No doubt you have heard of the vast differences between Halifax NS real estate and the price of an equivalent home on a piece of Yorkville Toronto real estate. Toronto, along with Vancouver, is one of the priciest places to live not only in Canada, but on the whole continent. Stories about its home prices are legendary in the rest of the nation.
Everyone knows, for example, that a home in the downtown Toronto condos complex will cost about $50,000 more than a detached, three bedroom, 1499 square foot house in a Halifax suburb. In short, you get a lot more real estate for your dollar when you buy in a place like Halifax than in one of our biggest cities.
On the other hand, what a lot of people fail to look at when they are comparing living in the big cities to smaller locations in the rest of Canada is that there is a lot more to the cost of living than real estate. Houses for sale in Windsor or Halifax might be a lot cheaper than those in Toronto, but then again, so are those in Yellowknife.
One of the reasons for this is that prices truly run a broader range for everything in a big city such as Toronto than they do in other cities, without the population to support lower costs. Take a look, for example, at a medical service such as dental work. In Halifax, there are only one or two dentists who can perform any kind of operations, if that. They need to make their money off of the small part of the population who needs their services, and charge a pretty penny to do it.
On the other hand, cosmetic dentistry in Mississauga may cost significantly less. Not only are there more clients, there is also more competition. By reducing costs, these specialists can actually earn more. People living in the area benefit from this.
The same principle is true when you look at almost any factor. A table rental in Burlington will never cost the same as it would in Halifax. Rental store owners know they are not the only game in town, or close to it, in a large city. In Halifax, though, there are a limited number of services of this sort, and they can charge what they want to.
In closing, we should also mention public transportation. If you really want to save a significant amount of money every year, monitoring your travel costs is a way to do it. The infrastructure of the mega-cities is always ten times better than smaller ones, so citizens of Toronto can save a lot compared to those in Halifax.
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