If you’re relocating to Ottawa, we’ve got some resources for you.

We’ve updated our Living Abroad in Canada: Ottawa page with a list of resources about Ottawa jobs, real estate, schools, and more.

And if you’re just thinking about relocating to Ottawa, you may want to know what’s so special about Canada’s national capital.

First of all, your dollar will go far here. Ottawa’s cost of living consistently ranks among the least expensive of any Canadian metropolitan area.

According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the average (resale) home in greater Ottawa cost just over $300,000 in 2009, compared with roughly $400,000 in the Toronto metropolitan region and nearly $600,000 in Vancouver. In this year’s Forbes ranking of The Cheapest Canadian Cities To Buy A House, Gatineau, Quebec (just across the river from Ottawa) was rated one of the four cheapest Canadian real estate markets.

But the quality of life in Ottawa scores highly as well. In fact, in the MoneySense 2010 Best Places to Live survey, Ottawa ranked #1 in Canada.

And the Washington Post recently dubbed Ottawa “Canada’s cool capital,” calling it a “lively, smart, quirky and confident” place:

…If anything now characterizes the city, I’d say it’s an unselfconscious cool. There’s a proudly indie aesthetic in its neighborhoods, but without the hipster posturing of Toronto. Unlike language-obsessed Montreal, the city has a relaxed attitude toward bilingualism — everything here comes in both official languages — that lends Ottawa an easy cosmopolitanism. And there’s a buzzing food scene…

If you’re considering life in Ottawa, good places to start your research are Ottawa Tourism (the city’s official guide for visitors) and Live in Ottawa, the city of Ottawa’s useful guide to living and working in the capital region.

And check out our Living Abroad in Canada: Ottawa page for lots more resources.

Ottawa “apartment for rent” photo ©Carolyn B. Heller