N1cky

If you can get finance for a mortgage of course, no credit history now is a bigger deal than it was even 4-5 years ago. Hubby still can't get a credit card, never mind a mortgage.

The Horticulturalist

Why don't you look at getting a job with a firm in London that has offices/headquarters in the USA?

There are no guarantees of course, but you may then be able to get a transfer a few years down the line.

and by the way, if London house prices are out of your league then I don't much fancy your chances in LA either!

Bob

Accepting a position would be signing the contract.

srefre

Semantics.

I have verbally accepted jobs before, usually as a signal to send the contract my way. Although in this scenario you may not yet have legally or officially accepted the job, you can see what Ian is getting at.

MandyNi

Just as a comparator. We're renting in LA because my other half is there temporarily for a year. It's a nice apartment in a reasonable enough area, small but new and two bedrooms. Rental is $2700 per month and I believe the one bedroom units are about $1800. That's a whole lot of $$$$ and doesn't include any other day to day costs.

Sally Redux

Really? That's annoying.

We had a hell of a problem getting a mortgage even 4 years ago.

N1cky

It's quite funny really, he earns twice as much as me, I have 2 credit cards and a car loan, he can't get anything

Sally Redux

He should start a domain name business - credit no problem.

*bitchy*

wordfool

No harm in trying and setting up a series of "informational interviews" as Americans' like to call them. That's a fairly common practice for people looking to enter a new market to help them get the lay of the land and decide if it's worth persuing. With the recession I'm not sure how easy it will be to set anything up, however, but you can do a lot of the legwork via phone from the UK.

I worked on a beach club in Santa Monica one summer when I was a student. I fell in love with the California lifestyle, weather and attitude. About 6-7 years later, with much cajoling of senior manahers, I managed to set up a transfer from my company in London to its San Francisco subsidiary -- I came over to the Bay Area on vacation to visit some friends and set up an informational interview with the company just to make sure it was something I wanted to do. Some 14 years, three visas, one green card later I'm a US citizen (took the oath last week). Ironically I became a citizen so I can have to option to move back to Europe

For an IT job you might also want to consider Northern California, which is where tech is concentrated. Maybe set up some info interviews in both places... the drive from LA to SF is quite nice this time of year.

Personally I love LA, but many people hate it. IMO the weather is perfect (unless you go too far into the valleys that is), and the property market, although pricey, offers some spectacular options (friends just bought a gorgeous place in Beechwood Canyon -- below the Hollywood sign overlooking downtown LA). You just have to learn to love your car

Michael

If you are going to look for a high tech job, the San Francisco bay area (Silicon Valley) is where you want to look and not LA. The Silicon Valley contains such companies as Apple, HP, Cisco, Intel, Oracle, Adode, Google, Yahoo, Sun, eBay, and many other high tech companies. The following is a small list of companies in the valley.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley

Although the valley is starting to recover from the recession, it will probably be another 6 months or more before the companies will have major hiring.

ian-mstm

Signing a contract certainly makes it official (and is not allowed), but you are allowed to accept a position.

Ian

Dan725

Any chance you could move to Singapore too, then? If you are just a bit sick of the UK, as opposed to hell bent of living in LA, you could probably do a lot worse than a nice expat package to Singapore.

Noorah101

My husband works in West Hollywood and rents a very old, tiny, 1-bedroom apartment located over an oriental rug shop. He pays $1,300/month, not including utilities (gas, electric, water, telephone). Sattelite TV is included in the rent.

Rene

Manc

it's not that close mate.

MandyNi

Not cheap is it Rene!! We're fortunate that because M. is considered on a TDY it's covered by his employer.