Downsizing, moving, kid off to university. Your experiences?

[Big Racks]

Well, short story long. I'm looking at some big changes in the next 12-18 months. Basically the stars have all started to align as far as timing for these changes.

I've accepted a transfer to Calgary for work, starting next January. It means a nice salary increase, which in turn, and more importantly, is going to top off my best 5 years for my company pension so a nice increase in my pension once I retire in anywhere from 6-11 years (depending if I go at 30 years for a 60% pension, or keep plugging away until 35 years for 70%).

My daughter will be graduating high school next spring as well, making the timing fit really well. She'll be starting university in fall of 2019, hopefully UofA. We have always planned on downsizing out of our 3000+ sq ft house in Beaumont once she started school, and with the move down to Calgary for work my company will be taking care of relocation (real estate fees, legal, moving, etc...) next spring.

My wife works in south Edmonton, and her company has an office in Calgary as well that she can transfer to. However, as I'll be training for up to a year before full qualification (during which my position here is protected), she thinks she'd prefer to stay local while I'm training, rather than the potential of transferring and maybe having to come back should my training not go as planned or I really hate it and pull the plug myself. Also, while I'm required to sell my house pretty much right away, I'll have up to 2 years to purchase at my new posting. If I roll the dice and buy right away before I qualify, I'm on the hook to sell the new place should I be unsuccessful and have to move back.

So, we're looking at renting 2 properties for the first year, one in Calgary for myself and one in the Edmonton area for my wife (and possibly with my daughter unless she goes into residence at university). Then next year we would purchase a condo or townhouse in the Calgary area and my wife would come down.

We're just tossing around some ideas now though. Is it worth it to buy a condo in the Edmonton area, or wherever my kid ends up going to school? We'll be footing her expenses while she's in school anyways, and we would buy a 2 bedroom so my wife could live there rather than rent. The year after there would be the possibility of my daughter finding another student/friend to rent the second bedroom as a roommate. The downside is I'd be buying into the strata market...twice. Once she's out of university we would either sell or just rent it out, though selling seems the most likely scenario as I'd hate to be trying to manage a rental property from Calgary, so would have to have a company do it. While I do okay financially, I'm not independently wealthy, so buying single detached isn't really feasible seeing as though we'll be buying a more expensive place down in Calgary.

Anyways, there's my life story, lol. Not so much looking for advice, but rather want to hear your experiences, bad and good, and if this is something you may have done or considered and not done, etc...