Moving to twin cities area for work, need help with neighborhoods (Minneapolis: apartments, rental)

[SelectStart]

I am looking to move into the Twin Cities area around June 1st and need a bit of help with what I can afford/expect:

Budget would be around $1000, would prefer a 1 BDR
I'll be working in Maplewood
Highly prefer living near others (downtown area)
I have a car, so I'm not too worried about commuting (or should I be?)
I'm 25, so maybe would prefer living near slightly younger crowd (20-30)

Any help would be much appreciated. I love Minnesota sports, so anything near the stadiums in Minneapolis or near Xcel in St Paul would be a huge plus, but I realize this might knock me out of my price range.

Thanks!

[wamer27]

North Loop in Mpls (Target Field and Target Center is next door)
Uptown
St Anthony and Main area of NE Mpls
NE Mpls in general
St Paul, places near Grand Ave, maybe something on W 7th near the Xcel.

The commute to 3M (assuming that's the Maplewood work place) shouldn't be bad, going opposite direction of the heavy traffic.

[WildHeart22]

Any luck? I'm moving closer to Minneapolis this summer as well, I currently live in a suburb pretty far north and want to be closer to the fun and youth of the city. I have a similar budget to you and am having a hard time finding anything.

If you've had luck finding somewhere, can I ask if you were using any website/app/tool that you found particularly helpful?

[StPaulGal]

I highly recommend padmapper. com for a rental housing search. That's what I used before I bought my house 3 years ago, and that's what I have used to help friends find places since then. It pulls from a number of sources and puts the results on an easy-to-use map. Their mobile interface kind of sucks, though, so I recommend using an actual computer to access the site.

[ellysbelly]

Another vote for Padmapper.com; it's particularly helpful for people new to the area as it places all of the listings on a map, not just in a list.

[sunspotzsz]

most of the websites all have maps, apartments.com or craigslist.

what's so special about padmapper?

[StPaulGal]

I like padmapper because it draws from multiple sources and aggregates the results onto a single map. I also find the interface intuitive and apprecitate the fact that it doesn't pressure to sign up an account in order to use it.

[ellysbelly]

Craiglist might individually map each listing, but padmapper has them ALL together on a single map, so you can easily see where all of the listings are-- and where they are in relation to each other-- I found that especially helpful when I was first learning the lay of the land and trying to determine where we wanted to move. Additionally, craiglist is clunky to navigate and, as already mentioned, padmapper has a much more intuitive interface.

[Mason3000]

Originally Posted by SelectStart

I am looking to move into the Twin Cities area around June 1st and need a bit of help with what I can afford/expect:

Budget would be around $1000, would prefer a 1 BDR
I'll be working in Maplewood
Highly prefer living near others (downtown area)
I have a car, so I'm not too worried about commuting (or should I be?)
I'm 25, so maybe would prefer living near slightly younger crowd (20-30)

Any help would be much appreciated. I love Minnesota sports, so anything near the stadiums in Minneapolis or near Xcel in St Paul would be a huge plus, but I realize this might knock me out of my price range.

Thanks!

You need to be Downtown St Paul imo. You can walk to the bars/restaurants, walk to the X for games/concerts, to CHS field for Saints games & it's a 10 minute drive to Maplewood for work. Really no reason to look anywhere else, imo, but Selby-Dale/Cathedral Hill or West 7th would also be good choices.

[Cruz Azul Guy]

I second the suggestion of looking in downtown St. Paul. For $1000 you could find a nice 1 bdrm loft there and you'd be close to work.