Calli

Thanks I will check them out and see what they could offer in theory. I think whether or not we accept the move comes down to whether we can resolve the housing issue.

civilservant

So the obvious question - what is the salary that is on offer? Have they mentioned any arrangements for healthcare and their associated costs? What about annual leave?

Will you be looking to work prior to having a green card? If so, childcare will be another sizeable expense.

cautiousjon

There is definitely a lot to consider with moves like these, and your income to expense ratio will definitely be a significant factor.

As for house buying, things will vary somewhat from state-to-state and area (within a state)-to-area, but there's a few things that stay fairly consistent. As a house buyer, you will likely need to pay:

• Pre-house buying costs, such as a house inspector fee and a property appraisal fee.
• "Closing costs", such as loan origination fees, title insurance, attorney fees, county registration fees, etc.
• Reimbursement to the sellers of any prorated costs, such as property taxes and HOA (homeowners association) fees.

When my wife and I bought our house in Georgia late last year, we spent about $1000 on pre-house buying costs, and ~3% of the house price on closing costs. We decided to go for a smaller but highly reputable mortgage company, which cost us a bit more money upfront, but we felt it was worth it to get very quality service. I have friends who have had lower closing costs as they got their mortgage with a large national company like loandepot.com. We asked the sellers to contribute 2% to our closing costs, and they agreed to 1%. If they hadn't, our closing costs would have been closer to 4%. We got a 2.5% APR fixed rate mortgage for 30 years.

When it comes to determining your monthly running costs of your house (if you buy), you should factor in things such as:

• Principal and interest monthly mortgage payment => $depends, could be $1700 /month, based on $400K mortgage @ 3% APR
• Property taxes (in our area, this is about 1.5% of our house value and it is added to our monthly mortgage payment and held in escrow until due) => $625, based on a $500K house @ 1.5%
• House insurance (likely paid via escrow -- your mortgage company will possibly stipulate that you need insurance that covers "full replacement value"; i.e. the insurance needs to be able to pay for rebuilding the property in entirety) => $125, based on $1500 annual premium
• (If applicable) HOA fees => $75 /month, based on a $900 annual charge

Plus utilities + trash pickup/"rubbish" (area dependent)...

• Gas => $depends, maybe $50 /month
• Electricity => $depends, maybe $50 /month
• Water => $depends, maybe $30 /month
• Trash => $depends (could be part of HOA fees), maybe $30 /month
• Internet => $depends, could be $75 /month
• Mobile phone(s) => $depends, could be another $100 /month
• TV => $depends (we don't have it)

Based on my guesstimates, your monthly running costs could $2860. This does not take into account other monthly costs like healthcare premiums (likely applicable, perhaps $750 to $1000 /month), dental and vision insurance premiums ($500+ /month for really good plans), life insurance and short and long-term disability insurance premiums (may be "free" from your spouse's employer with some imputed income taxable charge, but you may want to assess if you need to get some extra coverage yourselves), etc. This could easily add another $1250+ costs on top of the other costs. You could add another $1000+ for food, $250 for gas ("petrol") if you drive a lot and/or get big gas guzzling 4x4s, $500+ for incidentals, $500+ for healthcare deductibles, and more.

As you can imagine, a ~$6500+ monthly spend requires a certain income that your spouse (+ you, if you decide to get an income-producing job) will need to earn in order to make life affordable and give you extra money to save for retirement and general savings. In CT, the tax rate on $150,000 annual income will be about 30.58%, according to a popular income tax calculator, which will result in ~$104,000 net per year. A $6500+ monthly spend would be doable on that income, but not likely give you a whole lot of margin, so a $200K+ income as someone else mentioned would offer more breathing room in your budget.

Indeed.

civilservant

You also didn't mention car payments. If you're looking at 2, lightly used, medium sized 4x4s (at about $25k each, something like a used Tahoe perhaps) you could easily be talking $1000+ a month in finance costs with no credit history.

tht

It is much higher on the sell than buy because they pay the realtor commission, and it won’t eat in to the down payment, it has to be paid on top of that at closing:

https://afahomes.com/estimated-closing-costs/

You also need to understand that houses here are different, I don’t know anyone in the UK who had to put on a new roof unless they were doing to loft, here it’s every 10-20 years (so ask when it was last done). Same with AC and things like the furnace / boiler. Out where you are looking it is likely also well water, so add in the cost of a new pump, pressure tank and likely water heater at some point. I just had to do the later 2 in a lake house I brought, and know the well pump will be next as it’s old, so that’s another $2-3k that coming.

Calli

Their initial offer was to pay his UK salary in dollars (which we won’t accept as that’s mad). This works out somewhere between 325 and 375 usd but it’s relatively bonus heavy which I would guess doesn’t help with getting a mortgage. If there wasn’t a pandemic on I don’t think we would struggle but the pandemic has made rents go wild. I’m not sure how long it would actually take to get a visa either so we might not be able to go for ages and things might have calmed down by then. They will would pay for speedy processing (or whatever it’s called!) but I would guess it’s still a 6 month process?

Medical is covered in full - l don’t fully understand it but it’s a scheme that covers everything (Aetna) and then just in case something isn’t covered there is a secondary insurance that will cover it. US colleagues have said they have never had to pay anything towards anything medical. In the UK they pay for really really good medical (literally everything is covered, any hospital in the world, even our newspapers in hospital) but we pay through the nose in taxes for it, this year we paid a £4,500 tax bill for the insurance and we are all young and healthy. I understand that medical insurance is not taxed as a benefit-in-kind in the US so this would be good for us.

They’ve not mentioned holidays. Currently 25, I think the US is 20 plus 2 personal days. Not too different but we could probably quibble on it. But they will pay flights home each year. This is very much pitched as a “permanent move” not an expat stint. There is no end date and there is no parachute clause which is a big concern.

I work in the UK (actually as a civil servant, I noticed your handle ) but I think I would need to take some time off to settle the kids into school and the new country. I’m also not sure what kind of work there would be for someone like me, I’m fairly institutionalised now 😜 my salary is pretty small in comparison to my husband so the hit won’t be massive (especially considering childcare costs for 3 kids).

cautiousjon

That's a great point that I missed. $50,000 of car loans @ 3% APR (which is pretty low for someone with no credit history) for 60 months with 6.35% CT sales tax is about $955 /month.

Another set of excellent points. Roofs are not cheap and can easily cost $10,000+, and if you're on well-water, you have another set of issues, especially if you also have a sewage sump system.

Calli

Thanks cautiousjon loads of good figures there. I think I’m going to need to get a spreadsheet out.

We will realistically need two cars, I don’t need anything too fancy but we are probably looking at a 7 seater family car and then a small runaround for my husband to commute in. In the UK we drive a Skoda 😊

Calli

New roof?! Haha, my uncle had to do that but he bought an ancient house so it was sort of expected.

Do you generally find a real estate agent who looks for you or do you shop around from agent to agent like you do in the UK? 100% of my knowledge of real estate in the US comes from “modern family” 🙈

civilservant

The 7 seater you may even be looking at something like a Chevy Suburban 4x4. They get very very expensive.

Bear in mind when you say 'cheap run around' that you are talking about the rust capital of the US. Cars literally go there to die. Even a cheap run around might cost you $15-20k to get anything worth having.

When we bought in late 2019 we engaged an agent but did most of the house hunting ourselves. He really only arranged the appointments and came with us. The thing he was really good for was knowing all the people we were dealing with though. He got us discounts and rebates on a deposit that we wouldn't even have thought to ask for because he had done prior business with the agent of the sellers.

Always good to have someone on our side that knows the people in the area.

(We were also first time buyers, FYI)

cautiousjon

There is no "speedy" (premium) processing available for EB-1C, which I am guessing is what your spouse's employer will file the I140 (petition for a green card) under. My EB-1C application took 18 months to process, but this was before COVID, so USCIS might have sped up processing (or slowed it down).

cautiousjon

We used Dave Ramsey's Endorsed Local Provider program to find a number of realtors that work in the area that we wanted to buy in, and then interviewed each one. From the list that we were given, we found a great realtor who's office closes 30 to 45+ houses every month. https://www.daveramsey.com/elp/residential-real-estate

Calli

civilservant does everything rust because of the sea? I had never heard CT described as the rust capital before.

Sorry that wasn’t very clear, I meant for his L visa not the green card. My hope is that by the time we step off the plane the rental market will have cooled.

Top tip, thanks

civilservant

The entire New England area eats cars. Lots of snow and ice means lots of salt on the roads. Lots of salt = lots of rust. That's just my name for it though

My point is, look very carefully at cars more than a few years old. They might be cheaper, but it's for a reason. Here in GA, it's very very common to see old Civics, Accords and other well built cars on the road (I'k thinking cars that are 10-20 years old) because they are mechanically solid with some maintenance and don't rust. It's warmer, it's less humid, we don't get snow and ice that frequently.

Not so in NE.

I do endorse the earlier suggestion about renting first - at the very least, you have a chance to scout out the area and the schools better than when you're fresh of the boat.

Calli

Right, I get it. That does make sense. My husbands boss recommended a Honda people carrier thing but in the UK these giant cars are not common. I struggle as it is in London to park the Skoda in a way that I am able to get kids out of car seats.