After dwelling in 15 cities throughout the USA, Britain and Africa, Katie Fahrland plotted a course to a life in Canada. She didn’t anticipate that it could lead by Colorado and Florida.
Ms. Fahrland, who grew up in Connecticut and graduated from McGill College in Montreal, labored in software program gross sales earlier than a profession pivot to worldwide improvement work in Africa. Her daughter Zoe, now 9, was born shortly after she moved again to Washington, D.C., for a brand new job. In 2018, after shedding each that job and a trusted au pair, she decamped to Denver, the place a brother lived.
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“I’m a single mum or dad and it was rather a lot to deal with,” mentioned Ms. Fahrland, now 44. An skilled world traveler, she acquired a job with a non-public tour operator. “I used to be sad,” she mentioned. “I had no associates. My folks had been in Montreal, the place I went to high school.”
In 2020, she utilized for everlasting resident standing in Canada, which might enable her to buy a house regardless of Canada’s ban on most international patrons.
“I needed to dwell someplace that aligned with my values,” she mentioned. “Folks listed here are type, pleasant and supportive. And backed training, together with nationwide healthcare, was essential.”
Ms. Fahrland bought her Denver home and set out for Montreal, solely to study that her residency software had been delayed. Frantic, she made one other detour to Jupiter, Fla., the place associates had invited her and Zoe to remain. Lastly, in 2024, the paperwork got here by, and the 2 landed in Montreal. “It was a mission 4 years within the making,” she mentioned.
Her first cease was a rental residence in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, a leafy neighborhood northwest of downtown full of century-old brick properties. Zoe enrolled in a faculty there, and the realm enabled a car-free way of life. Its fundamental artery, Monkland Avenue, provided loads of eating, purchasing and providers.
“She knew precisely the place she needed to be, and had very particular standards for the residence,” mentioned Ms. Fahrland’s agent, Monique Assouline of The Company.
The appropriate place would have a minimum of 4 rooms — one every for her and Zoe, an workplace (she now works remotely for a New York-based hospitality advertising and marketing agency) and a visitor room. Two loos had been additionally a should. However Ms. Fahrland’s price range of 900,000 Canadian {dollars} (about $660,000) could be a problem in Montreal’s scorching condominium market.
“I had needed to spend much less, however realized I wouldn’t discover what I wanted,” she mentioned.
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