Frustration, relocation, elation | Stories

A family with 3 children sits on a couch inside their home.

Hosam Hassan and his wife, Nagwa Elemam, bookend their sons, from left to right, Malik, Yaseen and Younis, in their Windermere home in 2022.

Nagwa Elemam and Hosam Hassan enjoy living in Edmonton so much, they moved here twice.

Both times, the city’s affordable housing prices and quality of life were the main attractions for the couple and their growing family. They now have three boys—10, eight and five years old. Hassan is an engineer for an oil and gas company. Elemam has an MBA in supply chain management.

“But I wanted to be able to stay at home with the kids, at least while they’re young,” she says.

“We knew that Edmonton would allow us to do that on one income. We felt that goal was very difficult to accomplish if we stayed in the Greater Toronto Area. It’s more of a double-income lifestyle.”

Edmonton boasts one of the most affordable housing markets in all of North America.

The average single-family detached home in Edmonton was $503,711 in March 2022, according to the Realtors Association of Edmonton(external link). (See site for updated and additional stats.) A comparable home costs four times as much in Vancouver ($2.1 million(external link)) and three times more in the GTA ($1.697 million).

“When you look at what your dollar gets you, it’s a lot higher here,” says Tom Shearer, broker/owner of Royal LePage Noralta Real Estate and past chair of the Realtors Association of Edmonton.

“Edmonton is a great city to raise a family in because you can afford to have a family home, you can afford to be close to a great school and you can afford to be close to where you work,” says Shearer.

Two men standing in the doorway to their condo with a small white dog sitting on the floor next to them.

Multi-poo Cooper with his humans, Brandin Strasser, middle, and Scott Swartzentruber in their central Edmonton condo. Courtesy of Brandin Strasser.

More disposable income

With lower housing prices comes a higher quality of life. The less you have to spend on a down payment and mortgage, the more freedom you have to use the money you are left with each month.

Brandin Strasser, 27, and his partner, Scott Swartzentruber, also moved from the GTA because of Edmonton’s affordability and quality of life.

The couple rent a house in the west-end community of Secord, but plan on buying their own home in the next few years. Strasser also recently got his realtor’s licence. If they had stayed in the GTA, he feels they’d have to wait at least a decade to come up with a down payment.

“In Ontario, it felt like you always had to decide between having fun and saving for a house because basic expenses also cost so much more in Toronto,” he says. “That was really stressful for both of us.”

Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Ottawa are the top five most expensive Canadian cities, according to a 2021 Cost of Living survey compiled by Mercer(external link), a human relations consulting firm.

Edmontonians spent 28.5 percent of their household income on ownership costs in 2020, according to a report by RBC Economics. The national average was 47.5 percent.

Tips for first-time buyers

Naturally, Edmonton’s real estate market is heating up as a result of its affordability. Prices are up 9.9 percent from March 2021 to March 2022, according to the Realtors Association of Edmonton.

Realtor Tom Shearer recommends first-time home buyers get pre-approved for a mortgage so they know how much they can afford. He predicts at least another three- to five-percent increase in housing prices by the end of the year.

His top tip? Location should always be your guide.

“People usually start with ‘This is the kind of house I want’ but I think quality of life starts with where you live,” says Shearer.

“Being close to family, being close to school or being close to work, all those things would enhance your life over having a quartz countertop. So that’s where I would start. What really suits your lifestyle in terms of location and what can you afford?”

Less stress, more activities

Nagwa Elemam and Hosam Hassan first moved to Edmonton in 2012. Five years later, they headed overseas when Hosam’s work took them to Oman. They returned to Edmonton in 2020.

At the time, the average cost of a single-family detached house in Toronto was $1.478 million—or 2.4 times more than Elemam and Hassan paid for their home in the neighbourhood of Windermere. They chose the southwest Edmonton suburb so their three sons would be within walking distance of an elementary school.

Parents and their three children stand outside their home in the winter.

Nagwa Elemam and her husband Hosam Hassan, with their three sons, from left to right, Younis, Malik, and Yaseen outside their Windermere home.

While Hassan’s 60-minute commute to work is about the same as when he lived in the GTA, he says it’s much easier to get around Edmonton. It’s a smaller city—with a population of 1.01 million, compared to 6.2 million in the GTA, including 2.7 million in the city of Toronto.

“Yes, we have traffic here and people complain about it, but to me, it’s not as stressful as the traffic in Toronto,” he says. “I didn’t realize how much of a toll it took on me. You’d have to plan out your day, and then with kids, it adds an extra layer of complexity that you don’t need.

“In Edmonton, if you feel like going for a hike in the river valley(external link), it’s like a 15- or 20-minute drive, stress-free, and you know there will be parking or overflow somewhere and you can just have a nice picnic and hike. There aren’t a bazillion people.”

Hassan and his family also enjoy activities and pursuits they might not be able to in the GTA. His sons ski, and play basketball and soccer. His wife likes to hike and go to the gym. Hassan is a self-confessed “gearhead” and likes to work on his cars.

“If we were in Toronto, I’d struggle on a single income to have all three in sports,” he says. “We can do those things here with peace of mind.”