It seems the cost of renting is going to be double what I pay here. :( How is the housing market in the USA, I thought it was bad? seems not?
It's because you're going to the west coast. The good news is the west coast is beautiful and a really nice place to live, good climate - not too hot or cold, beautiful mountains, huge trees, great coastlines.
Generally, anywhere with high property prices has high rents/property prices because they are desirable places to live which look nice, so people moving in naturally push the prices up, and to keep it looking nice, there is restraint on property development so demand tends to exceed supply.
You can't really generalise about the US property market. Even in boom times, for instance, housing in Houston in a nice area was pretty cheap. This is because basically Houston is nasty and polluted, and is an ugly place, so there's no restraint on building so supply exceeded demand even in the good times. You can get a huge 3700 sq ft McMansion for the price of a typical British 3 bed terraced house.
However, beautiful places like the west coast, the people living there want them to stay beautiful so you don't tend to get unrestrained development. I remember flying into Monterrey in California, and the difference to Texas was jarring - no "litter on a stick" sky signs lining the roads, it looked well kept, beautiful mountains, trees, and obviously rules on development so builders weren't allowed to make eyesores or rows and rows of identikit McMansions. Also the geography may play a part (mountainous areas) and the geology may play a part (susceptibility to earthquakes, means it's more expensive to build because the houses must not fall down in a typical earthquake).
I moved out here in 2003 on a tourist Visa, but had full intention of marrying my soon to be wife while I was here. It's not the best way to do it believe me!
I lived in Washington state when I was 16 for about a year and a half. My Dad moved to the states in 1990 when I was 16 with the intention of getting married. But he got the right Visa first! So I used to have permanent resident status back. I remember going to the US Embassy in London to get that fixed back then. But I only stayed a year and a half and then moved back to the UK. I never expected to move back.
Anyway, I got stopped at some US airport (can't remember which one). They took me aside and started flicking through my passport while eying me suspiciously. In the end the guy asked me if I was in the military because I had a stamp in there that means you can travel to the states and work for your government or something (I used to work for the MOD and we did work in the Bahamas using US facilities). After that he decided to let me through. My passport was also stamped to death from the time when my mate and I did the backpacking thing around Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. I'm sure that didn't help.
But you would think that with my Dad living in the states for the past 13 years, with me living here before as a permanent resident and with my wife being American it would have been easy. It wasn't, US immigration is a total nightmare to work with. I remember that whenever I called their number with questions about stuff there would be a massive confusing multi choice phone system and when you actually got a real person they usually had a really heavy hispanic accent and were very hard to understand. I could speak better English than them! Anyway, they didn't kick me out and after about 3 or 4 years I got my 10 year permanent resident card. Don't let me put you off though maybe I was just unlucky and things are better now.
Oh and by the way my accent is quite often mistaken for Australian and once even Irish!!! I am from Southern England by the way. Next time somebody asks if I am an Ozzie I am going to go along with it and start talking about crocs and boomerangs.
When I moved here I managed to stick everything I wanted to keep in my luggage. I didn't really have a lot of stuff though. I did have to sell/give away some stuff but it was really essential. I sold my desktop PC and bought a laptop to take over. I didn't have any actual Speccy hardware but I think that in my mates attic there are some original Speccy games (the Ultimate Collection being one of them). When I go back for a vacation I am going to investigate (hope he hasn't sold them).
It seems the cost of renting is going to be double what I pay here. :( How is the housing market in the USA, I thought it was bad? seems not?
Always thought the US was pretty cheap for renting. Granted on the west coast its dear (But thats why you get better paid jobs there, equivalent of London). The people i met in Atlanta lived in an amazing apartment and back then the rent was pretty cheap.
I mean where you live (Wales i presume) the rent will be far far cheaper than say the south of England (Like California compared to Texas).
I rented my 1 bedroom flat in Berkshire out for 650 a month (This was 9 years ago) and then rented a nice 3 bedroom house in Nuneaton for 400 a month (But granted it was Nuneaton !)
But i got more money when i worked down south then when i moved to the Midlands so swings and roundabouts etc.
Always thought the US was pretty cheap for renting.
Aye depends where you live ...Texas is dirt cheap. Have a friend in Cali paying $1500 a month for a one bed apartment and he thinks it's a steal :/ You could get a 5 bedroom house with pool for that here in Texas
Aye depends where you live ...Texas is dirt cheap. Have a friend in Cali paying $1500 a month for a one bed apartment and he thinks it's a steal :/ You could get a 5 bedroom house with pool for that here in Texas
Surely the wages must be decent on the west coast though. I remember miss ex america, when i told her how much i earnt she was shocked, kept saying 'thats a good salary!' and thats when i was working in London getting paid a fair bit.
For a customer service operator at a large phone company in San Fran she was getting paid a really good whack.
Surely the wages must be decent on the west coast though. I remember miss ex america, when i told her how much i earnt she was shocked, kept saying 'thats a good salary!' and thats when i was working in London getting paid a fair bit.
For a customer service operator at a large phone company in San Fran she was getting paid a really good whack.
It's better yes but does not 'equal' out...(I think)
I worked at Ingram Micro for 6 weeks in Santa Ana Ca. a few years ago and everyone I worked with 'house shared' because they could not really afford their own place etc.
One guy had just bought a beach house for 180k and was over the moon saying they usually go for 500k etc....he took us to see it...it was not much bigger than a 2 car garage...seriously.
Maybe the suburbs are better...ZXBruno lives there so he might chip in if he visits this thread.
EDIT: As I've said before I got a 3 bed house on 6 acres here for $110k. (till the divorce of course!)
EDIT: When HP 'merged' with Compaq they moved quite a few of the Palo Alto people to Houston and allowed them to keep their current salary...they went from living in 2 bed small homes to palatial homes with pools and land etc....they were very pleased with their lifestyle change.
EDIT: When HP 'merged' with Compaq they moved quite a few of the Palo Alto people to Houston and allowed them to keep their current salary...they went from living in 2 bed small homes to palatial homes with pools and land etc....they were very pleased with their lifestyle change.
Can imagine ! I was lucky as when i left my London job a company matched that salary and that was in the midlands so suddenly i felt like some rich bloke!
But at the end of the day its not always about money, whether youre happy or not. Money was good for me but i missed all my family/friends down south and didnt like it in brum-land.
If i wasnt married i would have been keen to move to the US i think, did bottle it previously. Plus its always the way, my company asked if i could go to Denver in October but cant go due to family commitments, doh !!!
Well I just had a online video chat with the prospective employer. It seemed to go well, but towards the end run a little dry.
I really do not know if I did good or bad. I think what they really wanted to know was if my interests in the US were long term or not. They are after someone for the long haul which is obviously what I would do if I liked it their.
Well I just had a online video chat with the prospective employer. It seemed to go well, but towards the end run a little dry.
I really do not know if I did good or bad. I think what they really wanted to know was if my interests in the US were long term or not. They are after someone for the long haul which is obviously what I would do if I liked it their.
I assume you told them yes?...you can change your mind later etc.
Congrats Scottie if you said yes and youre going for it.
Isnt your missus pregnant ? Does that change anything ? I mean if she gives birth in the US then your kid is an american !
Well, she is giving birth in 2 weeks time. So it will be born in the UK. However, we will be going straight to the US embassy to register the baby's birth.
Mines due in 2 weeks, cant have her with a northern accent though ! Shall be getting her to read the Eastenders subtitles with me.
By the time i go down south she'll be eating jellied eels, playing the spoons and knowing Chas n Dave off by heart
That's the spirit! We watch a lot of British TV here so I am hoping my accent, which hasn't changed a lot yet (I think) and the British TV programs that some of it will help them have at least a touch of a Brit accent. In fact sometimes people here have thought that my wife was British too as she has picked up some of mine.
Forgot youre in the states, you ever see the Colts play ?
I did love going to the US, said before, it was when Austin Powers II had just come out, i really put on an over the top cockey accent and said bloody hell mate and lots of other silly phrases. The girls loved it there ! (Still got a fair few people saying 'are you australian' or even one person 'are you german ?' !)
Really enjoyed all my trips over there. I'm embarssed to say i got addicted to Taco Bell !
Forgot youre in the states, you ever see the Colts play ?
I did love going to the US, said before, it was when Austin Powers II had just come out, i really put on an over the top cockey accent and said bloody hell mate and lots of other silly phrases. The girls loved it there ! (Still got a fair few people saying 'are you australian' or even one person 'are you german ?' !)
Really enjoyed all my trips over there. I'm embarssed to say i got addicted to Taco Bell !
Not really a sports fan sorry! It is amazing how bad Americans are at determining accents. I mean, to mistake me for Irish is really unbelievable! I can't even do an Irish accent even if I tried.
I live in a real small town and there aren't many restaurant choices available. We have an Arctic Circle, a couple of Mexican places, Subway, Pizza and a Chinese. My favorite is the Thai restaurant but that is about an hour and 15 mins drive from here :cry:
Forgot youre in the states, you ever see the Colts play ?
On a technicality I could see them anytime they play at home, Indianapolis is only a 3 hour drive away, and since I'm at the arse end of Southern Indiana, if they happened to play somewhere other than Indy it'd take even less time to get there (unless they played in Gary IN, but something tells me that wouldn't happen incase somebody stole the team bus, or at least the wheels off it) :D
Quite enjoyed watching the Superbowl the year they won, at my wifes uncles house who's a huge fan, with beer and Nachos.
Not really a sports fan sorry! It is amazing how bad Americans are at determining accents. I mean, to mistake me for Irish is really unbelievable! I can't even do an Irish accent even if I tried.
I live in a real small town and there aren't many restaurant choices available. We have an Arctic Circle, a couple of Mexican places, Subway, Pizza and a Chinese. My favorite is the Thai restaurant but that is about an hour and 15 mins drive from here :cry:
Haha! All us Limeys must suffer the same fate, I've been Irish, Scottish, Australian, French, German, Austrian, and one old lady thought I was from Brooklyn? Brooklyn??? FFS!!!! :lol:
The Geordie accent sounds like a wiseguy now apparently? :lol:
....and as for the foods round here, well I've rambled in detail enough in other threads so lets just say, we have an alright selection, but once you've ate from them a few times they aren't alright anymore. I do like Subway, but I don't class it as real food since you can drive 15 mins down the road and find another one, just like KFC, BK, or Maccy D's.
EDIT: Might as well add Hardees/Carls Jnr, Wendy's, Sonic, Arby's, Rally's/Checkers, and Taco Bell to that list as well :D
Talking of emigation - i've just applied for my first passport! (at the age of 36!). I've decided to see more of the world before i get too old (plus i want to see someone who lives abroad). I've got to pay ?77.50 though!
I've just filled in the application form online.
Comments
The first time I went to the US (actually Portland, Oregon) there was one cab driver that thought my accent was Australian. I'm Scottish!
I blame Mel Gibson / Braveheart. :lol:
Thankfully I don't eat meat, so those hormones won't be bulking me up. Mind you I do drink milk, so I must try to stay organic.
I will not alter my eating habits in the USA. I've been to Golden Corrale and I know how easy it would be, but no.
It seems the cost of renting is going to be double what I pay here. :( How is the housing market in the USA, I thought it was bad? seems not?
It's because you're going to the west coast. The good news is the west coast is beautiful and a really nice place to live, good climate - not too hot or cold, beautiful mountains, huge trees, great coastlines.
Generally, anywhere with high property prices has high rents/property prices because they are desirable places to live which look nice, so people moving in naturally push the prices up, and to keep it looking nice, there is restraint on property development so demand tends to exceed supply.
You can't really generalise about the US property market. Even in boom times, for instance, housing in Houston in a nice area was pretty cheap. This is because basically Houston is nasty and polluted, and is an ugly place, so there's no restraint on building so supply exceeded demand even in the good times. You can get a huge 3700 sq ft McMansion for the price of a typical British 3 bed terraced house.
However, beautiful places like the west coast, the people living there want them to stay beautiful so you don't tend to get unrestrained development. I remember flying into Monterrey in California, and the difference to Texas was jarring - no "litter on a stick" sky signs lining the roads, it looked well kept, beautiful mountains, trees, and obviously rules on development so builders weren't allowed to make eyesores or rows and rows of identikit McMansions. Also the geography may play a part (mountainous areas) and the geology may play a part (susceptibility to earthquakes, means it's more expensive to build because the houses must not fall down in a typical earthquake).
I lived in Washington state when I was 16 for about a year and a half. My Dad moved to the states in 1990 when I was 16 with the intention of getting married. But he got the right Visa first! So I used to have permanent resident status back. I remember going to the US Embassy in London to get that fixed back then. But I only stayed a year and a half and then moved back to the UK. I never expected to move back.
Anyway, I got stopped at some US airport (can't remember which one). They took me aside and started flicking through my passport while eying me suspiciously. In the end the guy asked me if I was in the military because I had a stamp in there that means you can travel to the states and work for your government or something (I used to work for the MOD and we did work in the Bahamas using US facilities). After that he decided to let me through. My passport was also stamped to death from the time when my mate and I did the backpacking thing around Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. I'm sure that didn't help.
But you would think that with my Dad living in the states for the past 13 years, with me living here before as a permanent resident and with my wife being American it would have been easy. It wasn't, US immigration is a total nightmare to work with. I remember that whenever I called their number with questions about stuff there would be a massive confusing multi choice phone system and when you actually got a real person they usually had a really heavy hispanic accent and were very hard to understand. I could speak better English than them! Anyway, they didn't kick me out and after about 3 or 4 years I got my 10 year permanent resident card. Don't let me put you off though maybe I was just unlucky and things are better now.
Oh and by the way my accent is quite often mistaken for Australian and once even Irish!!! I am from Southern England by the way. Next time somebody asks if I am an Ozzie I am going to go along with it and start talking about crocs and boomerangs.
When I moved here I managed to stick everything I wanted to keep in my luggage. I didn't really have a lot of stuff though. I did have to sell/give away some stuff but it was really essential. I sold my desktop PC and bought a laptop to take over. I didn't have any actual Speccy hardware but I think that in my mates attic there are some original Speccy games (the Ultimate Collection being one of them). When I go back for a vacation I am going to investigate (hope he hasn't sold them).
Always thought the US was pretty cheap for renting. Granted on the west coast its dear (But thats why you get better paid jobs there, equivalent of London). The people i met in Atlanta lived in an amazing apartment and back then the rent was pretty cheap.
I mean where you live (Wales i presume) the rent will be far far cheaper than say the south of England (Like California compared to Texas).
I rented my 1 bedroom flat in Berkshire out for 650 a month (This was 9 years ago) and then rented a nice 3 bedroom house in Nuneaton for 400 a month (But granted it was Nuneaton !)
But i got more money when i worked down south then when i moved to the Midlands so swings and roundabouts etc.
You know every time we camp out there is a small part of me that is hoping see something interesting! Not yet though:cry:
Thought the Yeti was Tibet?...here it's the Sasquatch or bigfoot....
Aye depends where you live ...Texas is dirt cheap. Have a friend in Cali paying $1500 a month for a one bed apartment and he thinks it's a steal :/ You could get a 5 bedroom house with pool for that here in Texas
A rose by any other name would smell as BAD as they do, they don't believe in polluting the atmosphere with CFCs in deoderent sprays.
Surely the wages must be decent on the west coast though. I remember miss ex america, when i told her how much i earnt she was shocked, kept saying 'thats a good salary!' and thats when i was working in London getting paid a fair bit.
For a customer service operator at a large phone company in San Fran she was getting paid a really good whack.
It's better yes but does not 'equal' out...(I think)
I worked at Ingram Micro for 6 weeks in Santa Ana Ca. a few years ago and everyone I worked with 'house shared' because they could not really afford their own place etc.
One guy had just bought a beach house for 180k and was over the moon saying they usually go for 500k etc....he took us to see it...it was not much bigger than a 2 car garage...seriously.
Maybe the suburbs are better...ZXBruno lives there so he might chip in if he visits this thread.
EDIT: As I've said before I got a 3 bed house on 6 acres here for $110k. (till the divorce of course!)
EDIT: When HP 'merged' with Compaq they moved quite a few of the Palo Alto people to Houston and allowed them to keep their current salary...they went from living in 2 bed small homes to palatial homes with pools and land etc....they were very pleased with their lifestyle change.
Can imagine ! I was lucky as when i left my London job a company matched that salary and that was in the midlands so suddenly i felt like some rich bloke!
But at the end of the day its not always about money, whether youre happy or not. Money was good for me but i missed all my family/friends down south and didnt like it in brum-land.
If i wasnt married i would have been keen to move to the US i think, did bottle it previously. Plus its always the way, my company asked if i could go to Denver in October but cant go due to family commitments, doh !!!
I really do not know if I did good or bad. I think what they really wanted to know was if my interests in the US were long term or not. They are after someone for the long haul which is obviously what I would do if I liked it their.
I assume you told them yes?...you can change your mind later etc.
Of course.
Cardiff
Hmmmm......
This proves that you have not read the entire thread. :razz:
guilty as charged.
EDIT: I did now though and I had seen your first post...guess I forgot though...old age etc :)
Isnt your missus pregnant ? Does that change anything ? I mean if she gives birth in the US then your kid is an american !
Both of mine are. Although I will make sure they know about England and their English roots.
Well, she is giving birth in 2 weeks time. So it will be born in the UK. However, we will be going straight to the US embassy to register the baby's birth.
Mines due in 2 weeks, cant have her with a northern accent though ! Shall be getting her to read the Eastenders subtitles with me.
By the time i go down south she'll be eating jellied eels, playing the spoons and knowing Chas n Dave off by heart
That's the spirit! We watch a lot of British TV here so I am hoping my accent, which hasn't changed a lot yet (I think) and the British TV programs that some of it will help them have at least a touch of a Brit accent. In fact sometimes people here have thought that my wife was British too as she has picked up some of mine.
I did love going to the US, said before, it was when Austin Powers II had just come out, i really put on an over the top cockey accent and said bloody hell mate and lots of other silly phrases. The girls loved it there ! (Still got a fair few people saying 'are you australian' or even one person 'are you german ?' !)
Really enjoyed all my trips over there. I'm embarssed to say i got addicted to Taco Bell !
Not really a sports fan sorry! It is amazing how bad Americans are at determining accents. I mean, to mistake me for Irish is really unbelievable! I can't even do an Irish accent even if I tried.
I live in a real small town and there aren't many restaurant choices available. We have an Arctic Circle, a couple of Mexican places, Subway, Pizza and a Chinese. My favorite is the Thai restaurant but that is about an hour and 15 mins drive from here :cry:
On a technicality I could see them anytime they play at home, Indianapolis is only a 3 hour drive away, and since I'm at the arse end of Southern Indiana, if they happened to play somewhere other than Indy it'd take even less time to get there (unless they played in Gary IN, but something tells me that wouldn't happen incase somebody stole the team bus, or at least the wheels off it) :D
Quite enjoyed watching the Superbowl the year they won, at my wifes uncles house who's a huge fan, with beer and Nachos.
Nothing else would do ;)
Still prefer REAL footy though :p
Haha! All us Limeys must suffer the same fate, I've been Irish, Scottish, Australian, French, German, Austrian, and one old lady thought I was from Brooklyn? Brooklyn??? FFS!!!! :lol:
The Geordie accent sounds like a wiseguy now apparently? :lol:
....and as for the foods round here, well I've rambled in detail enough in other threads so lets just say, we have an alright selection, but once you've ate from them a few times they aren't alright anymore. I do like Subway, but I don't class it as real food since you can drive 15 mins down the road and find another one, just like KFC, BK, or Maccy D's.
EDIT: Might as well add Hardees/Carls Jnr, Wendy's, Sonic, Arby's, Rally's/Checkers, and Taco Bell to that list as well :D
PSJ dad in two weeks.
Scottie_UK dad in two weeks.
Right folks place your bets who's comes first. :lol:
I've just filled in the application form online.