08 Jun What Are the Advantages of Buying A Home in Calgary?
Nicknamed ‘cowtown’ thanks to the Calgary Stampede – a huge rodeo and festival held every July in the Alberta city of Calgary – this vibrant and cosmopolitan city is becoming an increasingly popular place to buy a home and raise a family and in recent years, has consistently been named the world’s fifth most livable city by The Economist. With a stable economy, sound healthcare system and good education facilities, here’s just a few reasons why buying a home in Calgary is a smart move (pardon the pun!):
The cleanest city in the entire world!
While Forbes magazine’s number one ranking for clean city’s was awarded to Calgary back in 2007, it has continued to uphold its reputation for cleanliness and seven years later was given the same title by Mercer Global Financial list. With sound sewage systems, a high quality and availability of drinking water, and low levels of air pollution, Calgary is as clean as the proverbial whistle!
But how does it achieve this? Steep fines for littering, multiple recycling programs, and street and road spring cleaning, have kept Calgary spick, span and healthy for years.
A great public transit system
With a large network of trains and buses designed to help commuters get to and from work every day, Calgary’s transit system is reliable and affordable, and its wind-powered light railway system called CTrains, is the first of its kind in North America. There are also park-and-rides for buses and trains outside of the downtown core.
If you love the outdoors, you’ll love Calgary!
Home to the Canada Olympic Park and used by both professional athletes and the general public, the park has fun innertubes to slide down in the winter, along with skiing and snowboarding facilities, public skating and even bobsledding. When the long, summer months are upon us, you can mountain bike or go ziplining.
With 8,000 hectares of parkland to explore and enjoy, Calgary is a haven for runners and cyclists, and home to the most extensive network of urban pathways and bikeways in North America, there are 800 kilometers of pathways dedicated just to you!
Calgary isn’t a world away from the rest of the world
With Edmonton a mere three-hour trip north, you can take the family on a great day out with plenty of shopping, a water park for the kids and a plethora of museums and galleries to visit. The U.S border is also around a three-hour drive from Calgary in the opposite direction, and you can pay a visit to Glacier National Park, a United Nations World Heritage site that’s home to over a 1,000 species of plants and many different animals.
So, if you’re looking to start afresh somewhere, Calgary has plenty to offer its residents, and when you find the right local mortgage broker to help you secure a great deal on a mortgage, you could be living your best life sooner than you think!