We’ve rented a furnished apartment for a few months but it’s not perfect for us. We want our furniture, which has arrived and is now sitting in storage and we want a yard for the dogs. We’re staying in a great area called the Annex. Its part of the University of Toronto so there are lots of frat houses around us. We are close to the subway, busses, stylish Yorkville and downtown. But it’s an expensive area. Our South African Rand, after being converted to Canadian Dollars doesn’t mean much so our buying power is slightly limited but we definitely want to get into the property market. It’s certainly safer than leaving your money in the bank these days. We’ve been very fortunate to have secured a mortgage at a ridiculous rate (anything is ridiculous compared to South Africa where the prime lending rate is somewhere around 14% or 15% as opposed to here where it is hovering around 4%).
So Keith and I set off on Sunday to look at houses. We’ve been searching the Internet for about six months. Boy, were we in for a rude awakening. Our price range limits us to houses that made us want to cry. So off we went back to the bank this morning and begged for more, and they gave it to us. It’s interesting to hear the different perceptions that people have here. Toronto is essentially a safe city. The crime rate is low, there was something like 85 murders here last year (my numbers may be totally wrong, I’m just quoting what I’ve read) and when people talk about crime, they are generally referring to burglary and theft from cars. But one incident can make someone refer to an area as “high crime”, and “dangerous”. It’s relative when you come from a place like Johannesburg where you are surrounded on a daily basis with violent crime, hijackings, murder and rape. There are homeless people here, there are prostitutes and crack heads and there are questionable areas. I suspect that to a person who has lived here all their life, and not been exposed to crime like we have, that this is very dangerous. To us, who have become so immune, this is paradise.
So we are looking at three different areas that we like, and one is considered “dangerous” but we went and walked around the area tonight and for the Joburg people, it felt just like Melvillee; slightly grungy but full of life. We walked around for two hours, up and down the streets and I even stopped three people to ask them about the area and if they liked living there. We took the streetcar halfway home and then walked the rest of the way, stopping at Starbucks for the obligatory coffee (Grande, soy, wet, Splenda-in latte, and tall Americano with room please) and constantly amazed by the lone people walking around, lots of girls with headphones in their ears strolling along without a care in the world. It’s unbelievable for people like us, from the world we come from. Keith and I realise how much anger we lived with in South Africa, and how easily forgotten it is here.
So, I’ll take the crack heads, I’ll take the homeless and the projects, I’ll take the prostitutes, I’ll take the house that I can afford in the quiet street in the “dangerous” area and I’ll walk home alone late at night without looking over my shoulder, without fear that someone is going to kill me for my cell phone. I have no doubt that in a year’s time I’ll be able to sell my house in the “dangerous” area and move up. But I’ll take it, for now.
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