Moving from Canada to Sacramento! (mortgage, credit card, lenders)

[kindra]

Its a bit scary, but also very exciting! I will be scouting for 6 months before my family joins us! During this time, I want to live within walking distance of Sac State U. and check out the possibility of buying a house! Any words of of wisdom would be much appreciated!
Gibb

[fvrufd2u]

My wife and I moved from Vancouver to Sacramento a few months ago. I would suggest the book "The Canadian in America" by Brian D. Wruk. This book was a great guide on making the transition.

Driver's License: You'll have to take a written test and a road test. Your Canadian license is basically worthless when it come to obtaining your CA license. I felt like I was 16 years old all over again!

Mortgage: Depending on what your immigration status is, you may have some roadblocks. We are here on TN visas so most lenders won't give you a mortgage until you have a more permanent immigration status. We did get one approval but it had a premium on the interest rate. We said thanks, but no thanks! We're not prepared to pay a premium on a mortgage in a rapidly falling housing market. Early in the new year we'll have our H1 visas so we'll see what the lenders say then.

Credit: As a Canadian you won't have any credit history in the US, so you'll have to find a Credit Card company that will recognize your Canadian credit history. Not a big deal, but a lot of places won't do this. Just shop around and you'll find one. We went with Bank of America.

Currency Exchange: Don't recommend using the banks. US or Canadian. Find an online currency exchange. They give about 2% better than the banks do. We used xe.com. Takes a few days to set up but it saved us several thousands of dollars.

Good luck

Dustin