Maritime movers

Surging real estate prices drove scores of local families to Canada’s eastern provinces during the pandemic. But do they regret leaving Kawartha Lakes?

In one of the most significant shifts Ontario had seen in years, the province experienced a net loss of about 86,000 people through interprovincial migration between July 2020 and June 2022, according to Statistics Canada.

We know scores of families were from Kawartha Lakes, especially after the spike in real estate prices during the pandemic.

Victoria Navy and her family were among them. For her, the move to New Brunswick from Lindsay with her family was a long-time dream, even if they didn’t realize it at first.

They wanted a “slow-paced life without traffic,” according to Navy. It was COVID and its isolation from people that motivated them to make a move – but prices of houses in Kawartha Lakes vs. the east coast province was a major factor, too.

“Our family was put in a situation when we had to find a new place to live, and Kawartha Lakes did not have affordable housing for a family of five with four pets. As renters, “the purchase of a house in the Lindsay area was also out of the question because we could not afford a house in (southern) Ontario.”

Feeling like they didn’t have much time to research the best location, they chose Grand Falls, New Brunswick, just over the U.S. and Quebec borders.

The town of 5,000 offered the family an affordable house with three bedrooms, a big garage, a backyard, and driveway for six cars. In fact, it was so affordable they are living mortgage free. “We are happy we made the move,” Navy said.

The family also has a small business for kitchen remodelling, and they are able to sustain it in a downtown Grand Falls location. “We would not be able to achieve it in Kawartha Lakes. Paying a mortgage and rent for a shop is very expensive in Ontario.”

For Nicole Southorn and her husband, who both grew up in Lindsay, the move was all about creating a better quality of life for their family.

“We wanted a slower pace of life with more financial freedom.”

Southorn says they were able to purchase a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia for just $189,000. “Our mortgage is under $900 a month and our property taxes are about $1,500 a year. We knew that staying in Ontario would mean being rent or mortgage poor,” she says, referencing the higher prices in Kawartha Lakes.

“We were sick of being financially stressed. We came to visit the province in October of 2021 and fell in love.”

She recalls walking to the edge of the ocean hunting for sea glass. It was at that moment they both instantly knew this was the life they wanted. They spent the next several months looking at homes via virtual tours to begin planning their big move.

“We took the leap and moved in August of 2022 and have no regrets.”

Retirees love the east

Chris McMorrow and her husband, Dan, moved from Oakwood to the east coast in late 2019 for other reasons. Like the Navy family, they also chose New Brunswick, although more centrally located in the province in the town of Oromocto. (This town is home to Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, which is the second largest military base in the Commonwealth. The town has about 12,000 people.)

“We decided to move to New Brunswick after several visits to see my daughter. We loved the province and the people we were meeting,” McMorrow said.

She says by grandbaby number three, she knew she wanted to be closer to them. “Dan wasn’t sure about the move as he had kids and grandkids in Ontario.”

But one day while visiting the east coast, Dan said “I found a house that if we could buy, I’d move to New Brunswick.” It was not for sale. But before they left to go back to Ontario, they put a note in the mailbox of the house, stating if they were ever interested in selling their property to contact us. They had not even made it home before the owners emailed them. One year later, the McMorrow’s purchased the house.

While it was a huge change, moving in mid-December, and both retiring at the same time, the COVID pandemic ensured it would be an even greater adjustment than expected.

“For two years we didn’t see family in Ontario. We had grandbabies born that we met when they were 18 months and 6 months. It was horrible.”

Maritime life was an adjustment for the Navy family, too.

Victoria Navy said her family had to make adjustments and learn about life in eastern Canada. For instance, they discovered wood heating for the first time, and realized it had big advantages over their home’s electric baseboards. “We did not know that we were supposed to order wood as early as possible in a year, season it in the backyard, and then bring it into the house. For our fist winter, we ordered one cord of wood in November, but it was not dry so it took us a long time to fire up wet logs.”

Another big adjustment for the family was more openness in eastern Canada. “People just drove to our driveway to say hi, introducing themselves and telling us about their families, city, neighbours, and other gossip. In Ontario, everyone is very protective of their driveway and property line. Most people don’t have a fence separating their properties from their neighbours. If we see someone putting in a new fence, we know its people from Ontario,” she said.

Navy said in the three years they’ve lived in Grand Falls, they have met “at least 20 families who moved here from Ontario.”

“They all said that house prices were the main reason for their move. One family moved from Oshawa, bought a house without a mortgage, and have since acquired two businesses – a gym and a tanning salon.”

She admits that not everyone who made the move were happy though. “One family moved here at the same time as us, and they absolutely hated it.” The woman was not bilingual, and New Brunswick is Canada’s only officially bilingual province. Navy said she had a hard time at work because many customers refused to speak English. They ended up moving to Bancroft, Ontario.

That was certainly not the experience of the Southorn family. They believe their life in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia has all major amenities needed, from great schools to a regional-sized hospital.

“Our favourite part of living here is being a short 10-minute drive to the ocean and countless provincial parks, beaches, trails and waterfalls. We no longer spend weekends in. We are literally out exploring every chance we get,” Southorn says.

The new Nova Scotian has starting training to get into a new field of work, while her husband, Brian, a tradesman, has had an abundance of work since moving.

“Wages are lower than Ontario, unless you work in the trades or health care,” but there are a lot of jobs for anyone in these fields.

The only downfall, she admits, is being far away from family.

Once the problem of not being able to see family during COVID subsided, retiree McMorrow said they have now gotten involved in their community, meeting many great people along the way.

“Everyone is so friendly and easy going. It’s much more laid back,” she said.

She admits homes are a lot cheaper on the east coast, but said everything else is more expensive. “Our property taxes have gone up almost $5,000 in five years. Gas, food, home and car insurance are all significantly more.”

McMorrow also notes that healthcare is a huge challenge. When they arrived, they were told to expect a two to three year wait for a family doctor.

The real estate reality

Jami Joy, a real estate agent based in Lindsay, says she remembers moving about seven families in early to mid-2024 to New Brunswick, due to high interest rates driving up home prices in Kawartha Lakes.

“They were able to sell here, move out there and live mortgage free and start new lives,” says Joy.

She points out that even though interest rates have dropped, “housing costs there have sky rocketed,” given the demand.

“Homes there are (still) less then most residential units here, but not as attractive as they once were.”

Joy says during the pandemic one could purchase “a lovely home for $200-300,000, but now it’s difficult to find home in the towns that have infrastructure for under $400,000.”

Evan Connolly, another Lindsay realtor, says the Kawartha Lakes market, along with other regions near the GTA, is directly tied to housing sales in Toronto, “which along with Vancouver, has seen the largest downturn compared to other markets across Canada.”

“Homeowners in…Kawartha Lakes aren’t getting the returns on home sales that they need to make the move to the maritime provinces. The margins are too small for residents to move out of province and (now) be mortgage free,” says Connolly.

He says since the pandemic and lockdowns ended, “there is less of an incentive for people to move outside of large cities to rural regions in Ontario, such as Kawartha Lakes or to the Maritime provinces.”

“More workers are now in person, kids are back in school, and families are back to their normal routines.”

Connolly adds that Lindsay and Kawartha Lakes is a growing community. “The investments from the government and property developers around the region show the growing demand to either move to Kawartha Lakes, or to stay. Over time, services and amenities will grow and property values will follow suit.”

According to Statistics Canada, Atlantic Canada was the number one destination at the start of the pandemic until Alberta took over top spot in the third quarter of 2022.

Every census metropolitan area (CMA) in Ontario lost more residents to other provinces than it attracted between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023. Between Jan. 1, 2021, and Sept. 30, 2024, more than 45,000 people moved from Ontario to Nova Scotia.

Though people are still moving to Nova Scotia from other provinces, the pace of these interprovincial moves has slowed from what happened during the pandemic.

As with many of the hundreds of Ontarians who moved to Atlantic Canada, Navy says they did so to achieve “a quiet life, enjoy the outdoors and be debt free – and so far we are on the right track.”