How long?

If you came to the UK and didn\'t have a house/flat waiting, how long did it take you to find one?  And after you decided on one, how long did it take you to move in (like getting paperwork done and stuff)?

If anyone did this without a UK bank account, did it cause any problems?

We found a house and were moved in within a week. But we got lucky and found a place with a private landlord, not an agency. We did have a bank account already.

If we'd had more time we might have been able to find a nicer place, but we were in a B&B and pretty desperate.

Without a bank account, it can be quite difficult. I would start by going through the process to authorise international wire transfers on your US account. With my bank, this included the bank sending me a pin, along with a paper I needed to sign and return, so it is easiest if you do this while still in the US. If you have a friend/relative in the UK, you could initially wire the money to them, as it might speed the process up once you have found a place. This is what I did a few years back---wired money to my now-husband, and then he cut the landlord a cheque for deposit, rent.

Otherwise, you may find that you need to withdraw large sums of cash out of the ATM in order to pay a deposit/rent. You may want to increase your withdrawal limit to do this, so you might want to speak to your bank in advance.

We started looking for a place in middle of Feb and put down a deposit wanting to move in ASAP.  In March, when we were in the US, we were made aware that the housing had fallen through due to one of us not having a job or bank account.  In mid-March we started looking again and found someplace about a week later.  We were able to move in about a week after that.  The landlord wasn't really ready to rent it yet, it wasn't very clean, but we really wanted it and she wanted the money. 

It took us awhile to find something, but the entire paperwork process only took about two weeks.

Long story short,

After I left last Christmas and we knew I was coming here to live DH house hunted, found a realllly good deal on a 3 bed 2.5 bath house within 2 weeks and put an offer in. He was accepted pretty quickly for the mortgage, etc.  After that though the lawyers/agents/ took AAAGGGEESS. What should've been done in the beginning and the finalisation  should have been done in the beginning of Feb wasn't.. We could've been in the house living by when I got there end of  March (giving him enough time to repaint and put furnature in)but it didn't all finalise until April!!! So luckily the person we bought the house from moved out in Feb and gave us a spare set of keys. So we got painters and carpeters in while we were waiting for it to finalise and offically get the keys.  It would've been a quick process, but it always gets hung up one way or another it seems, and we thought it would be a snap because the previous owner was not moving to another house, but renting a flat!

I wish you luck with your house hunting!

First, get a bank account. That's really going to be fairly necessary. I got one at Lloyd's TSB without having to prove my address (although I used my temporary housing as, well, the temporary address). They're quite friendly toward immigrants. A bank account won't strictly be necessary, but it'll probably make things easier.

My wife and I found a place within about 3 days, using Gumtree and Findaproperty. There's a large amount of rental availability, although the selection appears to be a bit poor. We compromised a fair bit (we're paying a bit much for a small spot, but the location is wonderful), just to find something quickly, but it worked out. Most of the people we spoke with were independent owners and not estate agents. Of the properties we visited, no one really seemed to mind that we were recent immigrants. Most stated that they wanted between 6-8 weeks deposit (plus 1st month's rent), but that if we could make that we'd be fine. Both of us had jobs, however, so I'm sure that also made it a bit easier.

All in all, it was a far less painful process moving here than what I had feared.

It took us just a few days.  We arrived on a Thursday and had agreed on a flat Friday evening.  We returned Saturday to do the paperwork and move in (we only had our luggage from our flight).  Our US bank doesn't charge us for using other ATMs or converting currency (USAA), so we kept withdrawing £200 at a time with each our cards (each have separate limits) from when we arrived.  We had enough cash to pay the deposit and the rent by Saturday.  Like ucbmckee, we opened our account with Lloyds TSB and had no problems.  We did have to prove our address, which we were able to use our contract with our landlord.
We used Gumtree, Rightmove, and S1rental to find our place, and we did go through a private landlord instead of an agency.  We've noticed that rentals go really quick here (at least in Glasgow).  When we went looking for properties, we found that most lasted on the market for 2-3 days (some even less!).

It took us just a few days.  We arrived on a Thursday and had agreed on a flat Friday evening.  We returned Saturday to do the paperwork and move in (we only had our luggage from our flight).  Our US bank doesn't charge us for using other ATMs or converting currency (USAA), so we kept withdrawing £200 at a time with each our cards (each have separate limits) from when we arrived.  We had enough cash to pay the deposit and the rent by Saturday.  Like ucbmckee, we opened our account with Lloyds TSB and had no problems.  We did have to prove our address, which we were able to use our contract with our landlord.
We used Gumtree, Rightmove, and S1rental to find our place, and we did go through a private landlord instead of an agency.  We've noticed that rentals go really quick here (at least in Glasgow).  When we went looking for properties, we found that most lasted on the market for 2-3 days (some even less!).

Welcome to the UK and congratulations on getting settled in. =)

Found a place a decent flat share in 14 days (but didn't take it). Could have been quicker but we came at at odd time (during a bank holiday) and the housing market had just gone into a tizzy, so we get off to a slow start.

We found a great place in a month. Again, this could have been quicker, but for about 10 days we were dealing with a lying, son-of-a-gun landlord for a previous place. So glad that that one fell thru.

We set up a Passport Account thru HSBC. No job letter was needed, just the eponymous passport. It's a limited services account but they did write a letter for our prospective landlords.  But lacking UK credit it probably didn't make much of an impact. What did make an impact was demonstrating all our US funds and paying extra money upfront (three months.) to make the landlord feel comfy with us.

BTW to find a place we used a host of online sites and estate agents. We found the first place thru IntoLondon.com. But it wound up being an estate agent that had posted in the Guardian that got us a place and negotiated with the land lord.