A move to the East Coast eased the Hingleys’ cumbersome daycare debt and brought nice new neighbors.
“We were looking at homes listed for $200,000 that were 100 times nicer than ours, and on the beaches!” (Photo courtesy of Hingley)
The buyers
Billie Jean Hingley, a 39-year-old registered nurse; KC Hingley, 43-year-old musician; and her children: Asher, five, and Ember, three.
Budget
$400,000
the backstory
Until very recently, Billie Jean and KC had only ever called British Columbia home: she hails from the Sunshine Coast and he hails from Vancouver Island. In 2018, when Billie Jean became pregnant with Asher, the couple’s first child, they moved out of the two-bedroom townhome they shared in Courtenay and bought a four-bedroom split-level standalone model located on an ideal suburban cul-de-sac. for families. , an ideal place for its growing calf. (They opted to have at least one more child).
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Hingley’s household was two-income: Billie Jean worked as a registered nurse at a hospital in Comox Valley, while KC ran a local music store and toured a few weeks a year with PIGS, a Pink Floyd tribute band. But after her daughter, Ember, was born in 2019, the couple began to feel the financial strain of BC’s high daycare costs. Full-time places for two children cost the Hingleys $2,300 each month, and by September 2021, the expense had left them deeply in debt. “We were living in overdraft,” says Billie Jean. “We feel pretty hopeless.”
The couple considered downsizing back to a semi-detached home, but the BC real estate market had gone crazy in the time since they had their children. Considering moving costs, they realized they wouldn’t be much better off. KC had her own reservations. “A townhouse isn’t ideal for playing music and lugging gear in and out,” says Billie Jean. “Some of their equipment is temperature sensitive, so even if we had a garage, we wouldn’t have been able to store it there.”
Moving out of province seemed like the only affordable option, so the Hingleys began checking listings in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and as far as the East Coast. “We were looking at homes listed for $200,000 that were 100 times nicer than ours, and on the beaches!” says Billie Jean. For the artistic couple, Nova Scotia, with its world-renowned music scene and vibrant kitchen parties, emerged as the market to beat. And for a family used to the astronomical costs of childcare, the fact that the province offered a free preschool only added to its appeal.
The hunt
That fall, the Hingleys connected with a real estate agent in Truro, Nova Scotia. They thought they could sell their Courtenay home for over $700,000 and set a budget of $400,000, which would give them a low enough budget. mortgage to live comfortably. Her new place had to have at least three rooms, on the same floor, to keep her children close to her, and be located near a hospital where Billie Jean could find work. KC’s main requirement was an outbuilding that she could convert into a music studio. The Hingleys scoured local listings via FaceTime, from BC, but faced plenty of competition from like-minded buyers from other provinces. They were regularly outbid by $30,000 to $50,000.
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It was months before the Hingleys took a video tour of an attractive property outside Amherst, listed for $325,000. The house was painted a lovely blue and sat on a property with rolling hills and a two-story barn-style garage, perfect for KC’s music mixing needs. They made an offer that was conditional on a home inspection, which, unfortunately, revealed a number of problems. “There was a crack right in the center of the ceiling,” says Billie Jean. “You could see inside the attic.” The septic system was also leaking into a ditch in front of the house. Due to how the pipes were routed, fixing it would require putting in a new driveway. When the Hingleys asked the seller to take $10,000 off the list price, negotiations stalled.
Soon after, the Hingleys’ real estate agent floated a three-bedroom house in Sackville, just over the border from New Brunswick. It was located in a quaint neighborhood near Mount Allison University, and solar panels provided 80 percent of the house’s power, which the Hingleys loved. The design choices, not so much: There were sinks in every bedroom (“a bad idea if you have small children”) and an inground pool had broken down into what Billie Jean calls “a very scary pond.” That listing might have been a dud, but it was a stepping stone to the Hingleys’ ultimate destination: a six-bedroom, two-bathroom house on nearby Point de Bute.
FURTHER: The Move: This Ontario family found space and affordability in Calgary
The $320,000 property had three bedrooms on its upper level, plus three more on the main floor for guests. Built in 1860, it retained many of its original features, including a stained glass window, rustic hardwood floors, and a claw-foot tub. Elsewhere on the property was a fully electrified and insulated barn that could house KC’s studio, after some minor renovations. The Hingleys’ real estate agent had sold the house to another couple (from Ontario) in 2021, so he was able to assure them that her bones were okay. The Hingleys submitted an offer of $310,000, slightly below their asking price, the same day they visited, pending a home inspection. When he revealed a leaky basement, they were able to knock another $10,000 off the price. The sellers agreed to the discount and a June 2022 possession date.
The Hingleys were able to get rid of their Courtenay estate for $750,000 and a May closing. With weeks to kill until their move to New Brunswick, they decided to embark on a 40-day trip across Canada with Asher and Ember. (Aside from a few minor hiccups, like decommissioned toilet facilities in remote Yoho National Park, Billie Jean says the trip was memorable in a good way.) Upon arriving in New Brunswick, Billie Jean says the couple felt overwhelmingly validated in their decision to uproot their young children for a life yet unseen. A friendly neighbor had been diligently collecting her mail, which had been piling up for weeks; another gave the Hingleys carte blanche to pick vegetables from their garden whenever they wanted.
Real life quickly resumed: Billie Jean landed a job as a home nurse in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, and KC went to work on her soundstage, finishing renovations last November. (When he’s not working on production projects, he works as an administrator in the music department at Mount Allison University.) As for the kids, Asher is currently attending kindergarten at a school an 11-minute drive from Hingley’s home. And Ember’s new daycare, also an 11-minute drive away, costs mom and dad a wallet-friendly $325 a month. With the savings, Billie Jean says they have been able to enroll the kids in basketball and dance classes, which would have been well over their budget in BC.
The Hingleys miss their relatives back home, but are slowly building a new and extended social network back east. They began lending their abundance of ground-floor rooms to participants in Workaway, a stay-at-home program that offers free room and board in exchange for work. Recently, a woman from France helped with cooking and childcare. And in May, the Hingleys will host a family from Switzerland, who will help them build a backyard path to KC’s studio. With more than enough breathing room for their own family, they are now welcoming others.
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