I suggest looking in the following places for rentals:

www.Zillow.com;- this will give you an overview of the rentals and sale homes in any area, plus sales history and aerial views of the neighborhoods. It will pull any active listings from the MLS (multiple listing service) that are for rent or sale.

www.rentometer.com This will give you an overview of all rentals in any given neighborhood, with prices and "fair market" estimates. Fun tool! You will need a zip code.

www.craigslist.com This is the web site with the most rentals by owner.

Good Luck!

Also use: www.westsiderentals.com

Try looking at places towards the east and south of the North Hollywood station for the safer and less "transitional" areas. You can also get a bicycle to do errands in the Burbank area. That will save on the need for the second car.

Well work has come back and offered me 140k for the first year, while i build up my clients over there. After that it reverts to 80k pa base so i need to be making 5k pm comission after the first year, which should be acheivable but i need to look into further.

Also offered 2k relocation costs and first month in corporate housing.

Anything else i should be asking for or confirming?

I'd verify the following:

• That you receive decent and relatively affordable health insurance
• That you can afford to receive only $2k for relocation, 18 months ago a company offered me $4.5k in relocation assistance for a move to Texas. I'd make sure that it works for you and the amount of stuff you expect to bring/buy.
• I'd verify that the corporate housing stipend is reasonable. The firm I am with now places people in corporate housing for longer-term projects in the LA area (very near where you are looking) for approximately $3800/month - I'd make sure that is around the figure they are looking at providing you. Some buildings with corporate housing in that area charge by $$/night - we usually pay in the neighborhood of $130/night.

I can't think of anything else - so if all of it looks good, congratulations!

$140k is a decent salary for first year living in LA. Your spouse should be able to find work as well once she moves here so you guys will have a pretty comfortable lifestyle if you don't go overboard.

$2k in relocation is a bit slim considering you are moving from Melbourne. You'll need that money to buy furniture and electronics.

First month rent in corporate housing (probably a long term stay apartment) is good but I will try to ask for another month. It is going to be very stressful to try to find an apartment in 2 or 3 weeks time... you don't want to be forced to sign a lease on a place just because you want out of temporary housing. Also, as we mentioned earlier, you may need to show the new landlord your pay stub or pay check to rent a place. It will be better if you can have more than 1 pay stub.

Thanks guys.

I will ask these questions.

We know we will need to pay for a bit of the relocation costs ourselves. We are going to keep most of our stuff here in storage and just buy a basic 5 - 10k apt furniture set-up over there and then ship stuff over after a yr if it looks as though it will be long term. Will have 5-10k AUD coming in from our tax return from Aus so will be using that for furniture etc.

bzcat, the wife isnt really qualified in anything, and with the job market over there do you think there is actually likelihood of her picking up part time work in retail or similar?

Your wife can sign up with a temp agency and find entry level office jobs either part time of full time.

Retail jobs are easy to find. She can just go to the local mall and walk in and speak with the store manager. Most of them are in constant need to hire sales associates.

So it is confirmed that I will be working out of the Woodland Hills office, which is a bit annoying as I was personally looking forward to living in Beverly Hills as opposed ot the Valley. Not enough to change our decision however, just wont be as cosmopolitan as we would have liked i guess

A couple colleauges have tried to dissuade us from using public transport (ie Orange line from NoHo) as they say everyone drives in LA. I am assuming this is just standard LA mindset and that the Orange Line is a quite acceptable and timely transport method?

Also, does anyone know of any art schools/colleges (for the wife) around Woodland Hills? I have had a browse but with no luck, everything arty in the Valley seems to be around NoHo

There are many (if not most) in Southern CA that simply think you are bonkers to use public transportation. Many don't have a good grasp of the benefits or even how to use the system. I wouldn't dismiss it immediately based on that.

Pierce College - Community college
California State University Northridge

Thanks SWCPHX, Pierce looks like exactly what we were looking for

The Orange Line has a Pierce College stop.

So we are tossing up between living in NoHo or Woodland Hills. Its a matter of do i want to be commuting for a couple hours a day just so we have better access to the other parts of LA, or do we want to be close to my work to give us more time to do things?

When we get there we will check out both areas and go from there

Happy Easter everyone