[jiggly]

Hello all
I am moving to SH with my hubby and daughter. What salary one should expect and what are the monthly expenses there(including all taxes). We are coming from Coventry UK. How are the schools there ? my daughter is 4 yrs old. Thank You

[MIEng]

What industry you are going to be working in? Are you going to be renting or buying? If renting you might be able to find something in the 1000 to 1200 range with 2 or 3 bedrooms. If buying you might get an older 3 or 4 bedroom for about 120k to 150k or newer bigger 4 bedroom for 280k or more. It depends what you are looking for. The north side of SH have Utica schools which are more desirable than the Warren Consolidated (in the south portion). Property taxes are slightly lower on the north portion of SH but houses might be slightly more expensive. There is no city income taxes, only a handful of cities in MI have city income taxes. Property taxes tend to be lower on Macomb County ( where SH is) than in Oakland County (just west of SH).

[Coldjensens]

For salary, you should expect something between $28,000 per year and $5,550,000. Less than $28,000 is poverty for a family, and more than $5,550,000 is a completely unrealistic expectation unless you ware applying to be the CEO of GM or Ford. Your salary expetations are likely to be somewhere between those two figures. Of course if you come here without a job lined up, you can expect a salary of $0 for quite a while.

Are you planning to live in Sterling Heights? There are a lot of really nice suburbs wihtin a reasonable commute of sterling Heights.

If you re not locked into Sterling Heights, then you need to determine what kind of place you want. Suburban sprwal, rural, small town, semi-urban, etc. You also need to determine what level of priority you assign to things. For example, many people want great schools, but many woudl settle for great instead of excellent schools in order to live in a place they like more, or where there is sless snobbishness, or where their kids can have access to water, forests, and streams. For other people access to water, forests and streams is the last thing they want. Some people love cookie cutter subdivisions and McMansions or pretentious atmosphere. Others hate all three. Some people highly desire an urban type setting or at least the ability to walk to stores, bars and resturaunts. Others do not care, or want to be as far away as possible form stores bars and resturaunts.

If you are staying here long term, you have a lot of decisions to make as to what kind of lifestyle you want. If it is temporary, then you have less to worry about.