Hopefully, with retirement not too far away, I have been thinking about where to go to buy a cabin.

What are the pros and cons of ownership in Canada?

Thanks

[font color=green size=3][b]Most cottage owners will tell you they spend more time working on the place than fishing, LOL. The good thing is you spend more time fishing than before. The exchange rate makes it a good investment for USA citzens, property taxes are reasonable in most places. But some expenses like gas and grocerys are higher than you are used too. My Hydro in Ontario is about 3 cents a kwh, but I pay $100 every 3 months to get it "delivered". You can't beat the veiw, freindly neighbors and the fresh air. :) :)

Do a check where you are buying for property taxes. The difference from area to area is staggering. You can pay anywhere from 800 to 6,000 a year for waterfront. It seems that the trendy places have higher taxes and for no real reason. My parents old place was in the Muskokas; well water,septic tank, stone/dirt road...annual taxes went from 2,000 to 4,000...they got the heck out of Dodge.
That being said, seniors do get some, if not all, of property taxes back as a refund in the annual taxes.

[font color=green size=3][b]I'm sure your right about taxes varying from place to place. I've got lakefront, all weather road,septic,ect. and only $450 CND taxes in the Red Lake School District. But the same place on LOTW would have an assessed value atleast 3 times higher. In our area, properties over 2 miles off the main road don't pay the school tax portion, so they get by even cheaper.

What lake are you on? Any cons besides taxes? I realize gas, groceries etc are high.

hump, don't do it. life is too short. think about how many fine camps you can stay at for the money you'll tie up in a cottage. every time i pass one of those $100,000 motor homes, i wonder how many 5 star hotels i could stay in for the cost. if you are of normal retirement age, the last thing you'll want to do is try to keep up the maintenance on a canadian cottage. winters are really tough on these places. i owned a cottage (trailer) on a lake in the states 20 years ago. seemed like nonstop problems. every time you go fishing, some little problem pops up that requires attention. do yourself a favor and forget it. go fishing and enjoy your retirement.

[font color=green size=3][b]I'm on Wabaskang Lake, off hwy 105, at Perrault Falls, Ont. I'm in a group of 16 cottages on the SE shore. There are about 10 more on the west side with acess from a logging road or the lake, they pay only land taxes. :)

hump1 check out www.norealtyfee.com some good buys in there especially the one on Barbara Lake Manitoba. I have a cottage north of Red Lake and I love it, got tired of dealing with camps, other tourists, undependable motors and so on, rent money is spent money, you might as well be paying on your own place as to pay someone else for theirs.

Hi. we were and are looking into it also. the question is what are the real cost associated with owning rather than renting. taxes, repairs, utilities, insurance, interest, worries while you are gone, plus probably other things. How long in weeks will you actually be there? 3 months 4 at the most. In looking through some of the resorts I have found that you/I could rent a cabin for a month or two during the summer for what its costing you to buy. At the end of that month or 2 you leave and dont have to worry about whats happening to your place while you are gone. I must admit it sounds very interesting to own a cottage on the lake but unless you are independently wealthy it would probably not be worth it.

Many Americans own "cottages" on leased land in my neck of the woods.
Cottages go for roughly $35,000 CDN plus a $1000/yr for land lease of one acre lots. THis is inland lakes and unorganized townships so no taxes! Many retires spend at least the 3 months of summer a few long weekends in fall and then come for a visit on their snowmobiles in winter too!
I purchased a cottage three years ago , best decision I ever made and I am ten years from retiring still , but may retire early and live at cottage most of my days! I like that you drive in ,and are fishing a half hour after you unload. You get to know the hot spots very well and still have choice of other lakes to drive too if you want change. You get to share your paradise with friends and relatives too. The amount of work to keep up maintenence keeps you busy when the fishing slows down or you want some exercise splitting wood.

[font color=green size=3][b]Ex pup,
I don't know what your idea of independatly wealthy is? I bought at the right time, before 9-11 happened. The exchange was 1.47 at the time,It cost less than two new cars which would have depreciated to nothing. Judging by sales of cottages in my area,it has appreciated by 25% in the last 3 years, with some improvements made by me. At least my kids will have something to fight over when I'm gone,LOL.
I guess you have to be willing to do some foot work and be willing to make an immediate decision when the right deal comes along, or someone else will. :) :)

One thing that you may want to consider is a larger camper on a seasonal site. The maintence is WAY les than a cottage and the costs are way lower. A good seasonal site will run you about $1500/year, with all hook-ups incl (water, elec, and sewer). Most places will have a dock for your boat all summer and take car of your grass even. Another pro to the seasonal camp site is the abilitly to change to different lakes every few years. IMHO

Fish ON!!

Hump, I recently purchased a cabin and do not have all the answers, but here was my thought process. I looked for two years to find the right place and found taxes to be much better than what I was used to seeing here in rural Illinois, so that was not a factor. Yes you will have some work to do on occasion, but who is going to fish all the time anyway, a person needs to stay busy to keep their sanity. You will get to know all the good fishing spots and I know in my case I will be scouting out some of the small, seldomly fished lakes for a change of pace. On an ending note, I would have to say that I think as an investment you will be able to do much better than just hold your money together. I have been watching cabin prices climb a bunch in the last two years and you know what mutual funds have done. The worst thing that can happen is you won't like it and someone else may get their chance at the fishermans dream. Good luck. Steve

OK wawajake. this lease business and $35,000 is new to me. Can you tell me more about this. like i said I am thinking about it if the right situation comes along. I got ten years to go before retirement but like you said you have to be ready to jump on it when it comes. where are you talking about? who can I contact to find out more about this. thanks a lot alan

To Expup

In Ontario there are at least two types of "cottage" land lease. 1) Private or 2) Crown land
In both cases you need to have your finger on the pulse of the local real estate of the area. Not all REMAX type sales people get involved (althought the REMAX in WAWA does still I think)Most are advertised privately in newspapers or by having a forsale sign on the lake.

1) Private Lease, In Northern Ontario there are large chunks of property that is privately owned bush by Investors that subcontract out the management of their land (thousands and thousands of acres) these subcontractors handle the various land leases for cottages or hydro right of ways or mining and allowing logging on their land.
The cottage land leases is just a very small part of their income, logging is their focus. So if you see a For sale that mentions leased land it could be this type. My landlord (and about 700 other cottage owners) is a subisedery of International Paper . Our lease is a yearly ongoing lease of roughly $1000/yr. Some have road access some don't.
As for lease "confidence" I have the same rights as a person who owns a mobile home in a mobile home park. The Ontario Landlord tenant act protects me from being evicted unless I default on my lease payments or break the terms of my lease . Considering that logging cannot occur within a few hundred feet of a watershed/lake , then what other use would the landlord have for my land? He makes money for the waterfront he has but even he is limited to how many leases he can have on a lake by MNR restrictions. Thats why I see my landlord is not adding anymore leases on lakes. So existing leases either get passed on to relatives or get sold.Many of the "townships in the Wawa Area and east side of HWY 17 north of Sault is private land. International paper thru its subsidery SFT Ontario manages it.

The other type is Crown lease land(Owned by Ontario) and the Ontario Gov used to add leased land to certain lakes all over Northern Ontario, but ever since the early 90's they stopped adding and the thousands of existing ones are still around or the tenants in some cases bought the land from the Gov. where they could. Again same landlord tenent act protects them in same ways.

Hope this helps, I could not afford the $120,000 to by a cottage near the Sault (where I work), where I would own the land and building and this was a good solution for me and I see another AMerican bought a camp three doors down from me, he had did the yearly week visits to a lodge here for ten years and decided why not just buy a cottage. Probably 80% of the cottages on the lake I am on is American , including the three lodges.

The thing I can't figure out is HOW to find cabins for sale on leased Canadian land, or for that matter, just a leased lot in the bush somewhere. I've spent days pouring over realtors websites in the area I'm interested in (Husdson / Sioux Lookout), but as yet have seen no mention of leasing. Right now all we'd like is a piece of leased land to pitch a tent on, on or near a lake with at least SOME fish in it.

I'm with you! How do you find out about these properties?

Go_Fish

[font color=green size=3][b] A lot of the time it's word of mouth among the locals. I've been hoping to pickup something for an investment myself. Realators will help you out, but most of them have a short attention span. That means that if you don't keep poking them they forget about you. It's a sellers market right now, way more people interested than there are propertys. Alot of people make the decision to sell at the end of the season/early winter. When we bought our cottage we came up the first week of April and made an appointment with several realators to see their propertys. Several places were not yet on their websites but they had the paperwork in hand. It seems to me that there is a culture diference, as Canadians often are less attentive to business than I'm used to. I did get a flyer this spring on a bare lot on Lake Winnesaga(sp?) that wasn't too badly priced but had lake acess only, which doesn't do it for me.

[font color=green size=3][b]Pikelady,
Did you know that non-residents can purchase a camping permit for crown land in NWO? They are reasonably priced and available at some outfitters and bait shops. I know Wabaskang has a number of islands that camping is allowed on. I beleive the permit also lets you leave a boat on the lakes while you camp. There is a time limit, like 14 days in any one place. There are also areas that you can't camp with-in a distance of some lakes. The MNR can give you details.

My father, brother and I bought a couple of cabins about 10 years ago up around Minaki. My dad is retired and let me tell you if all he had to do was fish and sit around he would go absolutely nuts. He enjoys spending the summer fixing what needs fixed around the place and just keeping it looking nice. If your thinking of buying do so sooner than later because the property values are going through the roof. Taxes aren't that bad (I think we pay $1000 per year on taxes and insurance). If you have kids or family of your own it's always nice to have a place to come stay for a week or so. I personaly think it's cheap to maintain compared to my personal residence. Good luck

No, I didn't realize that, trailerguy - thanks. Most of the places we go, however, have that sign posted that says non residents are prohibited from camping within a certain distance of the lake. I believe it's that way everywhere on Lac Seul. Is it my imagination, or have the restrictions against non residents gotten more strict in recent years?

Part of the reason camping is not allowed, is because so many campers have trashed the camping areas. It is a disgrace to see what they have done to the wilderness.

The government has finally gotten smart and are treating walleye and camping as a resource and charging for it. There are many here that would see foreigners relegated to commercial campgrounds and off of crown land. Years back Americans outnumbered Canadians on these inland lakes and for almost no fee and generous limits. Result was the decimation of the fishery.

A disgrace is what the gold miners are doing to the land around Red Lake. That is sad!

[font color=green size=3][b]Pikelady,
I just got back from a long weekend on Wabaskang. Fishing was good. I carefully read the sign at the public boat ramp on Wabaskang. It says: No camping by non-residents with-in 1/2 kilometer of Wine and Anashbi(sp) Lakes. It's dosen't say you can't camp around or on Wabaskang, this confirms what my neighbor has told me in the past. If you didn't like fishing on Wabaskang, it's only 2-3 miles to the public boat ramp at Scout Lake, which is connected to Lac Seul. Many people make a day trip from Wabaskang to Lac Seul, in fact my neighbor was cleaning Walleye they caught on Lac Seul when I got there Thursday night. The bottum line is that campers don't spend a lot of money, so outfitters would rather they had to stay with them. :)

[font color=green size=3][b] While we were up there this week-end, the wife and I went out to our faverite spot to pick blueberrys. It was clear cut about 5-6 years back and the berrys were fabulas. While walking around I couldn't help but notice that the old skidder tire was still laying in the bush like a monument, and the soak where they dropped the oil out of the D-8 push cat still is vivid. Not to mention the empty 5 gal plastic pails of engine and hydralic oil are just starting to fade and crack. And then there's the beer and pop cans thrown on the ground when the operator took his lunch.... It looks almost exactly like it did that sunday afternoon we drove through when the machines were setting idle while the lone mantinance man was preparing them for the next weeks work.... So if you expect me to beleive that the american campers and fishermen are that bad, you better look at your own doorstep first. ;) ;)

It seems to me that the logging companys are allowed to do whatever they please, clearcutting vast areas, nomatter if it's around tourist camps, major highways, First Nations Lands, they seem to be running the Province in the ground.

Trailerguy, I believe what the posted above was saying is that the campsites were trashed and the fishing pressure hard. Your talking about the slashes and I don't see anyone camping in the slashes during non-hunting times.
I agree with the oil and crap in the slashes, its up to the MNR and MOE to fine the logging company for garbage.
Being an Ontario resident I seen first hand the amount of people camping on the lakes when the non-resident camp ban was not in place and it was a joke.

I tend to like it the way it is now.

[font color=green size=3][b]I guess you can call it slashes. Although the timber contractor is supose to stay back from the lakeshore, often the value of the wood is more than the fine if they get caught. So they cut right down to the lake shores and in the watershed draining into the lakes. So which would really be harder on the lake? I surely don't know how the fishing pressure has changed because people were forced to use outfitters. Fishing pressure has changed due to slot limits and actual research by the MNR that established sanctuarys at spawning time IMHO. :)

Lakes are not cut to the edge anymore. Trees and harvest areas are tracked via satellite photos and flyovers. You WILL be caught. The fines are huge and you will lose your right to work in the timber righted area. You are then effectively out of work for good. It may be done on a small scale on private property but on crowm land for the major harvesters they will string you up before OMNR does.

[font color=green size=3][b]That must be a recent change, as I could show you several small lakes that were cleared within 50' of shore, in the last 10 yrs.

I agree that we American's can't accept the entire blame for trashing natural areas. I've seem campsites at lakeshores trashed where non-residents were prohibited from camping - so who's doing it? I've also seen the destruction done by some logging companies, and lets not forget snowmobilers leaving their oil containers, etc., lying in the woods. This is a SERIOUS problem even where I live, in Michigan's U P.

Oh, and Trailerguy, I think you must be going to the west end of Lac Seul, as I'm not familiar with the lakes you've mentioned. But thanx for the blueberry info - we're heading up for the last trip of this year on Saturday and will be packing our pancake mix & syrup! Pikelady