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I think somewhere like arizona or new mexico may get abit to cool in winter, not 100% on that but i think thats usually the case with deserty areas.
Yea i think the one main problem with california will be the high prices, i havnt looked into taxes but if they were enough to put you off i should probably try find out what they are in comparision to other states. It seems to be the main down side for a place like San Diego which iv heard is along the lines of what i'd be looking for in a city.
I'll definately check out all these southern cities which have been mentioned, i know little about most of them so they could be good suggestions!Austin seems to be mentioned quite abit also!
I think Chicago, Boston & NYC would be too cold in the winters for what i'm looking for.
As for Jax, i actually wasnt there for the Irish festival unfortunately!,i arrived the beginng of june and left mid august.i really did love the place, i lived around the southside blvd area which i really liked and the beaches area i loved also.the nightlife in the city kept me satisfied enough, just afew more clubs and bars with people my age.and also a slightly more lively downtown area (its SO empty it should be full of things to do like other cities!) would have made it perfect. And to answer your question riveree yea ill be 23.
Thanks for the help so far everyone
Its legally, i will be a member of The Royal Institution of Charted Surveyors which is recognised worldwide, so as i understand it means i can get a visa in most places of the world. If not well im still gona try do it all legally.
In the U.S. it's the employer who applies for your visa. H1-B? Complete lottery as I assume you wouldn't be trying anywhere that didn't have visa caps. You could get your application in for the DV lottery at the earliest opportunity though...
As for Jax, i actually wasnt there for the Irish festival unfortunately!,i arrived the beginng of june and left mid august.i really did love the place, i lived around the southside blvd area which i really liked and the beaches area i loved also.the nightlife in the city kept me satisfied enough, just afew more clubs and bars with people my age.and also a slightly more lively downtown area (its SO empty it should be full of things to do like other cities!) would have made it perfect. And to answer your question riveree yea ill be 23.
Thanks for the help so far everyone
I realized afterwards that you said it in your thread description - 23 - sorry, missed it the first time !
Well, if you enjoyed the nightlife scene you saw in Jax, then maybe you should keep Jax on your short list.
I agree, downtown needs work, but you'll find that in a lot of Southern cities. The South really let their downtowns go to pot in the 50's and 60's, unlike cities in the North. So now The South is slowly rebuilding their downtowns. Our downtown has some steady clubs and bars, but others seem to come and go. We're moving in the right direction, it's just painfully slow....you'll be well into your thirties before Downtown Jacksonville is hopping!
I did some traveling after and found the main touristy big cities are not for me, i like the normal american places which i found had much friendlier people.
In general, big cities in the US are going to have far less friendly (or at least sincerely friendly) people.
To an extent, it's a matter of practicality. You can't feasibly say "Hi" to everyone passing on the street, hold the door open for other folks, get into long conversations with them, etc. when you're encountering hundreds of people in an hour. You simply have to ignore some folks or you'll never get anywhere, never get anything done, etc. So if you like friendlier places, you need to avoid the bigger cities.
Also, a more complex factor is transplants--some locations have lots of people living there who came from another area. For example, New Yorkers and New Jerseyans in Southeast Florida, where various places--and sometimes the whole area minus Miami "proper" is referred to as "The Fifth Borough" (of Manhattan). The tendency is to bring your social habits with you, so you start to see less people saying "Hi" to you on the street, etc. But, on the other hand, I think people start to adapt after awhile.
I grew up in Palm Beach County--when it was far less populated--and moved to the New York City area later. It took me awhile to stop saying "Hi" to random strangers on the street in New York City, and it takes a bit of adjustment to start doing it again when I get back to Florida. Keep in mind, though, that the smaller the city/town you move to, the more likely that everyone is going to know your business, there's a bit more social pressure to conform--you stand out more if you're the lone weirdo there, it can be harder to get things accomplished in that case (because you can be effectively ostracized) etc. You can get a balance by looking for a smallish city more than a rural town or village.
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1. Nice weather all year round, i'v had enough of cold rainy winters in Ireland! I loved the weather in Jax while i was there, although im not a big fan of sweating so a slightly less humid climate would be a plus, but not important.
On that end, you'd probably prefer the southwest, but just not too south. So Southern California, Nevada, parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. If you go too far south you're probably going to think it's too hot, and if you head too far north in the west, you're either going to get frequently cool, rainy weather (near the Pacific Coast) or cold, sometimes snowy weather (most of Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, etc.). Anywhere east of Texas (east of the Mississippi River, really) is going to be more humid. You can balance that out by going more north, but then you're going to get colder winters and possibly snow. In the southwest, you need to pay close attention to particular areas. There are lots of elevation differences, and different elevations mean different temperatures. Relatively low-lying desert areas (like Las Vegas) tend to be hotter (though very dry, of course).
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2. Friendly people. Just to give you a quick example of what i don't want - i also visited Miami for a week while in the USA. I thought it would be a great place for me, but i didn't like the fact that most people were Spanish, It was very pretentious which i didnt like, and most people were very rude.
Well, Miami also won't do for you if you don't like hot and humid, and if you think Miamians are unfriendly, you definitely need to stay out of any larger city. I Still think the southwest sounds better for you. Maybe a smaller town, but not too far from one of the bigger cities (say an hour's drive or so), in Arizona or New Mexico.
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3. Relaxed and non pretentious . . . Lots of young people . . . English is the language not spanish! and most people are american not tourists.
Hmm . . . well, things are getting more complicated there. AZ and NM still might be good choices, but we're starting to get where you're probably not going to get everything you want in a place. For one, the kinds of places you're interested in--warmer weather year round, relaxed, etc., are also the kinds of places that attract retirees. However, you can avoid living right in a retirement community, but the only way to do that (well, other than noticing 55+ on real estate listings) is to talk to someone who knows the specific area you're looking at like the back of their hand. They have to know exactly what the demographics are like in particular neighborhoods.
Also, and I should have mentioned this when you first brought up Miami, but the US has a very large Hispanic population, and it's only going to get bigger--it's predicted that by 2025 or something like that, "whites" are going to be a minority in the US. The southern states are the warmer states, but the southern states are also the states closest to the Caribbean, Mexico and Latin America, so you're going to have a lot of Hispanics in any southern state.
Now, there are some areas--like Jacksonville, or the Tampa/St. Pete area, where maybe there aren't near as many Hispanics yet, BUT (1) being in the east, they're far more humid than the western US, (2) there are plenty of retirement areas especially in Tampa/St. Pete, (3) they're both big cities and less friendly than smaller towns (and will likely continue in that direction as they grow), although you could look to smaller towns further away from them (but still have the other problems I'm mentioning), and (4) the Hispanic population is going to continue to grow and move into other areas.
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6. Plenty of bars, clubs.(remember im irish!) Basically nightlife which is generally busy, young and fun.
Another conundrum. The better nightlife is in the bigger cities, but the bigger you go, the more likely you're going to experience unfriendliness, being turned away at some clubs, etc. You're going to have to balance this against your other desires, because this need and some of the others end up being contradictory.
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I will be looking to get a job as a commercial real estate broker so somewhere with good prospects would help, but i don't think this is overly important as most places need real estate all the time, so i would not count out any place on this point alone!
This is also contradictory with wanting to avoid the bigger cities. You're going to need to be licensed in whatever states you want to be a salesperson/agent/broker in--each state has its own license, and reciprocity in real estate is fairly poor (so that means for almost every state where you'd like a license, you're going to need to attend their schools a bit and take their exams). Much of the US is in a major real estate slump at the moment, with no good signs of it ending any time soon. Many developments have been put on hold or even completely abandoned. Cities like New York, LA and San Francisco have hardly been affected, however, and there is still a lot of development (including commercial of course) going on there. Are you open to the possibility of doing other kinds of work, too, at least part time? It's going to be hard, or maybe impossible, to have everything you want so far.
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Reasonably inexpensive.
Another conundrum. The places that are affordable right now are the places that are having real estate slumps.
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I am seriously considering Jacksonville . . .
I haven't spent much time in Jacksonville for awhile, but if you were there, liked it there, and the humidity didn't bother you, it might not be a bad choice for you for now--except that I doubt their real estate market is booming. In both Austin and especially San Diego, there are a ton of Hispanics (more Mexicans). But Jacksonville must have a fair amount of Hispanics, too, and that's going to grow. Personally, I like Hispanics just as much as anyone else, but I'm one of those pro-multicultural kinds of guys. I'd suggest being more open-minded about other kinds of people.
Last edited by Tungsten_Udder; 09-20-2008 at 05:27 AM..
In the U.S. it's the employer who applies for your visa. H1-B? Complete lottery as I assume you wouldn't be trying anywhere that didn't have visa caps. You could get your application in for the DV lottery at the earliest opportunity though...
Other good points I should have brought up. There are a number of ways to become a legal resident and be able to work legally in the US, but aside from sponsorship from an employer (I'm assuming marriage is out of the question as you seem to want to be single now), it's not the easiest or quickest thing to do, and it would probably be difficult to find sponsorship via real estate, as there is no shortage of agents hungry for work/sales at the moment, AND you couldn't even work for a real estate broker here until you had a license, and to do that, you need to go to school in the state where you want to be an agent, take the exam there, etc.--I don't even know if that's possible on a visitor's visa.
Other good points I should have brought up. There are a number of ways to become a legal resident and be able to work legally in the US, but aside from sponsorship from an employer (I'm assuming marriage is out of the question as you seem to want to be single now), it's not the easiest or quickest thing to do, and it would probably be difficult to find sponsorship via real estate, as there is no shortage of agents hungry for work/sales at the moment, AND you couldn't even work for a real estate broker here until you had a license, and to do that, you need to go to school in the state where you want to be an agent, take the exam there, etc.--I don't even know if that's possible on a visitor's visa.
I don't know how long it takes to carry out that study, but I don't see a problem with study in itself from a visitors visa point of view (although a school may have a view on this), although you're assuming the OP can even get one. Most visitors come under the VWP instead which is only 90 days. Might be a moot point anyway as even with the qualification would an employer seriously entertain the expense and uncertainty of sponsoring him for an H1-B (assuming they could meet the labor certification criteria?)
DV lottery or marrying an American would seem to be the most feasible choices here.
My aunt came here on a student visa (nursing) from Dublin. After she had graduated, gotten a job, became a citizen, she sponsored her sister and two of her nieces to come here.
I have a Paralegal degree. As part of my degree requirements, I had to take Real Estate Law courses. Because of that, if I wanted to sell real estate, I only had to take the state exam to get get my license. I did not have to take the state real estate licensing course. However, that would not apply to an out of country degree, but it might be something to consider. Would you consider going back to school and coming on a student visa? It will not work with just a state real estate agent course.
As another poster said, this is not a good time to try to sell real estate. The NE is in better shape, though, than Florida. I am sure it is very, very competitive, especially in commerical real estate in the major cities because there are millions and millions of dollars in commisions to be made. Actually, even the average coop apartment in Manhattan is now selling for a million and over. I could kick myself that I didn't buy my Mom's apartment way back then when it was only $150,000, but that is water under the bridge now.
If you can find a way to get into this country, legally, I think you would be better off, at least initially, in a big city in the NE, like NY or Boston, for the time being. Live with the weather for a while. There are more job opportunites and more ethnic type neighborhoods. You can always move someplace else once you become a citizen and have established yourself. Your bigger problem now is find a way to get into the country first.
all great advice guys thanks, i now know generally what cities would suit me from all the info iv gathered on here so i'm begining to start working on this visa thing now to see if theres any way i can get entry legally
all great advice guys thanks, i now know generally what cities would suit me from all the info iv gathered on here so i'm begining to start working on this visa thing now to see if theres any way i can get entry legally
Good luck to you .
Check out the job situation closely before you leap, unemployment is very high in America right now. Jacksonville was faring pretty well, but it's hit us now too . Our current banking fiasco has hit Jax hard, finance is one of our biggest industries here.
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I'd suggest being more open-minded about other kinds of people.
. Our current banking fiasco has hit Jax hard, finance is one of our biggest industries here.
