If you can rent in the right school area and eventually buy there, if you decide to settle here...I might do that. If you know for certain that you won't be staying beyond the four years, then I wouldn't buy because you may not make a profit and you will have sellers costs.
Your house in the UK will appreciate in value more...I would think, but who knows. You can only really base your decision on your circumstances and what you know about your UK property.

On the other hand if you are the sort of person who likes to nest build then renting may be frustrating. You may not be able to do what you want with a house and that may make you feel less at home here and less able to settle. Four years is quite a long time to live in a property you don't like.

How right you are. You usually can't even decorate or cosmetically rearrange rented accommodation, can you? I want to feel at home as possible, so my daughter feels at ease, but when the 4 years is up, then we could have problems. Ahh, why isn't life more straight forward??

It depends on who you rent from. Many allow cosmetic changes, just so the place is returned to a base color (i.e. white) when done, which means probably 2 coats of paint (to cover any colors).

I've painted rentals, stripped up old vinyl floors and replaced them, redone bathroom fixtures. Landlord didn't care--was happy for me to do it.

Don't worry about sarcasm here...Americans generally don't do sarcasm.

My daughter was 11 when we moved...she adjusted very well and wasn't picked on at all by the other children. Quite the opposite in fact.

I would recommend you keep your house in the UK at least for the foreseeable future. We kept ours empty for 2 years...when we decided to make the move more permanent we sold it. The reasons for selling were: 1. It had been empty for 2 yrs and various jobs were starting to need attention. 2. My in-laws had been visiting weekly to make sure everything was in order...my FIL had an heart attack so we though it wasn't fair to burden them with our house. 3. I found it very difficult to put down roots here and desperately wanted to go home...I decided to cut ties to the UK. While we had the house there it was my 'home'...the rented property we were in wasn't. 4. I was worried about squatters as all the locals knew the house was empty.

Well that's certainly good to know. Did these places ever feel like home?

Jerseygirl, do i remember from an earlier post that once you sold, you really wished you hadn't? And once you moved into your "own property", did you finally feel as if you were home?

Also remember that US homes tend not to last as long as UK homes. There are people at my work who are complaining that their houses are 20 years old and unsellable. In the are I work (Downers Grove) many houses of that age are torn down and replaced

I still rent, I like the ease of once a year deciding where I want to live next (certainly the easiest way of changing you cash flow is to move somewhere $500 a month cheaper)

Houses down South are so incredibly cheap, I'm just saving my money and will buy a Condo down there somewhere (not tooo close to the Gulf)

That's correct that. The reason I wish we hadn't sold is because of the rising house prices in the UK. On the other had it did help me feel a little more settled...after the sale I didn't go back to the UK for 6 1/2 yrs. Even now I feel torn between the two countries...I miss the UK but I know if I went back there permanently I would miss the US.

BTW I just heard on TV Chicago has on average 90 days below freezing temps.

If you keep your house in the UK for several years and then sell, do you get caught with capital gains tax, either here or in the UK?
I have never been able to work that one out.

Yes you do...we sold before the cut off date although we didn't realise it at the time.

Our UK house was too difficult to rent out and I wouldn't have been happy to do that anyway but it was too expensive to keep. I wish, when we sold it, that we had bought a small place in the UK and a less expensive house here. Somewhere to bolt home to, if the need arises.

But then I would have resented paying capital gains if we end up staying here.

I couldn't bring myself to rent out my 'home' to strangers. We want to buy in the UK now but should we wait for prices to fall or the exchange rate to improve...that's the $64M question.

Capital gains doesn't bother us at this point because we would be looking to sell anytime soon.

I won't kid you--it is tough to make a new place 'home' because you always compare and things feel 'odd' for awhile. A lot of it is mindset. For me, I found I really had to clean a place to my standards (I am a neat freak sort of, cluttered is fine, but things like mold and other visibly unclean things really annoy me). Basically, if it's my filth, I don't mind. But living with other people's filth was a bit gross.

Things I've done in rentals:

*Painted the walls ($20 a gallon, tops. Took about 4 gallons for the whole place--small apt.).
*Replaced the toilet seat ($20 at Home Depot)
*Stripped and replaced all bathroom caulk ($40 at Home Depot)
*Stripped bathroom and kitchen floors which were vinyl, put down new floors (vinyl) ($1-2 sq foot for cheap stick on vinyl).
*Replaced the shower head ($10)
*Contact paper in all the kitchen cabinets.
*Thoroughly recleaned the fridge.
*I was going to replace a disgusting carpet with a new carpet, which would have cost a bit, but when I ripped it up I was pleased to find a nice hardwood floor beneath. I shined and waxed it up and it was fine.
*Bleached and disinfected the tubs. Americans are far more 'shower' people than 'bath' people so I've never really felt that comfortable in the tub until I really nuked it clean.

When I had the place clean enough that I could walk around barefoot and not feel gross, it started to feel a bit more like home. (And before you all think I'm an anal, constantly-cleaning, psycho who just sits in front of his computer all day, I should note I have a cleanning lady who handles the cleaning now--the rest may or may not be true

I'm also more of a 'professional expat'. Since 2000 I've lived in New York, Washington, London, Moscow, Hong Kong, and now out in the boonies. Some of those places felt like home, some didn't. A lot of it was down to home much I brought from home. I'd say 'I want to watch this DVD tonight' but then remember it was back in London or something. Took away from the home factor.

I don't think you should sell your UK place right off the bat, but if you do decide to make the move permanent, you will likely have to 'burn that bridge' and dive in 100%. Cutting that tie can force you to live with what you have instead of longingly look back all wispy....