LOL! Yes, I've been doing way to much of that on Rightmove lately... on work time too

For anyone returning to the Uk just a couple of observations. If you are looking for a house please don't just buy it because it is cheap. There are so many factors as to why the prices are lower. Take a look at www.upmystreet.co.uk and this gives you more info on the areas. Take the postcode of somewhere you like, put it in and see what you come up with. We were given some advice regards buying homes. Better to get a smaller place in a decent area costing more than a cheaper house in a rotten area. Believe me it is so true. Much easier when it comes to selling again as buyers her are so picky, trust me I am in the process of selling in Essex!

This applies EVERYWHERE in the world.

G

Really I won't know what kind of house I can afford until I get there, as I have no idea how much equity we have in our house here. An identical house up the street is up for sale for $199,000 and we only paid $80,000 for ours. However, that house is in the county and ours is in the city which makes a huge difference. Makes it hard to tell. Of course I would ideally live in a nice area, but if things don't work out as planned I'm open to buying a cheap house because I can't keep my wife and kids crammed into my parents' house forever. However, I am getting pretty scared of Milton Keynes the more a read about it! Was just reading on a news site earlier about a Somali family moving onto the Lakes estate and having all their windows smashed with rocks in the middle of the night.

I have just been looking at Luton again. Does anyone have any idea what Luton is like? There are some nice houses that don't appear to be on ex-council estates starting around the 120K mark. Even some semis. This one looks beautiful inside...
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetai...a_n=3&tr_t=buy

Best look at surrounding area's like Houghton Regis and Dunstable. I lived in Dunstable before moveing over here in 02, Luton well how shall I put this!!! over run with Moslem's, sorry to say it that way.

Yeah, I got that impression from the town web site that says it is very "multi-cultural". Some of the houses I found are in Dunstable. Is there a big contrast between Dunstable and Luton?

I think I need to take a break from Rightmove now... I'm giving myself a headache!

Oh yes very much so, PM me if you would like to know more

I've been to upmystreet before it's a cool site as well.

Carey

Is Hendon by Luton? I've seen some good housing in the Hendon area as well. I know there is a group of guys called the Hendon Mob that are sponsored by a big online poker site that i play for that are from Hendon. I think it's Northeast of London. They are some awesome poker players!!!

Carey

No - Hendon is in the Borough of Barnet, just to the North West of London, but it is easy to get to Essex via the A406 North Circular Road, then you can take the A11 or A12 trunk roads...or you can get to Essex from Hendon on the M25 London Orbital motorway a little further out. Here's a map and if you click on Barnet you can see lots of info on Hendon etc:

http://www.londontown.com/LondonStreets

Thanks hun!!

Carey

p.s. after i asked i did remember that it was northwest of london..lol

We sold our house too and now we have to go back have the same problem you speak of thats my biggest regret actually and the one thing in all of this I'd do differently

You could always home educate him, more and more people do and you meet some lovely people. West Suffolk college do a distance learning programme for under 16s at GCSE level as do other places, just another option cos its liberating to have choices (or is it? if you have no choice you can't do the wrong thing and then you don't spend your life going should we/shouldnt we
)

Yeh, too many choices can drive you up the wall!!!

Thanks for the advice re schooling. In our case, we would definitely send him to school - I think he would make more friends that way, which hopefully would help him to integrate quicker.

Does anybody out there have any experience of taking teenagers back to the UK? If so, how did things go?

BAZ!!