Much easier time than buying a house in the UK mate, you are going to think you are in house buying heaven! (brit in US here). In my experience the banks don't care if you are from Mars, all you need is a credit rating and a down-payment (in some cases you don't even need the dp) In Tennessee, with a combined income of 165k, your going to live like kings.

Only advise I would give is to open a bank account with a credit union, not a bank, please please please not a bank. Depending on you or the wife's job, (federal, military, un etc different credit unions are open to you).

Also a credit union is not the same as back home, consider it a full-service building society, some are local and calculate mortgage power on different (and more favorable) factors then banks, customer service is way better. I never understood why anyone uses an actual bank.

My example, here in DC i earn 124k a year, non-federal, good credit (not excellent) and my credit union said I can buy a house for 600k, (4 to 4.5% IR)and provide me with a pre-approved letter, with a 5% downpayment, obvs the payments on that would kill me, and I plan to stick to 400k but gives you an example of how it is here compared to back home. Depending on your downpayment, you will need mortgage insurance, once your downpayment hits a certain level you no longer need mortgage insurance, saving you money, (if you have to get insurance, it will go away as soon as you pay down enough on the property, or re-mortage to release equity).

On the job front, if you are the Aussie then you can get an E visa, super easy to get, no waiting etc, if you are the brit you will have to get an H1B visa, which are much harder, however, if you join an educational or research establishment then they would be in a different class of H1B visa's and again are much easier to get. Let me know if you have any questions, and also let me know if you end up getting a place near a good fishing spot :)