It’s been a long time since I updated you on what we are doing with our living situation – you may remember that we were living in a 2 bedroom apartment in central Edmonton with 3 young kids about 3 years ago, and now we are in a decent size bungalow home in St. Albert. Originally we wanted to buy a house in St. Albert, live there for 5-10 years and then buy a small acreage with a house or build on it. Now we have stopped looking at St. Albert houses and have decided to go in a different direction! But before we decided to not buy a house in St. Albert I spent 4 months driving up and down St. Albert neighbourhoods to get a feel for where I wanted to live or type of house we wanted to live in.
There were certain things we preferred for the inside and outside of our house that we would have communicated to a realtor eventually, even though that is scrapped I want to share with you what our preferences were and what St. Albert neighbourhoods we were interested in.
I won’t say this is a blog post highlighting the best neighbourhoods of St. Albert because they are all individually great, but you will see why some were left out from our preferences.
These were my 7 preferences for finding a house in St. Albert for our family:
- Large fenced backyard: Little to no unique landscaping. We want trees along the fence line for privacy, but other than that we want a large grassy area for our kids to run and play in. No fountains, ponds, pathes, patches of garden in the grass. Basic. I know we could landscape it ourselves but that leads us into the next point…
- Ready to move in: We are not handy people, we would need to hire a professional to handle any renos and we would prefer it to be ready to move in. Even though it is my dream to have a custom house, it would be so outside my comfort zone and expertise I don’t even know where we would start.
- Two Story House: We are a large family, 4 kids and 2 adults. We have been living in bungalow, it made me realized I want to have our bedrooms on a separate floor and a finished basement (we would be willing to find a house with an unfinished basement, I’ll talk more about this at the end). This is a tricky one because of the next point…
- Mature neighbourhood: We prefer the older neighbourhoods, with bigger older trees lining the streets. This goes along with more curb appeal but it’s something that grew on me. When we lived in our apartment I wanted to live in a brand new home, but as we grew to love our new house I now adore older neighbourhoods. While we want a two story house, a lot of the neighbourhoods we adore have split levels or bungalows or a walk up floor plan. It makes what I want in a house a needle in a haystack, unless we want to spend $600,000 on a St. Albert house, which we don’t.
- Lots of natural light inside: As a photographer I want the most natural light for taking photos, it makes sense for photography and overall I just feel better when my house has all the lights off and the house is filled with natural light.
- Large kitchen: I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, whether I like it or not, so to have the space to bake and cook in a kitchen that I like is a big thing for me. I want lots of counter space and storage. Matt doesn’t necessary feel the same way, but this one is important to me.
- No corner fireplaces or angled walls: This is the first no-no in our preferences! I don’t know when the corner fireplace became a trend, one of my childhood homes had one too, but I don’t want it. Or funky angled walls, I feel the same way. I want a fireplace, but I want it on a wall not in the corner.
- Location close to work and to school: While we work and go to school in St. Albert, the city is growing fast! It can be a 15-20 minute drive if you hit every red light on St. Albert Trail getting from point A to point B. Finding a house that wasn’t a crazy bus ride for the kids and not too far for Matt to pop home had a little weight in our decision.
That’s uber specific! But we’re the type of people that are willing to wait for the perfect house, we have been waiting and saving for a long time so if it doesn’t check most of these off then it is not for us.
It is difficult to see exactly what the houses look like from the street, some houses are listed for sale so it wasn’t hard at all to take a peek inside those ones, but overall I could get a sense of the neighbourhood by driving through it a few times.
Here are the St. Albert neighbourhoods I wanted to buy a house in:
- Lacombe Park: Matt grew up in this neighbourhood before they moved to an acreage, and while the nostalgia is there for him I really like this area of St. Albert! Lacombe Park (or otherwise known as the “L” neighbourhood) is a large community that starts close to St. Albert trail and works its way back to Ray Gibbon Drive. I love the homes closest to St. Albert Trail and to Ray Gibbon Drive (across the way from Bellerose High School). The houses are beautiful older homes on larger lots, many made of brick, and are two stories tall. There are some stunning european cottage looking houses closer to Bellerose, that I am obsessed with. Lots of mature trees, it’s an easy neighbourhood to get to the Anthony Henday or drive into Edmonton. This was one of my favourite St. Albert neighbourhoods!
- Braeside: This is the community where we already live, it is so close to Matt’s work that it is hard to pass up when his drive is less than 5 minutes. This neighbourhood in the river valley of St. Albert, and it can be hard to find homes with a very flat backyard but overall it’s a beautiful community that we were still keeping tabs on. Braeside is super close to the St. Albert farmers market when it is located at St. Albert Centre and it is very close to southern St. Albert – making it easy to get in and out of the city.
- Grandin: Specifically north Grandin, across from Riel Drive, had caught my eye. There are some stunning unique homes with large windows along the north side of Grosvenor Park. Then there was a few quiet streets off of Grandin Road, closest to St. Albert Trail (and I mean almost backing onto it) that had large elegant brick houses, while they were stunning I’m not sure if being so close to St. Albert Trail would be right for us – but they caught my eye so I wanted to mention them! Grandin is one of the oldest neighbourhoods in St. Albert and sometimes gets a bad rapport, but I made sure I drove through it to see what I could find. I’m glad I did because these houses were on large lots and were reasonably priced for houses in St. Albert. Plus the location was easy to access St. Albert Trail and 170th Street to drive in and out of St. Albert.
- Oakmont: This St. Albert neighbourhood is an exception to our location and older neighbourhood preferences. While it’s more of a teenager neighbourhood than a older neighbourhood – the trees are mid sized and the parks are almost brand new – it is also not located in between work and school, but it’s not completely out of the way. I like the modern builds in this area, they would be ready to move into and would provide decent open layouts.
- Erin Ridge: Again like Grandin, I was interested in a specific area of Erin Ridge. I really liked the closest area to Boudreau Drive – they have the type of houses I like though the yards on some seemed to be a little smaller. Though I wasn’t hopping over people’s fences to take a peek so I really don’t know the size of their yard. It’s a quiet area surrounded by busy streets, though we are climatized to street noise after living in our apartment in Edmonton listening to all the ambulance sirens by the hospital.
Those were the St. Albert neighbourhoods I wanted to buy a house in! Hopefully this can help someone looking to buy a house here, but I highly recommend driving through the areas yourself and forming your own opinions about them. St. Albert is an amazing city to live it, lots to do and very friendly people!
I will keep you updated with our new plans and how we are going about them as we go through this journey – from mortgage brokers to step by step planning. You will be in the know!
Shameless plug, if you are looking for a St. Albert Real Estate lawyer call my husband’s, Matt, law office! He can suggest some of the best real estate agents in St. Albert if you don’t have one yet. Real Estate Lawyers are always apart of a house deal whether you are selling or buying, they handle all the bank transactions between the two parties. Call Kaup Law Office in downtown St. Albert to arrange a meeting!
If you have any questions feel free to ask in a comment below or send me a message on Instagram at @honeyandbetts! Thank-you so much for reading, you are so amazing for supporting and loving on my family and I as we grow through the years.
