Asked By: Youaise - 2/16/2012

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

The first thing your family needs is the visa. In order to get the visa, your dad or mom needs to find a job that will sponsor one before you attempt to come to the U.S.

The architecture job market in Los Angeles is probably one of the worst in the country right now due to the collapse of the housing market. My sister is an architect here and she drives two and a half hours in the morning to get to work because it was so extremely difficult to even find her job that she cannot afford to leave it and find another. Nearly all of her classmates from graduate school are either doing other jobs or have left California. Her first firm was with a world famous architect and he had to lay off 40 architects in his own office. The same with true with all major firms in the city. They have all layed off a large number of people. A number of firms, the lead architects have been working for the past two years without pay to keep their firms afloat. If your dad manages to find a job, he will probably make MUCH less than the salary your listed. Maybe 60?he amount you listed, if he's really really lucky.

The good news is that if he tries to find work using his programming skills, he will probably have much better luck. There are a number of companies based in Long Beach that develop major apps like Angry Birds where he can work. Again, he needs to get an offer to work first before he can think of trying to move you guys here. A visa is pretty difficult to acquire if you do not have immediate blood relatives who are citizens or a company willing to sponsor you.

As for money and housing, that will be a challenge.

Because you and your brother are school age, your parents need to consider schooling options here. There ARE good public schools out there, but in order to attend them, you either need to:
A. Spend a LARGE amount on rent for a house within the district
B. Be extraordinarily gifted or talented, and have a parent willing to possibly drive you long distances through traffic really early in the morning to get to school
the other option would be private school. The most affordable option would be to attend a Catholic affiliated school such as Loyola Boys High School in Downtown LA. That school will cost your family around $15,000 a year. Every other private school will cost between $20,000-40,000 a year. Some good schools to consider are Harvard-Westlake School, The Brentwood School, Chadwick, Cambell Hall, Flintridge Prep School, and Poly high school in Pasadena. All private schools will require either a parent devoted to dropping you off and picking you up, and you all will have to find a living situation relatively near the school.

Families living in Los Angeles struggle the most with providing their children good schooling while managing affordable housing. If you are trying to go the public school route, the best options for housing would probably be Burbank, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, or Irvine in Orange County (a suburb of Los Angeles). Renting a three bedroom house in any of those neighborhoods will cost your parents around $4,000 a month.

Anything's possible with the proper amount of planning and preparation. The weather is fantastic here and there are a lot of great things to see and do. The best places to live are close to the ocean, so try to aim for there. It's worth it to be able to go the beach after school and do a little surfing ;)

Answered By: kk1977 - 2/16/2012