Has anyone done this? We are really stuck on how to transfer proceeds of the sale to the US. We really don't want to lose huge chunks of this in bank transfer fees and crappy currency exchange rates. Does anyone have any advice on how we can do this?
Thanks
Tigs
We just waited for the exchange rate to rise and ten transferred.
But I'm sure Ameriscot will be along shortly with one of her tips wink
The more you are transferring (and from a house sale I imagine a lot) the bigger break you seem to get on the exchange rate (which at the moment is pretty good anyway). I'd shop around banks etc to find out who will cut you a deal on the fees.
When I came over there was one that capped the fees at a very reasonable rate, just trying to remember who......
Hmmm - not much experience from this side as we rented out our UK house and then went on to rent in the US.
As to transferring money - the exchange rate is good for transferring pounds to dollars at the moment. Banks usually give you a good rate, and charge a fixed fee for the exchange and transfer - maybe $30 split between the two banks, which is neither here nor there when you are talking about house profit.
Hi Tigs,
Now is a great time to be transfering pounds to dollars!
When we sold our UK house the transfer of money was very easy, we just wired it from our UK bank to our US bank and were charged a very small fee by both.
When I bought my house here I just transferred the cash directly to the escrow company's bank. The fees were minimal and it saved me doing the transfer to my bank and then getting a bank draft to pay the escrow fees... much easier than I thought it would be. As mentioned in other responses - the exchange rate from Sterling to Dollars is good at the mo' - you get mucho dollars for your pounds!
Exchange rates are good for pounds to dollars right now so I wouldn't worry and just transfer it over. We were unlucky when we transferred ours over when buying in the US because the exchange rates were really bad for the pound at the time (I think we got something like 1.4) and we lost thousands because of it. You won't have that issue.
Hi Tigs,
Now is a great time to be transfering pounds to dollars!
When we sold our UK house the transfer of money was very easy, we just wired it from our UK bank to our US bank and were charged a very small fee by both.
Yep.
Wot deb said.
Money from our UK house sale went in our UK bank account and they transferred it to our bank here, didn't cost much. Our exchange rate was 1.5 to the pound, so you are going to do very very well!
hi,
i opened a bank account while in the us and simply transfered the money from the sale of our house to that account from our uk account,
cost around £15 this end and $20 tuther end,
was hassle free,
hope this helps, although looks like i'm too late in replying,
oops,
neil
Buy our house and we'll buy yours. ;o)
Where are you?
It's all about the rate
http//www.exchangerate.com/
You can get the graphs for the past 12mts to give you an idea of what is a good rate. With dollar getting stronger now you will not see 1.96 back for a while but we are around 1.74 and thats real good compaired to the 1.37 of a couple of years back.
Seen plenty of recommends from expats for this service https//www.xe.com/fx/index.htm