Finding a house from the USA

We are moving to England this summer, and I was wondering how everyone else found housing if they were not able to go over before their official move date in order to find something? I suppose I could do it online, but then you don't get to see the neighborhood or the house in person to see if you really like it.

also, what's up with all the ads on the estate agent sites that say "no children?!" 

That is a problem with creating a rental culture in the UK.  My friend says it is because so many are flats and no one wants a crying baby next door.

well, we have a pretty decent rental culture here in the USA too, but landlords don't discriminate against children - at least not that I have ever seen. i can understand not wanting to listen to kids if you live in an apartment building, but we are looking for a house to rent - a detached one. i don't want to listen to my neighbors either 

Isn't it illegal in the U.S.?  I thought it was except in cases of special communities.

yes, i think it is illegal here. i have noticed a few things that are legal in the UK that are not legal here. of course the reverse is true too, but discriminating against children shouldn't be legal anywhere 

how did you find your housing in the UK?

My husband was renting a place, so that is where I live now.

P.S. It is sucky and we want to move but can't really afford it.

i think that the rent costs are ridiculous over there, no matter where you live - not just in London. I am appalled that a 2 bedroom house is about $1400 in the west midlands! 

i think that the rent costs are ridiculous over there, no matter where you live - not just in London. I am appalled that a 2 bedroom house is about $1400 in the west midlands! 

You can't really think in dollars, it's not directly equivalent.  I'm paying £500/month for a 2 bedroom house here in Yorkshire and that is a decent price, but it's not exactly the same as paying $1000 in a medium cost of living area in the US.  I'd say it's more like $700-800, relatively.

We pay 580 for a one bedroom quarter house and it is expensive and suckksss.  The only reason we pay so little for it is because my dh has lived here for so long.  One of the houses in our quarter is now 640.00.

Rooms in a "professional" house can go for over £400 here.  Sigh.

i suppose it also seems very high because the salries seem a bit lower there. when my UK salary is converted into dollars, it is high, but in pounds, it is not - if that makes sense? and then you yank 500 or 600 pounds out of it for rent...i wonder how anyone makes it over there, because my UK salary is much higher than most.

Have you checked on www.rightmove.co.uk

Yeah, I agree with others saying you can't keep converting £'s to $'s ... it will drive you absolutely mad... and it all isn't really equivalent

i know what you mean about converting and it driving you crazy! i do it constantly, because I was raised in the States, so i think in dollars. and then if something seems like a reasonable price in sollars or about what we would pay for something in the states, then i buy it. i suppose i will have to re-train myself!

so i heard back from an estate agent today, and you would think that i was applying for a job with the CIA or something! they want a ridiculous amount of documentation and money up front to rent there. How can I find a place without going through an estate agent? I looked at rightmove, but it's all estate agents.

i would really like to know how everyone else found their housing, particularly if you had to look and rent from the USA before you moved. Did anyone do it all online?

I came over and stayed in a b&b for two weeks...it also allowed me to set up my bank account (I was able to use my business address as my official address) which was necessary to get a place to rent.  I would NEVER rent sight unseen - I visited a few places that looked fantastic online but horrible in person.  And pretty much everyone, even people who were just renting a room wanted at least 6 weeks upfront as well as the month's rent.

I had a contact with a room available in his house. I stayed in a hotel when I first got here, went and met him, decided to live there, and within 2 months I had found my own flat. I found that letting agents were not interested in talking to me anyway when I tried to rent from the US. It was extremely frustrating to me, so I finally gave up and went the short term housemate route. It worked out great.

I think temporary housing is a good bet- in some cases it won't take very long at all to rent a house once you're over here.  We have just signed a lease for a new house and the timeline went like this- found a house that looked interesting, went for a viewing 2 days later, looked at some more houses that week, decided we wanted the first house, sent over the references 2 days after that, and then the landlord mailed us the lease the next day.

Basically, going from looking at houses on the internet to signing a lease was done and dusted in about 9 days- I couldn't believe how fast it went!  This was with a private landlord though, going through an agency will probably take longer.