crisisfan

Hello everyone,

Although I have been a member for a little while, this is is my first post. The good news is that after a couple of years of trying I finally have the job offer from a US employer who will start the paper work for the H-1B visa next year (it's for a university so it is cap-exempt, I believe). I cannot think why there would be a problem but I won't quite believe it until I have the visa.

I would like to ask the advice of the forums about looking for housing from the UK. I will ultimately be moving to Oregon (Corvallis area) and I would like to know the best way to look for somewhere to live (renting). I would welcome any advice.

Thanks.

Philk

I used the internet ( Craigslist, Zillow, Padmapper ) and then got people from the company I was going to be working for go along to look at the place and make sure it wasn't a total dive.

I also got them to pay the deposit and I'd made contact with the landlord by email and got a relationship started so they knew I was from England and that things might be a pain ( reference checking )

Turned out OK, it wasn't the greatest house but did us for a year til we got our feet and could look around for ourselves - and now we have our own home

Bob

Stay in a motel for a couple of weeks?

Would give you time to go check out some areas for yourself. Get opinions from people you'll be working with, ask relevant people though because someone with a family will have a different opinion of nice to someone without a family etc.

You can get some idea by trawling around padmapper, zillow and google street view and also city-data.com to see what the area is like.

Want to be wary about paying up front without seeing the place, especially with craigslist as there are plenty of scams on that, but it's still a good way to find a private rental which might be more forgiving of your lack of US credit history.

robin1234

The university where I worked was great for informal networking for rentals for new employees etc. There's an employee "needs and offers" listserv, where people sell, give away, post stuff they need, and department heads and secretaries posting "visiting faculty member needs two bedroom apartment" and the like is very common. Between a couple of hundred employees, and their friends and relatives, a lot of very good private rentals emerge from the woodwork.

So when it's closer to the time, strike up a relationship with the department secretary, or other future colleagues, and they might well come up with good options ...