Wells Fargo arranged it all. They knew we had a house to sell and they knew the value of it. We came over in June 2005 to have a look at property and Wells Fargo had preapproved us for a mortgage. They had liased with OH's company and the relocation agent and knew his salary etc. BUT...we did deal with a dept at Wells Fargo that seemed only to work with expats.

The realtor worked closly with the Wells fargo mortgage man.
Our deposit was about a third of the house price and our mortgage interest rate is 5%.
Our offer was accepted on our house before we flew home and we had paid something called "hand money" a type of small good faith deposit. All through this we were in constant touch with Wells Fargo and so was our realtor.
Wells fargo arranged that first credit card but it had to be done before we left the UK.
Our relocation company were useless in some ways...ie not much help with schools (our realtor helped there) but they were very, very good with the mortgage/finance side.
The hardest part was understanding all the different terms, otherwise it was very straight forward.
We arrived here in late September 2005, stayed in a hotel for 3 days and closed on the house on the Friday. The day after we arrived our realtor took us to the social security office and OH applied for his number and the rest of us got letters saying we weren't eligible. (very important to get that letter if you are not allowed a number).

We had absolutely no problem getting gas, electricity, phone and water. Again our realtor gave me the numbers and I sorted it all out from the UK.
The cable account is in my name and I don't have a ss number and am not allowed to work.


Our car insurance was also arranged by the relocation company. we use AIG but you have to speak to their "overseas" office.

I remember LIW. Poor Ray, I'm sure you will be ok and memories are all good ones.

Maggie

Pourquoi? We've been with them for ages now, and zero problems.

I won't even go there...I can feel my blood pressure rising....

I'm sorry JG.

Thank you...but you've nothing to apologise for.

I've had a few problems with Chase...they are totally useless in our opinion...we have a Chase personal account manager too.

I'm sorry it's been a crappy experience for you, is what I mean. That sucks. They're there to help you. And take your interest and invest the money that you have in savings... grrrrr

I hate banks in general... can you tell?

Exactly...their staff are working for us. Without our money they wouldn't be in a job...so why do they act as though they are doing us a favour?

I even went to a board member with one complaint...that got them running round in circles.

But look on the bright side- with Global Warming, Chicago winters are actually becoming bearable. You only hear the words "bitter cold'' "dangerously cold'' and 'whind chill factor'' or "-30f'' 10 times a year now.

One of the reasons that an area is desireable is often because the schools are good in that area. Naperville's are apparently amongst the best in the country and so people want to get into the school district because of it. But then the rates are often much higher to afford the school standards

One thing to be careful of is that a town will typically only have one or two high schools, often the one is on the <ahem> poorer side of town so merely living in somewhere like Pallatine doesn't guarantee you get into the one school you need to be living in the schools coverage area

That said I have friends who choose to send their kids to the more ethnically diverse school rather than the "better" school because it's just full of WASP's

WASP's ??? Is that short for something? Not familiar with that term.
I've been looking on property websites at houses in certain areas and then seeing what schools the houses I liked belonged to. Is there a way to find out the reverse way i.e. find a school I like and then find the exact areas it covers??
Also is it possible to rent houses rather than apartments? Because we may have to rent for a while, and over here you can rent houses fairly easily but every rental website for Illinois i found only advertised apartments to rent?

White Anglo-Saxon Protestant

Ahhh...thank you Ray - You fountain of knowledge, you!

I am now forever enlightened.

Most rental websites list apartments because the apartment buildings are much more flush with advertising money than a single family, but that said, it is ENTIRELY possible to rent a whole house. There are many rentals on the market. I would suggest craigslist.com as a good place to start (Chicago version). Also look at the online, local newspaper for that town (i.e. don't look at the Chicago Tribune, but the smaller papers in the suburbs--the classified sections).

WASPS are white anglo-saxon protestants, but it is more a cultural reference than an exacting ethnic label. Your basic white folks are often called wasps.

On my drive around the areas there are plenty of houses for rent, As penguin says apartment complexes advertise whereas house rentals are usually private.

Actually some complexes include town home rentals, soemthing like apartmentguide.com will allow you to search for complexes which have townhown rentals