Tell me about the Birmingham area. Moving to the UK.

In My Humble Opinion
41

You’ll find far more detached houses out in the suburbs. I grew up in a large four bed/2 bath detached house in Sutton Coldfield, with large gardens, double garage and driveway, and my parents weren’t wealthy, just comfortably middle class.

In contrast, I live in a victorian terraced house in Bristol that is valued about the same, with no private parking, but it’s ten minute walk from the city centre. Location location location.

I assume you have already found rightmove.com (the go to site for all sales and lettings nationwide).

42

I’m from Somerset, but I did much of my growing up in Birmingham. I lived in Harborne and later in Edgbaston. You didn’t describe your budget, but Edgbaston is one of Birmingham’s relatively few upscale neighborhoods, though I gather much of the rest is rapidly gentrifying. Harborne is contiguous and basically indistinguishable, but the name has less cachet, so houses are a bit cheaper. The Edgbaston area is one of the few in Birmingham proper (rather than just in or around the West Midlands) with lots of greenery. Unfortunately, Edgbaston is on the south side of town, so probably not an ideal commute. The other nice bits are Solihull, to the west, and Sutton Coldfield, on which I am in agreement with SanVito.

There are lots of Balti restaurants with Pakistani-origin owners, but 99.9% of the cooks - in Birmingham and elsewhere - are Bangladeshi. The latter has a far greater impact on the cuisine than the former, except in the sort of high-end restaurants that use terms like Asian fusion (i.e. not proper curry houses).

In my day - the early 90s - West Bromwich was actively dangerous. Glad to hear it’s tidied up a bit.

43

True enough, and I did think about that for a moment. At any rate, no matter what the specifics for the Midlands is, the fact that many/most, curry houses in the UK are run by Bangladeshis is an interesting tidbit that I did not know about before this thread.

44

Total hijack, but how do you dry bed sheets without a tumble dryer? Pretty big pieces to hang indoors, and you can’t count on the weather.

45

When I lived abroad, I didn’t have a tumble dryer, and we just hung 'em up on a laundry line above the bathtub.

46

You can have a combo washer/dryer, or you just hang them outside and hope for the best. :slight_smile:

47

Or for really big items you could go to a launderette, supposing you can find one.
They’re getting rarer.

48

I hang them over the banister on the upstairs landing. Sometimes over a bedroom door.

I guess not ideal, but it’s amazing what you don’t miss when you’ve never had one (a dryer in this case).

49

The outside racks in this house aren’t big enough for bedsheets unless I hang them folded. So what I do is wash one bedsheet at a time (along with smaller items) and use an indoor rack similar to this for the sheet. Another good spot is the bar or screen at the shower.

50

Yes, I found it. I think we are well set for budget, which should help.

I’ve come across Solihull (they have a rather robust community of autism support and resources). I imagine the closer we are to Cannock, the better, in terms of my husband’s commute. I’ll have to spend more quality time with maps.

51

Nitpick: Solihull is to the southeast of central Birmingham. I’m sure you know this and just mistyped the relevant compass point. Either way, a pretty long commute to Cannock. You’ll want to avoid the M6 (or indeed any of the motorways around Birmingham) as much as possible.

52

To avoid entirely the wrong impression, there are many, many larger houses for sale in Britain, some quite lovely; it’s just that they are unaffordable for most people.
Here’s one near the Menai Strait in Wales: about 15 rooms, plus a lot of usual offices, large grounds, 16th century, grade II listed.
£750k though…
Still, it shows not every place is hobbitlike…

53

£750K gets you a rabbit hutch in London, mind.

54

I live in Bearwood- wrong side of everything for you- but Lichfield is very nice. As is the curry.

If you do watch Peaky Blinders, large parts of it are filmed at the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley. Your ticket is good for a year. The zoo is nice enough (has the largest surviving group of ‘Tectons’ if you’re in to architecture) and the aquarium is good, too.

I’ve got a couple kids, both preschool, but no experience with autism services. The NHS is more than adequate for our needs, and is pretty comparable to the private care I got in the US- I’m originally from Delaware. Whether or not you’ll need to pay a healthcare fee is something you’ll need to look into. I came as a student in 2003, back when you didn’t need a visa for a one year course, and didn’t need to pay anything. My friend who came on a student visa more recently , who has to check in with immigration periodically, has had to pay a fee.

55

I just moved from Sydney to London about 18 months ago (and from America to Sydney about 14 years ago). This is all based on my experience and YMMV, etc.

Do you have pets that you are moving? I moved 6 (4 cats and 2 dogs). It’s expensive but not terrible, but be sure the rabies shots are up to date. PM me if you do and we can chat. You get a Pet Passport and they do not have to quarantine and they can be taken into Europe, if you want.

Furniture you are shipping will take a while to arrive. Either ship before you leave and live in a hotel for a bit, ship when you leave and live on camp chairs and paper plates, or something in between.

Bed and sheet standard sizes are different here. They were the same US - Australia. If your bed is old and so it your mattress, consider replacing them in the UK. If not, be prepared to order sheets from the US until you replace the bed, and if you have to replace the mattress think about the cost benefit of replacing the bed vs ordering one that fits.

For that matter assess your furniture - your husband’s company is probably paying to ship it but we left a lot behind because - and I cannot stress this enough - houses are very small here by American standards. Don’t be fooled when they say ‘double bedroom’ as a second or more bedroom. They have a concept of a ‘box room’ here which is a bedroom tiny enough for a small child or storage. The houses will be bigger in the countryside rather than the city, and bigger still than they are in London (the land of very tiny very expensive houses, and yet I still love it.) Get an idea of the sizes of house you are looking at (Rightmove and Zoopla are good) and then really think about what you’re taking with you. I was so very glad we did this because it saved me the stress of getting stuff ready for the movers. Like you, my husband’s company moved us, too.

Washers are in the kitchen, and you can buy a dryer but in a rental house you suffer because there’s no way to vent one. However, radiators are really ace and drying laundry. We purchased a house last year. I bought a proper American style fridge freezer. I found that living in Australia I’d gotten used to no dryer, so I didn’t bother.

Nobody has a garbage disposal, and at least one of my friends thought it was a made up thing!

Compared to Americans, Brits drink like it’s their job. Compared to Australians, though, it wasn’t a hard transition to drink less. :smiley:

You will have (potentially) trouble opening a bank account. Firstly, they are very strict on who can do so - you will need to produce visas, passports, a letter from your husband’s place of work, etc. If they are importing him his workplace can help guide you. Secondly you are American and some banks just do not want to deal with the extra reporting due to the tax treaty and FACTA. Good luck. We did ok mostly because my husband is NOT American, so he opened the account then added me onto it later.

People from Birmingham are called Brummies. I’ve been there several times and really enjoyed it. The shopping centre in the Bullring is really nice. My tattoo artist is there, if you’re into that Sort Of Thing.

The NHS is just fine. I have private insurance through work, I never use it. I have had pneumoni a since I’ve been here and the NHS emergency and hospital system was superb. I also have several ongoing health conditions, which are managed just fine on the NHS. If you are actually having an acute health condition you won’t have to wait. I’m on a waiting list to see an ENT right now due to my sinuses, but, while this is annoying and occasionally I get sinus infections, my GP is managing that while I wait. If I wanted to jump the queue with health insurance I could, but it’s not too bad now.

Plugs have on/off switches. It’s not so much an issue today but remember your American electrical things are at 110v, and the UK is 220v. Make sure you don’t blow something up.

Plumbing is…interesting (I live in South London, though, so take this with a grain of salt.) There is no bloody water pressure on the second floor of any house I have ever showered in in this country with the exception of major hotels. I have an electric shower because the house did not come with a shower. Many UK houses - particularly older ones not renovated recently - have bath only, or a bath with a shower hose sort of attached to the taps. If you like baths instead of showers, you are probably going to love this. I do not.

Speaking of taps, you often run into a sink with hot and cold taps and no mixer. No, I don’t know why.

Trains are expensive but amazing. You can go anywhere pretty regularly. Not like America at all. I love it. Also you can upgrade to first class on weekends for cheap, if you want to feel fancy.

The UK is beautiful. I think the West Midlands are lovely. It will be far cheaper to live there than in London, and London can be a day trip if you want.

56

That’s interesting, I had no problem opening an account in the UK but I’m a European citizen. In the US I needed to produce passport, visa, SSN, proof of employment, convince a particular banker that foreigners can indeed have SSNs…
Re. furniture, unless you have some pieces you really, really, really would hate losing, I recommend ditching and buying. You’ll be able to get furniture that’s adapted to the actual house. But then, I’ll admit to being a long-standing customer of IKEA and similar stores. Oh, and secondhand stores may have some gorgeous finds. In Glasgow I had a reproduction Macintosh table and chairs that were unbelievably comfortable.

57

Yes, that makes a difference. My husband and I are not from the EU or EEA, and I have both and American and an Australian passport. Tried just using the Aussie one but had to disclose the American one. There was a lot of backing and forthing but essentially it came down to my non-American husband adding me on was the way to go.

I just tried to open another account as a trustee for a charity, and it took three months to get the bank to approve me - as I am 1. an American and 2. have been in the country less than two years.

And don’t even talk to me about getting a mortgage.

Oh and for the OP - your credit or lack thereof does not move with you, you get to start over. Even mobile phones are hard to get, but we had good luck with Virgin.

58

Interesting. Wonder if they tightened rules up. When I was there in '96 on a student work exhange visa, I, an American citizen, had no issue opening an account pretty much immediately (I don’t recall any wait time whatsoever. If thee was one, it can only have been a couple days at most.)

59

Yeah. FACTA and the GFC tightened up all the banking rules. FACTA was 1 January 2014.

60

Solihull would be a painful commute to Cannock - he’d need to take the very clogged up M6 motorway (aka “Europe’s largest car park”). 1-1/2hrs each way at least.