We've been apartment hunting in Calgary on and off for the last little while. It was a little early to really start, but Mike found a gem. So he toured it, applied for it, and won it, all in one day. Boy, things move fast out there!
We had originally planned to hunt together, but this place looks like a real find, so we kind of had to nab it. It means having a house and two apartments for a month, but that's life, I guess.
It's half of a little teeny bungalow duplex, but it comes with the full basement underneath it, so lots of storage, a spare bedroom, bringing it to a three bedroom, and a washer and dryer of our own - a big plus with kids. Lots of storage space down there, plus half a double garage. The extra bedroom n the basement can be used if anyone wants to visit - you can have your own room down there. On a daily basis, we might use it as an "escape" room - when the kids start to drive us nuts, we can leave them with the other, and go down there to read. Or just sit in glorious silence. It has a little yard, too. But we don't need that, because there are three parks within a block! One is a shady little kid's playground. The other is a leash-free dog park, but it has a playground inside it, and a big hill, that people use as a toboggan hill in the winter, and a walking type park around a community centre, which is the hub of the neighbourhood association (EVERY neighbourhood in Calgary has a centre and an active association - we're a block from ours.) It has tennis courts and little programs and stuff. It's also near a school. It has full day kindergarten, which might be good, when the time comes, if we're still there. It's $900/month. With utilities, it works out to $100 or so more than we wanted to spend on housing, but it sounds like a better quality of life. Everything else we were looking at were yucky basement apartments. This is soooo perfect for us, and it sounds like a great place for kids. Oh, and they actually have no problem with the kids, or the cats. Most places won't take either. That's right - they can afford to be so picky about tenants in Calgary that most refuse to take families.
The company that manages it posted a video - here's a copy, so you can all see. It's a bit buggy in this format - you might have to keep bumping it along manually, but you get the idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWIgm0ZqM7Y
Much, much more to update, but I've got to get dinner and bedtime moving. Joan had a physio appointment yesterday, and I'll try to post about it very soon.
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2 comments:
Oh WOW! For $900 that is an excellent price and only $50 less then what we pay for a small 2 bedroom basement apartment!!! You seem to have lots of counter space in the kitchen and the bathroom looks nice too.
It really looks like a place the kids will really enjoy once you get everything you own into it!
We told you the prices weren't too bad! We pay the utlities on top of that too, though. But it's very small, so they aren't much - the company said usually about $200/month for everything. Basement 2-bedrooms can go for as little at 750, utilities included. $800 is very common. Duplexes are a little more, but we liked this one, because it's split horizontally - no-one above or below, which is probably why they're ok with kids and pets. It's more like a teeny weeny townhouse. Mike says it's about the size of our first apartment upstairs. So it will be cozy with two kids, but there's lots to do outside, and we don't need to worry about storage, or sharing the laundry, which is good for us. And if you ever want to come check out the city for a few days or weeks or a couple months even, we have the space to put you up! (That goes for everyone) With seat sales, it's only $140 for a Westjet ticket from Toronto!
Megan
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