After residing in 15 cities throughout america, Britain and Africa, Katie Fahrland plotted a course to a life in Canada. She didn’t anticipate that it could lead by means of 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 growth 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 dropping 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 dad or mum and it was rather a lot to deal with,” mentioned Ms. Fahrland, now 44. An skilled world traveler, she bought a job with a personal tour operator. “I used to be sad,” she mentioned. “I had no buddies. My individuals 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 consumers.
“I wished to dwell someplace that aligned with my values,” she mentioned. “Individuals listed here are sort, pleasant and supportive. And backed training, together with nationwide healthcare, was necessary.”
Ms. Fahrland bought her Denver home and set out for Montreal, solely to be taught that her residency utility had been delayed. Frantic, she made one other detour to Jupiter, Fla., the place buddies had invited her and Zoe to remain. Lastly, in 2024, the paperwork got here by means of, and the 2 landed in Montreal. “It was a venture 4 years within the making,” she mentioned.
Her first cease was a rental condominium in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, a leafy neighborhood southwest of downtown full of century-old brick houses. Zoe enrolled in a faculty there, and the realm enabled a car-free way of life. Its foremost artery, Monkland Avenue, supplied loads of eating, purchasing and companies.
“She knew precisely the place she wished to be, and had very particular standards for the condominium,” mentioned Ms. Fahrland’s agent, Monique Assouline of The Company.
The correct place would have no less than 4 rooms — one every for her and Zoe, an workplace (she now works remotely for a New York-based hospitality advertising agency) and a visitor room. Two loos had been additionally a should. However Ms. Fahrland’s finances of 900,000 Canadian {dollars} (about $660,000) can be a problem in Montreal’s scorching rental market.
“I had wished to spend much less, however realized I wouldn’t discover what I wanted,” she mentioned.
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