Montreal - Post Report Question and Answers
What is your housing like? What are typical housing sizes, locations, and commute times for expatriates?
My housing: Stand-alone home in Westmount. Montreal's Beacon Hill/Upper East Side/ Chestnut Hill/ Pacific Heights/Georgetown/Buckhead. Typical housing: Apartments and houses. 1200-2400 sq ft. Commute times vary from 5 min walking from apartments to 1 hour driving from west island. Good choices. LQA can be a little bit of a hassle. Some landlords are reluctant to make changes for security and OSHA requirements. FSOs may need to provide first and last month's rent plus a security deposit before LQA locks in - may require access to $15k of your own cash to float before LQA covers first month rent - this could be tough for ELOs - Jul 2022
We use LQA. Its nice to have control over your housing for once. Downtown has lots of apartment buildings that tend to look alike. If you like open floor plans with limited kitchen storage and small living rooms, with giant windows that may mean you get to know your neighbors a little too well, there are many choices. Westmount and further out have nice places to live, but make sure you are up for the winter commute. - Aug 2020
LQA. Pretty good options. Of course, one has to keep within the size limitations, but that is generally do-able. - Aug 2012
I lived in Westmount, a very wealthy neighborhood less than a mile from downtown. It was literally a 5-minute commute. I suspect the suburbs are much longer. A word of warning: Montreal drivers are the MOST dangerous I have ever encountered. The road rage is unbelievable, and no-fault insurance means that no one particularly cares if they hit a parked car or bump someone on the road. For the first time in my life, after driving all over North America and Africa, I was literally afraid on the roads. - Dec 2009
The May 2001 post report on Montreal gets this right - still all true in 2009. Getting housing is really difficult if you have a family, particularly if you are arriving in the fall/winter. Nothing is available, and the weather is awful for looking. That said, if you're single or a couple or don't have to live in a particular school district - you have options downtown and in the plateau that are awesome and possibly available year-round. - Sep 2009
LQA is apparently a shock for those who have been in the service, but as this was my first tour it wasn't onerous to find an apartment. The limitation in Montreal is square footage allowance rather than price, since rent is so cheap here (apocryphally, beacause capital fled after the Quiet Revolution, and Anglos are afraid to move back for fear of total separation of Quebec). Anyone posted here can live in a beatiful new apartment or house, though large families seem to feel squeezed. - Jan 2009
