Rental homes search and neighborhood questions (Minneapolis, St. Paul: real estate, apartment, townhouse)

[shanajo]

I have two questions that I'd love some input on. My family is moving to the Twin Cities around the middle of February. We are going to be renting for awhile, as we need our current home to sell before we can buy again. I have been looking at rental properties for awhile, mostly via Craigslist. Are there any other websites that you would recommend for looking at available rental homes?

My second question is that my husband will be working in the downtown St. Paul area. We'd love to live in St. Paul if possible and I've been looking for rentals in the Mac/Grove and Highland neighborhoods. However, we realize that we may have to look more in the suburbs if we aren't able to find a place that will suit our needs in those areas. What suburbs would you most recommend in relation to the downtown St. Paul area when considering commute times?

Shana

[1stpontiac]

padmapper.com is a pretty useful site (or was the last time I looked at it, anyways).

I don't have any experience with St Paul neighborhoods, but others will. I'm sure some price, size, and style preferences would help people recommend neighborhoods and/or suburbs.

[golfgal]

Eagan has a lot of rental townhomes in nice areas and is a very easy commute into downtown St. Paul. A lot of rentals, though, are advertised in local newspapers and not so much on Craigslist, although you can find them there. Papers like the Minnesota Local News - minnlocal.com > Front > or town specific newspapers are going to really be your best bet, but more work for you.

For house rentals, often a sign in the yard and a postcard placed at the local grocery store is all many need to do vs paying for an ad. It make looking from out of town somewhat more difficult though. You could also contact some real estate agents in the area if you want a house to rent vs townhome/apartment.

Woodbury would be a consideration but the commute from there into St. Paul is much more difficult (way more traffic). Mahtomedi is another fantastic area, top schools, easy hop into St. Paul, pretty area.

[shanajo]

Originally Posted by 1stpontiac

padmapper.com is a pretty useful site (or was the last time I looked at it, anyways).

I don't have any experience with St Paul neighborhoods, but others will. I'm sure some price, size, and style preferences would help people recommend neighborhoods and/or suburbs.

Thanks for the website recommendation. As for the type of rental that we are looking for--- we have four children, so we need something a bit bigger (at least 1600 sq ft, but would prefer closer to 2000+ sq ft) and at least 3 bedrooms. We are looking in the $1300-$1600 a month range for rent and we'd prefer a house, but would consider a townhouse depending on the particular townhouse community.

[shanajo]

Originally Posted by golfgal

Eagan has a lot of rental townhomes in nice areas and is a very easy commute into downtown St. Paul. A lot of rentals, though, are advertised in local newspapers and not so much on Craigslist, although you can find them there. Papers like the Minnesota Local News - minnlocal.com > Front > or town specific newspapers are going to really be your best bet, but more work for you.

For house rentals, often a sign in the yard and a postcard placed at the local grocery store is all many need to do vs paying for an ad. It make looking from out of town somewhat more difficult though. You could also contact some real estate agents in the area if you want a house to rent vs townhome/apartment.

Woodbury would be a consideration but the commute from there into St. Paul is much more difficult (way more traffic). Mahtomedi is another fantastic area, top schools, easy hop into St. Paul, pretty area.

Thank you for the newspaper link--I'll check it out. I haven't looked at all at Mahtomedi, I'm going to look into that area now.

[ceeb4]

As someone who recently rented a single family residence in the Twin Cities, please heed my advice. If you find something you like, jump on it! When relocating, we found several properties to our liking but trying to find a rental while living out of state is difficult. We came to the area twice before we moved with properties chosen to view (right up to the day before we flew out) and most of them were gone by the time we had appointments to view them. I am not advising to rent something unseen...just be brisk in your decisions once you come out to view as we found good rentals go very, very fast. Also, we found properties to be priced high for what you get. To be more precise, we looked in SW Minneapolis, Richfield, Bloomington, Edina, Plymouth, one gorgeous property close to UofM (gone like lightening) and the 196 school district in Dakota County. We ended up in Apple Valley/Burnsville which wasn't our first choice but fortunately for us turned out to be a perfect fit for our family.

Also we ended up going through a rental property agency who have been very, very good to work with. If you're interested in the name of the company, please send a pm as I think to post a name on here is against the rules.