Moving Back to UK Lessons Learned
Dec 1st 2019, 2:53 pm
#1
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Joined: Jan 2017
Posts: 21
Moving Back to UK Lessons Learned
In January it will be two years since my wife and I moved back to the UK. I wanted to share some feedback on lessons we have learned. Sorry if any of these comments appear obvious.
A big issue for us was figuring out how to manage our mail from the US to the UK. One of the best decisions we made was calling in advance (we were able to do this by phone and email) to establish a PO Box in the UK to forward our mail. We used a local MBE (Mail Boxes Etc) in Newcastle and kept this account for 6 months until all our address changes had been made. Not only was this PO Box useful for our mail but since the address format used by MBE doesn't look like a PO Box we could use this address for establishing our bank account and even as an address to obtain our first rental.
Establish a bank account in the UK as soon as you arrive. I couldn't find anyway to create an account before we moved over. We went with Nationwide Building Society. They have branches in most major cities and provide a variety of additional services with their Flexplus account like Overseas Travel (very helpful) and Mobile Phone Insurance. They also have a credit card. It took us 6 months to obtain our first department store credit card.
We decided to move to Newcastle for a variety of reasons. 1) Outstanding public transportation services. I think apart from London they have the best bus service in the UK and even have their own extensive metro service (tube or subway). We went for our first year without owning a car and could still do so today if needed. 2) Newcastle is a good sized city and though challenging at times is very active with respect to pubs, shops, museums, colleges. Plenty of things to do and keep our minds engaged. Both my wife and I are taking local classes (Spanish and Art) at Newcastle City Learning Center. These classes are well run and are subsidized by the local authority. 3) House prices in the North are also much cheaper that in the South. After taking a while to figure out how the housing market worked over here we ended up buying a 4 bedroom house for 175k. We like in Kenton which is a 10 to 15 minute drive and bus journey into downtown Newcastle. I figure house prices easily double further South, In areas about an hour North of London like Hertford, Cambridge shire they triple and in London quadruple. Don't let your southern friends scare you into thinking the North of England is still full of coal mines and shipyards. The working class mindset still exists so there tends to be an honestly and straight forwardness to the people here but everyone is generally very friendly and the country side is beautiful. Sales pitch finished
As mentioned the housing market took us a while to figure out. Overall prices have started to slow down. Some put this the Brexit or maybe prices have reached their peak for now. We used the Rightmove website to view houses in the local area. One feature that was most useful was the ability to filter for any new properties coming on the market. In my opinion I found there were actually two housing markets running in parallel. Some places tend to stay on the market for a while. Maybe because of price, location or condition. When you look at the windows of the local real estate agents you see these places. But going on behind the scenes is a flurry of activity related the any new places that are coming on the market. We would watch the Rightmove site everyday to look for any new properties coming on the market. Many times an offer would be put in before real estate agent had a chance to put up a sign to advertise the property. For our house, the property came on the market on Wednesday, we viewed it on Friday and put in an offer the same day. The owners wanted to keep the viewing active over the weekend and buy this time 2 more offers had come in. We were fortunate to find out we were successful the following Monday. I will admit that by this time we had identified a small area in Kenton where we wanted to live based feel, shops and bus routes. We had probably viewed 25 to 30 properties and had seen probably hundreds on line. One other aspect of the UK housing market. Even though Rightmove allows you to see virtually all properties on-line they can only be viewed by making arrangement with the acting real estate agent. The process is a little different that in the US. In the US you only need to have one real estate agent acting on your behalf due to the MLS (Multiple Listing Service). In the UK there may be 20 real estate agents in your viewing area and they all have their own listings. So if you sign up with agent A you can't view Agent Bs homes. We probably ended up signing up with 6 to 8 agents before our search was complete. If took us a year to establish credit to get a very good loan. We hire a local mortgage consultant. A very good investment. Since agents in the UK only represent the seller make sure you get any required building surveys done of the property and build a good relationship with the solicitor to make sure the title and environmental surveys are done to your satisfaction. Some information you get on-line beforehand free like local flood and mining reports.
One last item. When we sent in our visa application we had paid to expedite. It took longer that we had anticipated and our visa consultant caught that our package had not been expedite. After we received approval our consultant wrote to the visa office and we received a full refund of our expedite fee.
Best of luck with your visa application and new journey to the UK.
David
A big issue for us was figuring out how to manage our mail from the US to the UK. One of the best decisions we made was calling in advance (we were able to do this by phone and email) to establish a PO Box in the UK to forward our mail. We used a local MBE (Mail Boxes Etc) in Newcastle and kept this account for 6 months until all our address changes had been made. Not only was this PO Box useful for our mail but since the address format used by MBE doesn't look like a PO Box we could use this address for establishing our bank account and even as an address to obtain our first rental.
Establish a bank account in the UK as soon as you arrive. I couldn't find anyway to create an account before we moved over. We went with Nationwide Building Society. They have branches in most major cities and provide a variety of additional services with their Flexplus account like Overseas Travel (very helpful) and Mobile Phone Insurance. They also have a credit card. It took us 6 months to obtain our first department store credit card.
We decided to move to Newcastle for a variety of reasons. 1) Outstanding public transportation services. I think apart from London they have the best bus service in the UK and even have their own extensive metro service (tube or subway). We went for our first year without owning a car and could still do so today if needed. 2) Newcastle is a good sized city and though challenging at times is very active with respect to pubs, shops, museums, colleges. Plenty of things to do and keep our minds engaged. Both my wife and I are taking local classes (Spanish and Art) at Newcastle City Learning Center. These classes are well run and are subsidized by the local authority. 3) House prices in the North are also much cheaper that in the South. After taking a while to figure out how the housing market worked over here we ended up buying a 4 bedroom house for 175k. We like in Kenton which is a 10 to 15 minute drive and bus journey into downtown Newcastle. I figure house prices easily double further South, In areas about an hour North of London like Hertford, Cambridge shire they triple and in London quadruple. Don't let your southern friends scare you into thinking the North of England is still full of coal mines and shipyards. The working class mindset still exists so there tends to be an honestly and straight forwardness to the people here but everyone is generally very friendly and the country side is beautiful. Sales pitch finished
As mentioned the housing market took us a while to figure out. Overall prices have started to slow down. Some put this the Brexit or maybe prices have reached their peak for now. We used the Rightmove website to view houses in the local area. One feature that was most useful was the ability to filter for any new properties coming on the market. In my opinion I found there were actually two housing markets running in parallel. Some places tend to stay on the market for a while. Maybe because of price, location or condition. When you look at the windows of the local real estate agents you see these places. But going on behind the scenes is a flurry of activity related the any new places that are coming on the market. We would watch the Rightmove site everyday to look for any new properties coming on the market. Many times an offer would be put in before real estate agent had a chance to put up a sign to advertise the property. For our house, the property came on the market on Wednesday, we viewed it on Friday and put in an offer the same day. The owners wanted to keep the viewing active over the weekend and buy this time 2 more offers had come in. We were fortunate to find out we were successful the following Monday. I will admit that by this time we had identified a small area in Kenton where we wanted to live based feel, shops and bus routes. We had probably viewed 25 to 30 properties and had seen probably hundreds on line. One other aspect of the UK housing market. Even though Rightmove allows you to see virtually all properties on-line they can only be viewed by making arrangement with the acting real estate agent. The process is a little different that in the US. In the US you only need to have one real estate agent acting on your behalf due to the MLS (Multiple Listing Service). In the UK there may be 20 real estate agents in your viewing area and they all have their own listings. So if you sign up with agent A you can't view Agent Bs homes. We probably ended up signing up with 6 to 8 agents before our search was complete. If took us a year to establish credit to get a very good loan. We hire a local mortgage consultant. A very good investment. Since agents in the UK only represent the seller make sure you get any required building surveys done of the property and build a good relationship with the solicitor to make sure the title and environmental surveys are done to your satisfaction. Some information you get on-line beforehand free like local flood and mining reports.
One last item. When we sent in our visa application we had paid to expedite. It took longer that we had anticipated and our visa consultant caught that our package had not been expedite. After we received approval our consultant wrote to the visa office and we received a full refund of our expedite fee.
Best of luck with your visa application and new journey to the UK.
David
Dec 1st 2019, 3:03 pm
#2
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Joined: Jan 2013
Location: Western Australia
Posts: 21,139
Re: Moving Back to UK Lessons Learned
Thanks for a great update David, lots of very useful information there for people in a similar position. I hope that living in the UK continues to be everything you wish it to be 
Dec 1st 2019, 5:37 pm
#3
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Joined: Jan 2017
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Re: Moving Back to UK Lessons Learned
Thanks for your comments. In a sense we are UK ping-pongers. This is my third time back to the UK. We were here is the 80s during an important time politically and now with so many important questions for the country to resolve. Its fun this time living in the North. Almost like living in a different country.
Dec 1st 2019, 6:18 pm
#4
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Nov 2013
Posts: 6,313
Re: Moving Back to UK Lessons Learned
Thanks for your comments. In a sense we are UK ping-pongers. This is my third time back to the UK. We were here is the 80s during an important time politically and now with so many important questions for the country to resolve. Its fun this time living in the North. Almost like living in a different country.
Had to smile at your last comment Dallwright....As a Northerner I would agree..It is a different country
!! Good for you for giving Newcastle a chance to show you what's its got to offer. Today thats a much more comfortable and affordable lifestyle than London.I moved from Southport ( north west coast) in 1983 to the Netherlands Had a beautiful, modern 4 bed Georgian style house in Southport.Then a 4 bed beautiful Dutch farmhouse in NL. Now a gorgeous 4 bed villa in Portugal. I am always shocked on programmes like 'Escape to the country ' (which seems to specialise only in the southern counties ) in how very little people get for their money in the south .How often the houses are described as 'characterful' which should read 'run down' How pokey the bedrooms are ,and miserly the living spaces. Factory chimneys.cobbles, clogs and shawls have long disappeared from the North.Its now known for its national parks , hills and lakes ,beautiful countryside .. The stuff it always had before the Industrial revolution
Dec 5th 2019, 9:12 pm
#5
Forum Regular
Joined: Aug 2019
Posts: 44
Re: Moving Back to UK Lessons Learned
In January it will be two years since my wife and I moved back to the UK. I wanted to share some feedback on lessons we have learned. Sorry if any of these comments appear obvious.
A big issue for us was figuring out how to manage our mail from the US to the UK. One of the best decisions we made was calling in advance (we were able to do this by phone and email) to establish a PO Box in the UK to forward our mail. We used a local MBE (Mail Boxes Etc) in Newcastle and kept this account for 6 months until all our address changes had been made. Not only was this PO Box useful for our mail but since the address format used by MBE doesn't look like a PO Box we could use this address for establishing our bank account and even as an address to obtain our first rental.
Establish a bank account in the UK as soon as you arrive. I couldn't find anyway to create an account before we moved over. We went with Nationwide Building Society. They have branches in most major cities and provide a variety of additional services with their Flexplus account like Overseas Travel (very helpful) and Mobile Phone Insurance. They also have a credit card. It took us 6 months to obtain our first department store credit card.
We decided to move to Newcastle for a variety of reasons. 1) Outstanding public transportation services. I think apart from London they have the best bus service in the UK and even have their own extensive metro service (tube or subway). We went for our first year without owning a car and could still do so today if needed. 2) Newcastle is a good sized city and though challenging at times is very active with respect to pubs, shops, museums, colleges. Plenty of things to do and keep our minds engaged. Both my wife and I are taking local classes (Spanish and Art) at Newcastle City Learning Center. These classes are well run and are subsidized by the local authority. 3) House prices in the North are also much cheaper that in the South. After taking a while to figure out how the housing market worked over here we ended up buying a 4 bedroom house for 175k. We like in Kenton which is a 10 to 15 minute drive and bus journey into downtown Newcastle. I figure house prices easily double further South, In areas about an hour North of London like Hertford, Cambridge shire they triple and in London quadruple. Don't let your southern friends scare you into thinking the North of England is still full of coal mines and shipyards. The working class mindset still exists so there tends to be an honestly and straight forwardness to the people here but everyone is generally very friendly and the country side is beautiful. Sales pitch finished
As mentioned the housing market took us a while to figure out. Overall prices have started to slow down. Some put this the Brexit or maybe prices have reached their peak for now. We used the Rightmove website to view houses in the local area. One feature that was most useful was the ability to filter for any new properties coming on the market. In my opinion I found there were actually two housing markets running in parallel. Some places tend to stay on the market for a while. Maybe because of price, location or condition. When you look at the windows of the local real estate agents you see these places. But going on behind the scenes is a flurry of activity related the any new places that are coming on the market. We would watch the Rightmove site everyday to look for any new properties coming on the market. Many times an offer would be put in before real estate agent had a chance to put up a sign to advertise the property. For our house, the property came on the market on Wednesday, we viewed it on Friday and put in an offer the same day. The owners wanted to keep the viewing active over the weekend and buy this time 2 more offers had come in. We were fortunate to find out we were successful the following Monday. I will admit that by this time we had identified a small area in Kenton where we wanted to live based feel, shops and bus routes. We had probably viewed 25 to 30 properties and had seen probably hundreds on line. One other aspect of the UK housing market. Even though Rightmove allows you to see virtually all properties on-line they can only be viewed by making arrangement with the acting real estate agent. The process is a little different that in the US. In the US you only need to have one real estate agent acting on your behalf due to the MLS (Multiple Listing Service). In the UK there may be 20 real estate agents in your viewing area and they all have their own listings. So if you sign up with agent A you can't view Agent Bs homes. We probably ended up signing up with 6 to 8 agents before our search was complete. If took us a year to establish credit to get a very good loan. We hire a local mortgage consultant. A very good investment. Since agents in the UK only represent the seller make sure you get any required building surveys done of the property and build a good relationship with the solicitor to make sure the title and environmental surveys are done to your satisfaction. Some information you get on-line beforehand free like local flood and mining reports.
One last item. When we sent in our visa application we had paid to expedite. It took longer that we had anticipated and our visa consultant caught that our package had not been expedite. After we received approval our consultant wrote to the visa office and we received a full refund of our expedite fee.
Best of luck with your visa application and new journey to the UK.
David
A big issue for us was figuring out how to manage our mail from the US to the UK. One of the best decisions we made was calling in advance (we were able to do this by phone and email) to establish a PO Box in the UK to forward our mail. We used a local MBE (Mail Boxes Etc) in Newcastle and kept this account for 6 months until all our address changes had been made. Not only was this PO Box useful for our mail but since the address format used by MBE doesn't look like a PO Box we could use this address for establishing our bank account and even as an address to obtain our first rental.
Establish a bank account in the UK as soon as you arrive. I couldn't find anyway to create an account before we moved over. We went with Nationwide Building Society. They have branches in most major cities and provide a variety of additional services with their Flexplus account like Overseas Travel (very helpful) and Mobile Phone Insurance. They also have a credit card. It took us 6 months to obtain our first department store credit card.
We decided to move to Newcastle for a variety of reasons. 1) Outstanding public transportation services. I think apart from London they have the best bus service in the UK and even have their own extensive metro service (tube or subway). We went for our first year without owning a car and could still do so today if needed. 2) Newcastle is a good sized city and though challenging at times is very active with respect to pubs, shops, museums, colleges. Plenty of things to do and keep our minds engaged. Both my wife and I are taking local classes (Spanish and Art) at Newcastle City Learning Center. These classes are well run and are subsidized by the local authority. 3) House prices in the North are also much cheaper that in the South. After taking a while to figure out how the housing market worked over here we ended up buying a 4 bedroom house for 175k. We like in Kenton which is a 10 to 15 minute drive and bus journey into downtown Newcastle. I figure house prices easily double further South, In areas about an hour North of London like Hertford, Cambridge shire they triple and in London quadruple. Don't let your southern friends scare you into thinking the North of England is still full of coal mines and shipyards. The working class mindset still exists so there tends to be an honestly and straight forwardness to the people here but everyone is generally very friendly and the country side is beautiful. Sales pitch finished
As mentioned the housing market took us a while to figure out. Overall prices have started to slow down. Some put this the Brexit or maybe prices have reached their peak for now. We used the Rightmove website to view houses in the local area. One feature that was most useful was the ability to filter for any new properties coming on the market. In my opinion I found there were actually two housing markets running in parallel. Some places tend to stay on the market for a while. Maybe because of price, location or condition. When you look at the windows of the local real estate agents you see these places. But going on behind the scenes is a flurry of activity related the any new places that are coming on the market. We would watch the Rightmove site everyday to look for any new properties coming on the market. Many times an offer would be put in before real estate agent had a chance to put up a sign to advertise the property. For our house, the property came on the market on Wednesday, we viewed it on Friday and put in an offer the same day. The owners wanted to keep the viewing active over the weekend and buy this time 2 more offers had come in. We were fortunate to find out we were successful the following Monday. I will admit that by this time we had identified a small area in Kenton where we wanted to live based feel, shops and bus routes. We had probably viewed 25 to 30 properties and had seen probably hundreds on line. One other aspect of the UK housing market. Even though Rightmove allows you to see virtually all properties on-line they can only be viewed by making arrangement with the acting real estate agent. The process is a little different that in the US. In the US you only need to have one real estate agent acting on your behalf due to the MLS (Multiple Listing Service). In the UK there may be 20 real estate agents in your viewing area and they all have their own listings. So if you sign up with agent A you can't view Agent Bs homes. We probably ended up signing up with 6 to 8 agents before our search was complete. If took us a year to establish credit to get a very good loan. We hire a local mortgage consultant. A very good investment. Since agents in the UK only represent the seller make sure you get any required building surveys done of the property and build a good relationship with the solicitor to make sure the title and environmental surveys are done to your satisfaction. Some information you get on-line beforehand free like local flood and mining reports.
One last item. When we sent in our visa application we had paid to expedite. It took longer that we had anticipated and our visa consultant caught that our package had not been expedite. After we received approval our consultant wrote to the visa office and we received a full refund of our expedite fee.
Best of luck with your visa application and new journey to the UK.
David
Dec 16th 2019, 1:20 pm
#6
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Thread Starter
Joined: Jan 2017
Posts: 21
Re: Moving Back to UK Lessons Learned
You will probably need to see how their actual addresses are configured. Our MBE address looked fairly normal. The full address we had with them was Suite 91, 58 Low Friar Street, Newcastle, NE1 5UD. I was not aware of the Virtual address option at the time we signed up. We used this address with our banks in the US to forward mail and then when we arrived it was accepted by Nationwide. We also used this address with the rental agency for our first rental. I know in the US, Postal Box addresses are not accepted by most institutions and frankly I was surprised by how nicely this arrangement worked. When we arrived in the UK we stayed in a hotel for the first 10 days. I know we could have also used the hotel address for some mail but don't think this would have been enough for the bank and rental agency. It would be interesting to find out what arrangements other folks in the same situation used. We ended up staying with MBE for about a year and even now go back occasionally. In Newcastle the MBE keeps very busy shipping items for the major auction houses in the area.
Dec 17th 2019, 7:08 pm
#7
Forum Regular
Joined: Aug 2019
Posts: 44
Re: Moving Back to UK Lessons Learned
You will probably need to see how their actual addresses are configured. Our MBE address looked fairly normal. The full address we had with them was Suite 91, 58 Low Friar Street, Newcastle, NE1 5UD. I was not aware of the Virtual address option at the time we signed up. We used this address with our banks in the US to forward mail and then when we arrived it was accepted by Nationwide. We also used this address with the rental agency for our first rental. I know in the US, Postal Box addresses are not accepted by most institutions and frankly I was surprised by how nicely this arrangement worked. When we arrived in the UK we stayed in a hotel for the first 10 days. I know we could have also used the hotel address for some mail but don't think this would have been enough for the bank and rental agency. It would be interesting to find out what arrangements other folks in the same situation used. We ended up staying with MBE for about a year and even now go back occasionally. In Newcastle the MBE keeps very busy shipping items for the major auction houses in the area.
