My Florida Lifestyle and how I got here........

[sarahluvsdisney]

HI everyone,

Well here goes:

Greg and I had been longing to live here in Florida for years. Then one day whilst on vacation here in the sunshine state we saw an ad in the daily mail on how you can sell up and live in Florida in under 6 weeks, Thinking this all sounded marvelous we called the guy in the ad and agreed to meet him the following day. To cut a long story short it turned out to be a waste of time - he promised loads but unfortunatly when we pinned him down to commit he could not deliver what he was advertising. However he did mention something about needing an E-2 visa.
When we returned to the UK I went on the internet and entered E-2 on yahoo search and a visa consultants name popped up, I gave her a call and after a short conversation it became clear that a move to Florida was not impossible after all so we set the ball in motion. Here are a few facts about how it works:

E-2 investors visa is the easiest way to move to the USA.
To qualify you need to purchase a business in the USA with a minimum investment of around $100,000 ( about 65,000 GBP I think)
This business must be a profitable one and employ at least 2 americans.

My visa consultant did all the application process for us and we were granted a visa for 2 years - we have just had it renewed for a further 5 years.
Your renewal is based upon wether or not the business has been sucsessful since you bought it and if you have grown in size - You will need to provide the American embassy with your tax returns and bank statements with the application for renewal to prove your case.

Some of you may be wondering how we raised the money to buy the business - we sold our house and fortunatly had made enough profit on it to buy our business outright - I am not sure what the housing market is doing over there right now - but it did mean selling up completely to do this - a risk that some people may not want to take unserstandably.

From start to finish the whole process took around 8 months - I can hardly believe it really - sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure its not all a dream.

Heres the hard bit:

I do miss my family especially when I have had a crap day at work ( Yes we do have to work and sometimes it is stressful)
Some days I do get up and think " What the heck were we thinking "
Medical insurance is astronomical
You cannot get a mortgage or any other credit easily for at least a year ( This means making sure you have enough money to last you a few months when you do get here)

Heres the good stuff:

You are in charge of your own destiny
Houses are a lot cheaper - as is most other stuff
taxes are lower
weather is fab
you can have a pad with a swimming pool
You can visit disney ALL the time
Do I need to go on ????????

Anyway thats all I can do for now folks - if anyone wants other info about buying a business or my visa consultants number then give me a call.

Sarah.

 

[UKDEB]

Thanks for posting, Sarah. I'd love to know what kind of business you bought, if you're willing to share that information. And, yes, I'd like the contact details of your visa consultant, please. I tried to PM you, but you don't seem to be set up to accept them. You can PM me if you want to.

 

[shellbell]

Thanks for posting Sarah I know DH would love to live over there but a big part of me says no. How often do you get to see your family? Do you think you will stay there for good? Hope you don't mind us asking questions

 

[wilma-bride]

Sarah

Thanks so much for posting. It is something DH and I have considered but are still not sure we would want to live there all year round. I wonder if you would mind answering a couple more questions?

Does Disney lose some of it's magic when you can go any time you please?
How long have you been living there now?
How often do you manage to get home to see your family?
Did you buy a house there as well? If so, was it hard to get a mortgage?

Thanks - sorry if they're nosy questions

 

[Floridadreamlel]

I'd like to PM you too but you don't seem to have that facility. I have so many questions. We looked into doing exactly what you have done ie. buying your own business but there seems to be so much at stake. My husband is not exactly an optimist and he was so worried that if everything failed we would loose all our life savings etc. Also we have three children and we were told that the education over there is not so great and that when our eldest reached 21 he would not be allowed to stay in the country.
I would really like to have the guts to do what you have done and convince my husband too. We have read and heard so many horror stories about how things can go wrong that it really has put DH off. But like many others we are sick to death of life here.

If you could would you PM me. We would be very interested in maybe having a chat with your visa consultant or anyone that you can recommend that dealt with your application etc.

 

[BONZO]

Fascinating stuff!

Looking forward to hearing more about the lifestyle changes etc

 

[jns]

glad every thing is working out for you

 

[disneyholic family]

i happened to watch one of those BBC relocation shows the other night....i don't know when it was shown in the UK, it might be years old...
I get to see those shows on BBC Prime (a channel that goes out on cable to other countries and has a kind of hodge podge of various BBC channels' shows...from what i can make out anyway)..

so...this relocation show shows various British families who have a dream to live somewhere other than the UK and the show helps them to move to wherever it is...they get them started and then the show comes back a month later to see if they want to stay or go back home to the UK...

the show i saw the other night was of a family moving to orlando...
i have to say that i thought the show did a very bad job in setting the family up....they made big mistakes in terms of where the family chose to live and schooling and the like...
in the end, after a month, the family decided to go back to the UK....
this is the first time i'd ever seen a family go back....but as i said, i think the show made in a big mistake in how they set them up so there was no way the family was going to succeed....it was a shame....i think had the show set them up better, they would have stayed....the US can be a difficult place to live if you're not well prepared......

 

[Dimplenose]

If it's the show I remember I got the impression that the family were after a free holiday - they didn't make a single practical choice and the husband was only prepared to work ridiculously short hours.

The family that impressed me the most relocated to Sweden and had really done their research.

Libby

 

[disneyholic family]

If it's the show I remember I got the impression that the family were after a free holiday - they didn't make a single practical choice and the husband was only prepared to work ridiculously short hours.

The family that impressed me the most relocated to Sweden and had really done their research.

Libby

i haven't seen the sweden one yet...it's on next week.....
most of the families i've seen have done their homework, so maybe you're right about this one just wanting a free holiday.....it's quite possible.....

 

[wilki32]

I think the programme is Get A New Life, we used to watch it religiously.
Agree about the Sweden one, they just really wanted it!

 

[hanncam]

I was born in North Carolina and still live here.. I am an 8 1/2 hour drive away from Disney's gate. We go two to three times a year and have done that since we got married 10 years ago. It never gets old and we always love visiting disney every time we go. Sometimes we even get plane tickets for $300 total for our entire family of five roundtrip. (That's cheaper than the gas to drive down there!)

I don't know anything about visa's but as far as the business aspect, here are some ideas.....

Ever thought about getting your real estate liscense and selling real estate?

What about buying and redoing foreclosed homes? There are A LOT of people that let their vacation homes go into foreclosure and with a little paint and care someone who lives down there could have a pretty good business.

What about property management services? I know that we always try to rent our houses in Florida from people in the UK. Your pound is stronger than our dollar and ya'll tend to have cheaper rates on your rental homes.

Another plus living in Florida is the average high is 80 degrees all year around. That is nice but we stay in North Carolina cause we still like to have four seasons and our winters are very mild. Florida also has no state tax on merchandise, food, cars or homes so that is a biggie.

I have spoken to several Brits in our vacations down there and every time, every single family always says that they would love to live over here. If anyone can clarify this for me, is it because of the weather or what are the reasons? What is the appeal?

Thanks so much,
Jessica

 

[carolfoy]

The reasons? The appeal?, one word - Disney!!!
only kidding, although that is a major appeal I think the weather is a pretty big attraction and also there are so many holiday opportunities when you live in the states, so many different areas to see. Of course house prices too are good whilst the pound is still strong, we can buy a 3-4 bed villa with pool and land for about £120,000 in Florida and you'd be hard pushed to buy a 2bed terraced small house anywhere in the uk for that so I can only think those would be the strongest reasons, Of course thats my opinion only, I'm sure everyone else will have different reasons.
Personally I'd only live in the Uk and if hard pushed would choose Canada as my must move if I HAD to emigrate

 

[wilki32]

Real Estate would be my choice, have my own business over here, do you know what you do to get the real estate license?

 

[hanncam]

Yes, as a matter of fact I do.

Now this is true for where I live in North Carolina and although the laws changes slightly in each state there's not that much difference. But I would still do all my research about what is offered in Florida.

In NC you can take a course offered at most any technical colleges. Those take about 4 months and do not cost very much at all, about $300 - $400. But they do offer crash courses that will get you certified quicker, you just have to do a little googling to find out where.

 

[mickg7dyd]

Hi Jessica,
We are one of those families..!!
We like the USA in general not just Florida. For us it is a mixture of the weather the people and the general lifestyle. I know it is easy to see things "through rose coloured glasses" when you visit a place on vacation but we have spoken to Brits who have moved to your country and have not met any who regret it. Yes it is hard work and probably less vactation time than we are used to but the lifestyle as a whole is much better than in the UK. We visited Palm Springs Ca. earlier this year (our second trip there) and on both occasions people there treated us like "locals" and many that we met were very surprised that we find it so difficult to get a visa to work there. One other reason we are keen to leave the UK, and this might be seen to be a little political but nevertheless we believe it, is the high taxes we pay and (estimated at upto 75% for an "average" person) and the general dropping of standards over here and we both feel that we are losing control of country to unelected bureaucrats in the EU. We do keep looking at business opportunities to invest in but so far we haven't found anything we would be comfortable with. Hopefully one day soon we may find the right thing.

Mick & Lyn

 

[hanncam]

OMG did you say 75% tax for average person? Did I understand that right?

And I thought that 17-19% per person here was outragous!

 

[hanncam]

The US ain't all it's cracked up to be either. Medical insurance can be quite expensive if you don't know where to look. And college...don't even get me started but fortunately you can get financial aid and grants and the like.

I guess I am fascinated by all things British. It seems like such a wonderful country with so much crazy rich history. One day I am making a trip across the pond to visit whether my husband likes it or not. (He can't stand flying and flying over the ocean forget about it...)

Before I forget, we are leaving for Disney this Friday for two weeks and maybe I'll be able to talk to some visiting Brits while we are down there. Last year I had a wonderful conversation with a family and there were actually trying to get visa's over here. I was completely surprised to find out how hard it was.

 

[mickg7dyd]

Hi,
I probably should clarify when I said upto 75% taxes that is an estimated figure that includes income tax, property tax, sales tax etc etc. We have a lot of "hidden" taxes over here including paying for the BBC even if you only want to watch other channels!! And of course we get taxed to leave our country to visit yours.!

Mick.

 

[hanncam]

You get taxed to leave your country? How much if you don't mind me asking?

Now we get alot of taxes over here too. Property tax, real estate tax, gas tax, federal tax and state tax. About 17-19% taxes also come out of your check too. So there is alot going around....