I accepted an offer to work in the Bay Area (TC 500k$+). As I am from Europe, I am of course totally inexperienced with common day to day life there (silly example: I had a hard time finding out that SFH means "Single Family Home" - duh). And I have a ton of basic questions. Here is one (assuming I get the H1B visa): Do I need to build up a credit rating? In my country this is a totally foreign concept. While I will have enough TC to not need to borrow money in most cases, there are still two reasons I can see: - I will need a Visa/Mastercard "credit" card - I may want at some point to buy a home with a mortgage How do I start to build up a credit rating? I found online that buying a car with a credit (even though I have the cash) is the easiest. Any other idea? Also someone told me I can start from home by signing up to American Express, that even from Europe, this would contribute to my US credit rating. Does it matter which one? I suppose both my wife and I should get one right? (anyone for a referral?) Is there anything else that I can start doing *before* I move? TIA
You can get a credit card for people with low credit or without credit. You might be required to make a deposit for these but it is a great firs card. Eg will be cap one platinum. But u will need a social security number which means u have to be here first.
Thanks for the info
You should have sought and understood the answers to these questions *prior* to accepting the offer... your due diligence is quite lacking here.
You are right. I should have had the hindsight to guess there was something in the US that's completely unheard of in my country. Better yet, I should have come and live there for a few months before accepting, in order to identify every nook and cranny of the country. Stupid me.
Don't worry. Moved from Europe 3 years ago and everything on track after max 1 year. Very little you could do before hand. You can get decent credit cards of visa, master type but not every card. You will have a decent score to start with, but will still get rejected for some cards or get very low ceiling due to short credit history. For house loan, we work for MS so there is a local credit union that helped. Don't know otherwise how long it will take.
Check with employer if they have any deal with any bank. Usually they do and you are gonna be treated as a person with ‘good’ credit score. That helps a lot cause from day one you can get regular credit card with decent limit
People have covered it all in posts above. I will add one thing though. While you get settled down here. Get a "no foreign transaction fee" Visa or MC credit card from Europe before you move here. Use that until you figure things out. It shouldn't be that bad though. Good luck!
How often you take your suck a month to make 500k ?
this sentence doesn't compute