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Dave-Roberts---Halifax-Military-Relocation-RealtorAs a Authorized Brookfield Military Relocation Expert I fully understand the stress that comes with moving and how important it is to have a support system.  I will assist you every step of the way!  Whether locating to the Halifax area or CFB Shearwater it is important to have the best resources available to you.

I am registered with the IRP (Federal Government Integrated Relocation Program) and can provide you with contacts for lawyers, movers and more.

If you are considering a move to the HRM (Halifax Regional Municipality) area, you will find that the answers to most of your questions are just a phone call away.  

Browse this site and if you find a home of interest and would like more information, please take note of the MLS number or property address and contact me by email or phone. I would be pleased to represent you as an agent in your search for the perfect home.I would be happy to help you find what it is you need.

Help for Buyers in Halifax and ShearwaterI know that every real estate transaction, no matter what the size or cost, is incredibly important to each individual buyer and seller. My GOAL is to provide you with the specialized real estate service you DESERVE. Whether you are a first time buyer, an experienced investor, or you currently own property and are thinking of placing it on the market, selecting the right real estate agent is the most important step towards success.  Your choice of an agent can make all the difference in the world. Property values are continuing to rise, being an informed buyer or seller will help you with making the best decisions for the most important transactions of your life.

 

I WILL WORK DILIGENTLY TO ASSIST YOU IN ACHIEVING ALL YOUR REAL ESTATE GOALS AND TO KEEP YOU INFORMED ON TRENDS IN THE MARKETPLACE.

 

About The Federal Government Integrated Relocation Program (IRP)

“The Federal Government Integrated Relocation Program is a unique program that provides government entities which include the Government of Canada, the Canadian Forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with increased flexibility and assistance to relocation Members/Employees to new work locations.”
 

Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM)

Halifax is one of the major economic centres located in eastern Canada with a large concentration of government services and private sector companies. Major employers and include the Department of National Defence, various levels of government and the Port of Halifax.  Agriculture, fishing, mining, forestry and natural gas extraction are major resource industries found in the rural areas of HRM.

HRM hosts a variety of festivals that take place throughout the year, some of these festivals include: The Atlantic Film Festival, The Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo, The Halifax Busker Festival, Greekfest, The Atlantic Jazz Festival, The Multicultural Festival, Natal Day, periodic Tall Ship events, and Shakespeare by the Sea. 

There are many great post secondary educational institutions specializing in a variety of interests.  Nova Scotia is filled with beautiful white sand beaches where you can swim, surf and boogie board.  There is plenty to do here from scuba diving to downhill skiing.  If you are interested in shopping, downtown is full of unique shops, pubs and restaurants.  

Military IRP Relocation

Click on the link below for Military IRP Relocation Directives and Clarification
Military IRP Relocation Information
Canadian Forces Base Halifax (CFB Halifax) is Canada’s east coast navy base and home port to the Atlantic fleet, known as Maritime 
Forces Atlantic.  It is presently the largest Canadian Forces Base in terms of the number of posted personnel and there are a number of military properties situated around the Halifax Harbour.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) IRP Relocation

Click  for RCMP IRP Relocation Directives and Clarification.

RCMP DETACHMENTS & LOCAL COMMUNITIES

Below are RCMP Detachments in the Halifax area and communities that are located close to the detachment you are being posted to.  

Halifax City
1975 Gottingen Street, Halifax, NS
(902) 244-7208
1-800-803-7267Surrounding Communities
Halifax 
City
Bedford
Dartmouth

Stanfield International Airport
1 Bell Blvd., Goffs, NS

Surrounding Communities
Halifax City
Bedford
Hammonds Plains
Falls River 
Enfield
Goffs
Sackville
Waverly
Wellington
Grand 
Lake

Cole Harbour
1171 Cole Harbour Road, Cole Harbour, NS

Surrounding Communities
Dartmouth
Cole 
Harbour
Colby Village
Lawrencetown
Lake 
Echo
Porter’s Lake

 

 

 

Lower Sackville

711 Old Sackville Road, 
Sackville, NSSurrounding Communities
Lower Sackville
Upper & Middle Sackville
Beaverbank
Windsor Junction
Fall River
Waverley
Bedford
Hammonds Plains

Musquodoboit Harbour
PO Box 280, Musquodoboit Harbour, NS

Surrounding Communities
Porters Lake
Lake Charlotte
Lake Echo

Sheet Harbour
PO Box 241, Sheet Harbour, NS

Surrounding Communities
Port Dufferin
Tangler

Tantallon
#1 Eleanor 
Lane, Upper Tantallon, NS

Surrounding Communities
Halifax City
Tantallon
Hammonds Plains
Sackville
St. Margarets Bay
Glen Haven
French Village
Seabright
Hacketts Cove
Hubley

HISTORY OF HALIFAX

The first permanent European settlement in the region was on the Halifax Peninsula. The establishment of the Town of Halifax, named after the British Earl of Halifax, in 1749 led to the colonial capital being transferred from Annapolis Royal.

The establishment of Halifax marked the beginning of Father Le Loutre’s War. The war began when Edward Cornwallis arrived to establish Halifax with 13 transports and a sloop of war on June 21, 1749. By unilaterally establishing Halifax the British were violating earlier treaties with the Mi’kmaq (1726), which were signed after Father Rale’s War. Cornwallis brought along 1,176 settlers and their families. To guard against Mi’kmaq, Acadian, and French attacks on the new Protestant settlements, British fortifications were erected in Halifax (Citadel Hill) (1749), Bedford (Fort Sackville) (1749), Dartmouth (1750), and Lawrencetown (1754), all areas within the modern-day Regional Municipality. St. Margaret’s Bay was first settled by French-speaking Foreign Protestants at French Village, Nova Scotia who migrated from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia during the American Revolution.

December 1917 saw one of the greatest disasters in Canadian history, when the SS Mont-Blanc, a French cargo ship carrying munitions, collided with the Belgian Relief vessel SS Imo in “The Narrows” between upper Halifax Harbour and Bedford Basin. The resulting explosion, the Halifax Explosion, devastated the Richmond District of Halifax, killing approximately 2,000 people and injuring nearly 9,000 others. The blast was the largest artificial explosion before the development of nuclear weapons.

In 1996 the provincial government amalgamated all municipal governments within Halifax County to create the Halifax Regional Municipality, a regional municipality comprising approximately 200 individual identified communities. The municipal boundary thus now includes all of Halifax County except for several First Nation reserves.

Since amalgamation, the region has officially been known as the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM), although “Halifax” has remained in common usage for brevity.On April 15, 2014, the HRM regional council approved the implementation of a new branding campaign for the region developed by the local firm Revolve Marketing. In particular, the campaign would see the region referred to in promotional materials as simply “Halifax” — although “Halifax Regional Municipality” would remain the region’s official name. The proposed rebranding was met with mixed reaction from residents, some of whom felt that the change would alienate other communities in the municipality through a perception that the marketing scheme would focus on Metropolitan Halifax only, while others expressed relief that the longer formal name would no longer be primary. Mayor Mike Savage defended the decision, saying that “I’m a Westphal guy, I’m a Dartmouth man, but Halifax is my city, we’re all part of Halifax. Why does that matter? Because when I go and travel on behalf of this municipality, there isn’t a person out there who really cares what HRM means.”

HALIFAX GEOGRAPHY

Unlike most municipalities with a sizeable metropolitan area, the Halifax Regional Municipality’s suburbs have been completely incorporated into the “central” municipality, often by referendum. For example, the community of Spryfield, in the Mainland South area, voted to amalgamate with Halifax in 1968. The most recent amalgamation, which brought the entirety of Halifax County into the Municipality, has created a situation where a large “rural commutershed” area encompasses almost half the municipality’s landmass.

Metropolitan Halifax is a term used to roughly describe the urban concentration surrounding Halifax Harbour, and includes the Halifax Peninsula, the core of Dartmouth, and the Bedford-Sackville areas. It is the Statistics Canada “population centre” of Halifax (2011 pop: 297,943). The dense urban core is centred on the Halifax Peninsula and the area of Dartmouth inside of the Circumferential Highway. The suburban area stretches into areas know as Mainland Halifax to the west, Cole Harbour to the east, and Bedford, Lower Sackville and Windsor Junction areas to the north.
This urban area is the most populous urban area on Canada’s Atlantic coast, and the second largest coastal population centre in the country, after Vancouver, British Columbia. Halifax currently accounts for 40% of Nova Scotia’s population, and 15% of that of Atlantic Canada.

The municipality of Halifax is centred on the urban core and surrounded by areas of decreasing density the farther the community is from the core. Rural areas lie to the east, west and north of this urban core. Certain rural communities on the urban fringe function as suburban or exurban areas, with the majority of those residents working in the urban core. Farther away, rural communities in the municipality function much as any resource-based area in Nova Scotia, being sparsely populated, with their local economies developing around four major resource industries: agriculture, fishing, mining and forestry. It should be noted that the tourism industry is beginning to change how some rural communities in Halifax function, particularly in coastal areas such as Hubbards, Peggys Cove and Lawrencetown.

The north eastern area centred on Sheet Harbour and the Musquodoboit Valley is completely rural, with more in common with adjacent rural areas of neighbouring counties.

The Halifax Regional Municipality is an amalgamation of four municipal governments in the urban and rural areas, therefore its composition of neighbourhoods and communities is unlike other municipalities such as a city.

There are over 200 official rural and urban communities within Halifax County that have maintained their original geographic names (including the dissolved cities of Halifax and Dartmouth and the town of Bedford). These community names are used on survey and mapping documents, for 9-1-1 service, municipal planning, and postal service.

The Halifax Regional Municipality is divided into eighteen community planning areas which are further divided into neighbourhoods or villages. The regional municipality has taken steps to reduce duplicate street names for its 9-1-1 emergency dispatch services; at the time of amalgamation, some street names were duplicated several times throughout the municipality.

HALIFAX CLIMATE

Despite its coastal location, the climate of Halifax is humid continental, due to the prevailing westerly winds blowing from the mainland of the continent. Halifax’s climate is, however, heavily influenced by its location on Nova Scotia’s Atlantic coast. The weather is usually milder in the winter or cooler in the summer than that of central Canada, with the temperature remaining (with occasional notable exceptions) between about −15 °C and 25 °C (5 °F to 77 °F) inland. Coastal sections have even less range due to strong maritime influence.

Precipitation is high year-round; snow, rain and ice mixes are common in the winter, though usually it is mild and rainy. Average monthly precipitation is highest from November to January due to intense late-fall to early-winter storms migrating usually from the Northeastern U.S., and lowest in summer, with August, the year’s warmest month on average, also its driest on average.

Halifax can receive extratropical storms, mostly between August and October. They are very rarely at hurricane force when they make landfall, the most recent exception being when Hurricane Juan, a Category 2 storm, hit in September 2003, and Hurricane Earl which grazed the coast as a Category 1 storm in 2010.

Atlantic sea surface temperatures off the coast of Nova Scotia were warmer than normal those years, and the accelerated storm tracks did not allow for the weakening that usually occurs with hurricanes moving over the colder waters of the Nova Scotia coast after passing the Gulf Stream.

HALIFAX DEMOGRAPHICS

The Halifax metro area includes 408,702 residents (2013 Statistics Canada estimate). In 2011 approximately 15% of the population was 14 years old or younger, while 13% were 65 and older.

HALIFAX ECONOMY

The urban area of Halifax is a major economic centre in eastern Canada with a large concentration of government services and private sector companies. Halifax serves as the business, banking, government and cultural centre for the Maritime region. Major employers and economic generators include the Department of National Defence, as well as the Port of Halifax and Irving Shipbuilding Inc. The municipality has a growing concentration of manufacturing industries and is becoming a major multi-modal transportation hub through growth at the port, the Halifax Stanfield International Airport, and improving rail and highway connections. A real estate boom in recent years has led to numerous new property developments, including the gentrification of some former working-class areas.

Agriculture, fishing, mining, forestry and natural gas extraction are major resource industries found in the rural areas of the municipality. Halifax’s largest agricultural district is in the Musquodoboit Valley; the total number of farms in Halifax is 150, of which 110 are family-owned. Fishing harbours are located along all coastal areas with some having an independent harbour authority, and others being managed as small craft harbours under the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Other resource industries in Halifax include the natural gas fields off the coast of Sable Island, as well as clay, shale, gold, limestone, and gypsum extraction in rural areas of the mainland portion of the municipality.

HALIFAX CULTURE

The urban area of Halifax is a major cultural centre within the Atlantic provinces. The municipality’s urban core also benefits from a large population of post-secondary students who strongly influence the local cultural scene. Halifax has a number of art galleries, theatres and museums, as well as most of the region’s national-quality sports and entertainment facilities. The municipality is home to many performance venues, namely the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium, the Neptune Theatre, and The Music Room. Halifax is also the home to many of the region’s major cultural attractions, such as Halifax Pop Explosion, Symphony Nova Scotia, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, The Khyber, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and the Neptune Theatre. The region is noted for the strength of its music scene and nightlife, especially in the central urban core. See List of musical groups from Halifax, Nova Scotia for a partial list.

Halifax hosts a wide variety of festivals that take place throughout the year, including: The Atlantic Film Festival, The Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo, The Halifax Busker Festival, Greekfest, The Atlantic Jazz Festival, The Multicultural Festival, The largest Canada Day celebration east of Ottawa, Natal Day, periodic Tall Ship events, and Shakespeare by the Sea, to name a few. Many of these celebrations have become world renowned over the past several years.

Halifax has also become a significant film-production centre, with many American and Canadian filmmakers using the streetscapes, often to stand in for other cities that are more expensive to work in. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has its Atlantic Canada production centres (radio and television) based in Halifax, and quite a number of radio and television programs are made in the region for national broadcast.

The new Halifax Central Library on Spring Garden Road is nearing completion, has received accolades for its architecture and has been described as a new cultural locus, offering many community facilities including a 300-seat auditorium.

Halifax is considered by many to be the cultural centre of the Maritimes. The municipality has been able to maintain many of its maritime and military traditions, while opening itself to a growing multicultural population.

Halifax’s tourism industry showcases Nova Scotia’s culture, scenery and coastline. The area has many museums reflecting its ethnic heritage, including the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia. Others museums tell the story of its working history, such as the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. It is also home to several internationally renowned events such as the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo, the Atlantic Film Festival and the Atlantic Fringe Festival. Halifax has numerous National Historic Sites, the most notable being Citadel Hill (Fort George) in Halifax.

The iconic Peggy’s Cove is internationally recognized and receives 600,000 plus visitors a year.

HALIFAX EDUCATION

The Halifax Regional Municipality has a well-developed network of public and private schools, providing instruction from primary to grade twelve; one hundred and thirty seven public schools are administered by the Halifax Regional School Board, as well as four public schools administered by the Conseil Scolaire Acadien Provincial, whereas the fourteen private schools are operated independently.

The municipality is also home to the following post-secondary educational institutions: Dalhousie University, Saint Mary’s University, Mount Saint Vincent University, the Halifax campus of Université Sainte-Anne, University of King’s College, Atlantic School of Theology, NSCAD University, Nova Scotia Community College, and the Centre for Arts and Technology.

The presence of so many university and college students contributes to a vibrant youth culture in the region, as well as making it a major centre for university education in eastern Canada.

Posted Out of Halifax?

When you Receive your Posting Message it is important to contact your Authorized GRS Military Relocation Realtor as soon as possible.

Contacting your IRP Relocation Expert will allow you to understand the Real Estate Market you are moving into.  Most Military and RCMP communities undergo a flurry of activity when Posting Season arrives.  Typically this is a case where the “Early Bird” does get the worm.

With our Realtor’s Expert Guidance and your families requirements, your Local Expert will shift through MLS listing and Local Listings to provide you with a Up To Date List of available properties.  This process will help narrow down the properties you will want to visit during your HHT ( House Hunting Trip ).

During your HHT your Local Expert will ensure his time is allocated to finding your family the perfect home.  He will help with accommodations, car rental, school information, medical arrangements, home inspections, financing and lawyers.

FIND YOUR LOCAL EXPERT HERE!