Lilly77

Hi everyone!

I'm new to this forum. My husband, me and our two kids are looking to relocate to LA this year in August (his visa - the 0-1 - is currently being processed) from London UK.

Just wanted to pick everyone's brains about two main issues, healthcare and our credit histories!

Re healthcare, my husband is self employed. Does this mean it will be massively expensive? Or how do you know the right provider to go through? Is there a website which shows the best comparable rates of medical care? Does anyone have any idea on costings?

Re credit history - we've been told it will be much harder to rent property/lease a car etc without a credit history, of which we will have none when living in the US. Does anyone have any tips on how to get a credit score, or is it not a problem renting with no background checks/previous landlord etc?

Lastly would love to hear from someone living in the Santa Monica area as that's where we'll be moving to! Would be good to hear some info about it. We have been to LA a few times on holiday but I know living somewhere can be an entirely different story!

Thanks so much,
Lilly

PS Just for info, I am South African and my husband is British. I've lived in the UK for 17 years - we both have British passports. I have also lived in Arizona, US for a year in 1996 and went to high school there, so I know a fair bit about the school system etc.

Pulaski

For healthcare, Google <affordable care act California> and you should see the web site to sign up for healthcare if you're self employed or your employer doesn't provide health coverage.

Credit history: you don't have one, it's tough to get started. If you have had an Amex card for at least 12 months they will open a US card account for you. You can finance a car through International Autosource, so long as you sign up and pay a deposit before you arrive in the US, which will (i) get you a vehicle and (ii) get you started with loan payments to start building a credit history.

civilservant

Along with a secured card from the likes of Capital One (if you aren't an AMEX customer) this is really your only way to go.

Lilly77

Thank you for your replies.

we were planning on getting an AMEX card soon, didn't realise you needed one for 12 months though.
Oooh I used to have a capital one card, but I've since closed it!

How does anyone else manage then, with no credit history? Is it an uphill struggle to rent property or cars?

civilservant

The truth is that you end up putting down a larger deposit than normal, or depending on the place where you rent some will look at your credit history from the UK and take that into consideration.

For the first year, don't plan on buying anything on credit pretty much.

Speedwell

My husband and I don't have much of a credit history, as we both refuse to use credit cards on principle. Instead, we save in the old-fashioned way for things we need. (Disasters can happen to anyone, credit cards or no credit cards, and we have a six-month buffer.) I bought my used car for cash. We did not find the lack of credit history an obstacle to renting a nice flat because they are looking mostly for evidence that you have a clean rental history (which we do). We have not felt the obligation to enter a mortgage, and if we want a house later we will buy the land with savings and build on it ourselves. Of course we're in our 40s and have no children. Or debt.

Pulaski

See my earlier post, re International Autosource. They might sound "a bit weird", but they really are that good. I used them myself when I immigrated, and many others here on BE have too. I found them to be very price competitive, others sometime report not, but you do get two bonuses, that you have (at least) one vehicle taken care of before you arrive, and that you're building a credit history as soon as you notify them of your SSN.

Bob

Shouldn't that have been figured out before trying to bother with the O1?

Both covered in the wiki, but you want to google up ACA for healthcare if going down self employed and the wiki here covers the credit history. Basically you'll be paying for deposits and getting shitter rates on things than people who have history. Plenty of recent threads as well as the wiki tell you how you can improve things.

SanDiegogirl

Just off the top of my head, unless you become eligible for subsidies for health insurance, with a family of 4 budget at least a thousand dollars a month for premiums.

Go with a main line provider and you won't go far wrong: Keiser, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Aetna, Anthem etc etc

Lilly77

Thank you everyone.. very helpful info. We'll def check out Int Autosource thanks Pulaski.

Good to know about how to try build a credit history too.

Bob, we always knew we wanted to live in the US to work (my husband is a movie music composer and his agency is based in LA) and knew that we had to pay healthcare but wanted to find out best care providers from people who live there rather than blind surfing on the net. Re credit history - we've been told before we could have an Amex card to build history but wanted to find out any other tips to build history. We knew this before applying for the o-1... Always good to find out as much as you can now that it's looking extremely likely we'll get it!

Speedwell - that's sound advice. We were even thinking of renting by putting a down payment of the full years or 6 months rent cash. Do landlords accept this?

Pulaski

Oh, you can certainly offer to, but whether a landlord would accept it is a whole other matter! There would likely be more room to negotiate with a private landlord than with a corporate manager of an apartment complex, so I would certainly recommend looking for private rentals over an apartment in a large complex.

You might actually find that offering a whole year up front could scare some landlords, and therefore, perhaps paradoxically, offering (just) six months might be more effective than offering a whole year up front.

kodokan

The agent we rented through understood that we had no credit history, coming from Europe, but explained that no history wasn't nearly as negative as a bad history, and that it can be overcome with things like paying first month and last month's rent up front, and accepting a larger than usual deposit.

Bob

That's a standard plus deposit on top.

It's usually no history being worse than bad history for most people because they have nothing to base you against.

Offering to pay a year in advance would be over kill, first/last/1-3 months rent deposit is pretty normal due on signing, plus realtor fee of a month or 3, so offering 3-6 months deposit might work on a corporate managed place, but 3 month would be more than enough for most private rentals.

Would still more than likely be required to put down a deposit ranging from $50-600 per utility. If you aren't asked for one, then you've got that much spare cash in hand that has other wise been budgeted.

scrubbedexpat099

Go go https://www.coveredca.com/, you can see what options there are and how much.

Not sure if there are any better than others, it is also very new so not that much out there.

FatFrank

Best piece of advice that I didn't take from expats already here when we moved to the US was to get a cheap car on finance ASAP with an appallingly high interest rate, and pay it off after 6 months or so - Thereby getting my credit off to a good start. Although our original US landlord understood the no credit history situation as we were moving from the UK, after two years in the USA we moved states with work and it was really hard to get the new potential landlords to understand why we had no credit history.

That said, I just recruited a contract engineer from the UK and helped him get set up. I gave him a reference letter and he was able to lease a brand new condo with ease - the application form actually had a spot for new US resident. The next week he then leased a brand new Ford from the dealer. It seemed that Ford had special arrangements for new residents on certain types of visas (at least L and E ?I think) So perhaps it's getting easier?

Anyway, the main point is that credit history is everything here in the US, and get it started as soon as pos.