you ever heard the song. "I've been to Moose Jaw....... Now I can die."

 

I live on the opposite side of Regina from where I work and it only takes me about 15 min to get to work.I have a friend that lives in Eastview in Regina, you can still get pretty cheap houses there and he doesn't have any problems as it is basically surrounded by industrial areas and there are no 7-11's or anything to attract the riff-raff.In Regina the whole core area around and north of Taylor Field has a bad reputation.If you like drag racing Saskatoon has the only 1/4 mile track in the province although I heard Estevan is getting an 1/8 mile track and it is close to the U.S. border as well.

 

hey thanks so much guys...

that thing about watching my dog run away for 3 days is hilarious HAHAHA

how'd you know i have a dog? HAHAHA

thanks for that list of places near the city, radisson dosnt seem that far really...
especially if your not stuck in stop and go traffic... the traffic comes to a complete stop 50 times a day in rush hour on the main freeway... too many drivers and not enough roadspace... everything was built in the 60's and back then they had alot less cars, now they cant build new roads to make them bigger because it is so expensive to do... short sighted planning, but then, who knew...

so pleasant hill is cheaper for a reason, i knew i must have been... although even that area isnt totally cheap... regina is cheaper, and i really like them old early 1900 style houses, with hard wood floors, hard wood doors, and walls like rock... compared to the kind of "A" frame 2x4, and plywood stuff where i live now...

Probably going to get a fixer upper as it is how i always do things... even if a move-in-ready place was cheap, the fixer uppers are always cheaper and with a bit of elbow grease they are worth more quicker... got to do it that way before im too old to do it anymore which is awhile off...

right now i live 125KMS from the only city around (kamloops), and thats just too far, 60KMS dosnt sound all that bad, if the roads are good and there isnt stop and go traffic all the time...
the highway to the city here, has a million curves and skinny lanes, and its a main trucking route... I dont like it at all... there is always some kind of fatal accident in the summer, with a semi and a vehicle of some sort...

thanks guys... i will start looking into those areas and see what the prices are like...

 

so do you live out towards barriere way? im trying to think where you are, 125 should put you close to merrit, and there aint no trucks on the old road. where do you work in kamloops?

 

im in clearwater, north of kamloops, barriere is about the half way mark to kamloops...
actually i just go to kamloops to shop... the wife has been the bread winner since moving here... cleaning motel rooms...

 

oh...its the #5 yellowhead hwy between kamloops and clearwater that im talking about... its the dangerous goods route and its the route to jasper, edmonton, etc...

some of my ranting about traffic is based on where i used to live, vancouver and the fraser valley... i moved here to get away from it all, and i sure got away from it all... too much for me

 

oh yes. no radio reception either. and the fraser vally.....well......we moved away from there for congestion reasons, adn its getting bad here now as well, so maybe saskatchewan is the answer.......definetly not going back to the valley

 

Radisson is on Hwy 16 to Edmonton. It is twinned to Saskatoon.
I live between Vanscoy and Delisle. I'm about 18 miles from the city. A neighbor has his acreage up for sale for around 230,000 It has 5 bedrooms or more. So then your kids and dog can all have a room to their selves. He also has a barn that is half horse stable and half auto shop. He does restore cars. Also it is 40 acres and the highway is only 1/2 mile away. This is the highway to Calgary from Saskatoon. Sadly it is not twinned either. We too have between Delisle and Saskatoon a fatality a year. Too many people in a hurry. Passsing on curves, exceeding speed limits passing when not safe to do. Crossing the highway in front of traffic. I know that sounds bad, but I love it here with all the Deer and Owls and such and the quietness. And any noise I make is not bothering the neighbors.
There are several bedroom towns near Saskatoon that have older home to reno. Martensville and Warman have become small city's.
We also hav a new Stock racing track built here. Have not been to any events yet but it is packed.
There are several print shops around here. The Star Phoenix, Western Proucer, Country Express are some of the few here, besides Graphic arts places.

 

The twinned highway to Radisson really does make the trip not to bad If i'm running late to catch the plane to work I have made it in less than 25min to the airport( Not in the ford trucks) with them its usually 35mins. Houses are still very cheap last summer a 60-70's 1000sq ft bungalow with garge went for around $45,000.00 nice little house. There have been cheap fixer-upers go for less than $20,000 Taxes are cheaper than the city also. I think ours are around the $800 mark. But all we have is the curling rink, ice rink small swimming pool in the summer for kids. A lot of the other small towns are probably the same maybe a little more the closer you get to Saskatoon. Warman and Martensville are Saskatoon now. If you have a little put,put car then its cheap to drive everyday. If its a big ford truck with a 460 closer is probably better.

 

sounds like the price of rebuildable V8's is going to be going up with a new race track in town

I used to have a flatdeck tow truck and did scrap car removal in Vancouver, alot of race guys buy the big V8 engines... the price of a core engine went up because demand went up and supply was becoming limited...

my truck was a 72 ford with a steel deck with a beaver tail, with ramps and a winch... if I got any V8's I would pull them out before taking the vehicle to the recycling place... if I had time id pull aluminum parts off and sell that seperate, that was before aluminum prices went up alot, like they are now.

firsttry...your right, radio reception cuts out in mclure, which is right before barriere when heading north... the uhaul i rented to move here had a digital deck that got a little bit more staitions on it and i was listening to american dad on TV most of my way into town that night I moved here LOL... not sure how or why, but it was something I lived in Vancouver for 28 years, then lived in the fraser valley (abbotsford/chilliwack) for 4 or 5 years... I wont be going back myself...even clearwater has gotten more traffic in the year and some ive lived here... alot of people from the lower mainland are moving here, it seems on a monthly basis we meet someone that just moved here...but clearwater is unincorporated and the planning of the town is non-exsistant... they have 2 stores in one area, and then 3 stores in another area which is 10 KMS away... its kind of scattered everywhere because no one is planning it, you just build where you want to and its not very good...

66gpw... I dont worry about me so much, but when my wife has to drive the highway alone, then i kind of worry... its not a very well built highway, but ive been told by the old timers in town that just 10 years ago that highway was a dirt road... so its still an improvement, just depends what point of view you have on it LOL... I looked on the canada411.ca website and about 30 places come up as printers in both Regina and Saskatoon, 30 each that is...I never had trouble finding a job when I lived in vancouver and they have about 40 listed in the actual city of vancouver... not including the "suburbs"

I wanted to move to the fraser valley for about 5 years before i did it... then when i moved there, after 3 years houses started to become more and more expensive... its not that with some hard work and planning I couldnt afford to ever buy a place there, its just not worth it when there is better options...

I am excited to be planning this move... even if I have to hold onto this house in clearwater and just pay the mortgage as an investment thats what i will do...my mortgage here is $316 a month and taxes a year are $350 approx...

even with two mortgages going, its still cheaper than rent in vancouver or the fraser valley

Rick

PS: I am going to go look into some of those places mentioned (Vanscoy, Delisle, Asquith, Abeerdeen, Clavet, Delmany, Langham, Warmen, Matensville) on the mls.ca website now

thanks again guys

 

I really like the places I found in Vanscoy, Delisle, Asquith, and being about 18 miles from town... WOW... $75,000 for what I consider a nice place...

any chance these three places are all near each other??

the other places seem higher priced... i got my wife talking excitedly, by showing her the places in Vanscoy, Delisle, Asquith... we would be so better off and the fact it lingers around 25C in the summer is wonderful too, i hate 33+ everyday in summer... thats worse than the cold winters...

thanks for those place names duncan... couldnt have searched them out so easily without ya

 

They are fairly close to each other Vanscoy to Delisle is maybe 20km Vanscoy to Asquith 25km or so They are all west of the city. Vanscoy is a nice community my acerage is about 10km from there. Nice school for the ones to grade 8? My oldest daughter went there. I used to be the only Dad on the kindergarten grade 1&2 field trips. when I was home. Delisle has a fairly good high school Thats where she goes now. Lots of sports in Delisle nice curling rink to. Asquith I believe has a K-12 school but don't quote me on that.

 

I agree in this particular date and time a acreage or a house in a smaller town is by far the way to go. But then I'm 19 and I only had to drive 35mn. every two weeks to get to work. From parents farm, but hope to get something in about 5 years. Before the oil boom hits.

I really hope you do decide to move to a surronding area around Saskatoon. But yes Pleasenyt Hill is not the Pleasent part of Saskatchewan. The company I used to work for luckily had a secure gate to park over weeks, or else on 11th street it wouldn't be in the same shape it was when parked.