# US expats living in Penang moving to Chiang Mai



## Rodiy2k17 (Nov 27, 2016)

Hello

We live in Penang, Malaysia and currently have an MM2H visa. We are planning a move to Chiang Mai. Our lease expires on July 15 and we need to give a two month notice. We plan on using those eight weeks to figure out semantics. Our first two issues are banking and signing a lease so any advice on the following topics will be greatly appreciated 

We hope to take two weeks and stay in an Airbnb (we've done this before) in late May while still under our old lease in Malaysia. We need to use Bangkok Bank due to ease of convenience for USD dollar transfers via their New York branch. Our questions are;

1) Do you need to show proof of local address to open a bank account ? If the answer is yes, we'd attempt to find a suitable place and sign some paperwork and/or give deposits and then go to the bank to open a local account

2) Similarly, do you generally need a local bank account alteady opened to sign a short term lease ? We are looking to sign for six to twelve months. 

3) We're hoping to just using thirty day tourist visas for initial exploratory trip. Do banks and landlords insist on seeing non-immigrant three month visas or its equivalent to open accounts and rent houses or can we get a lease and bank account, come back to Penang to pack and settle up final terms and then get a non tourist visa before we leave Malaysia for good? We haven't thought hard about visas because it seems most people simply do visa runs and we like to travel every three months anyway

4) We hope to rent a stand alone house in the not too deep suburbs somewhat close to the airport on the west side and hopefully not as far south as Hang Dong. Would also consider Chang Phueak area as long as it's not too close to Nimmen or university. We prefer use of community amenities like pool and gym. If anyone knows reputable priority agents and suggestions for good rental sites that would be great

Once we kind of understand the order of how to rent and do banking we would take it from there. Thanks ahead of time to anyone that responds. If anyone wants or needs more information on who we are I write a blog about our situation but won't share it unless someone asks 

Thanks all


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