My Condolences to Renters.... (Minneapolis, Eden Prairie: bank owned, low income, real estate market)

[Thedosius]

Finding a deal on a Twin Cities apartment has become mission impossible | City Pages




I bought my first house 12 years ago so I've been out of touch with rising rents.


Ouch!

[TimtheGuy]

Originally Posted by Thedosius

Finding a deal on a Twin Cities apartment has become mission impossible | City Pages




I bought my first house 12 years ago so I've been out of touch with rising rents.


Ouch!

Talk to the first time homebuyers out there right now. It is just as 'mission impossible' for them.

[Ursicinus]

Yeah, Tim's right. You basically get screwed either way. It's like you can't buy a home if you've bought... well... almost anything more than groceries in the past year, but you also can't save up money for a bigger down payment because rent is so ****ing high. And it's everywhere. Whether you're looking for a 2BR rental in a ****hole slum or Linden Hills, the price is usually gonna start at about $1100/mo. Trust me, I've looked.

[pannierpacker]

Are there better places in the nation to move to right now? At least ones with a better earnings to rent ratio? I've heard that the housing market in every state is pretty much on the upswing right now. Might this be the expected result of that success?

On a side note, I don't think that this is the worst time to look for an apartment. I think last summer was the worst I've experienced. A few days ago I emailed about 10 properties listed on hotpads and received 4 email replies and a couple of voicemails within a couple days.

This past summer the only properties I could find <1000 in the city were in apartment buildings that were having all their units completely revamped and they were studios. In the end it was who I knew that mattered more than what i could find online.

[Staggerlee666]

Me and my wife moved here from NYC. We are used to paying good money for a LUXURY apartment with amenities, 24 hour concierge service, package service, dry cleaning, etc. Not enough of these type of buildings in the Twin Cities and you have to offer that if you want to attract people from other parts of the country such as Chicago and NYC that are used to luxury buildings. We sure as hell don't want to live in a run down brownstone with radiators and street parking. Wake up Minneapolis, if you want your city to be a world class city you have to step your game up.

[cfbs2691]

Originally Posted by pannierpacker

Are there better places in the nation to move to right now? At least ones with a better earnings to rent ratio? I've heard that the housing market in every state is pretty much on the upswing right now.

I'm certainly not claiming to be any kind of expert.. but for a few years I've been seeing people stating the same thing on other states' forums on here... so it seems the same problem is everywhere.

[max7418]

Originally Posted by Staggerlee666

Me and my wife moved here from NYC. We are used to paying good money for a LUXURY apartment with amenities, 24 hour concierge service, package service, dry cleaning, etc. Not enough of these type of buildings in the Twin Cities and you have to offer that if you want to attract people from other parts of the country such as Chicago and NYC that are used to luxury buildings. We sure as hell don't want to live in a run down brownstone with radiators and street parking. Wake up Minneapolis, if you want your city to be a world class city you have to step your game up.

When did you move here? You sound very blunt, just the way Minnesotans like it.

[Mason3000]

There was an interesting article in the Pioneer Press about a company called Blackstone Financial a while back. They targeted the twin cities and swept in buying up hundreds of homes. All under $175k and they turned them into rentals. The article said that this company had bought over 50% of the homes in the TC over the past few years (which artificially gave the appearance of a healthy real estate market). They claimed they were great for the TC because they were "stabilizing" the rental market. Their strategy was to wait until the market rebounded and then sell the houses to the renters at huge margins. It sorta made me throw up in my mouth because it froze out low income & first time home buyers since this corporation was getting first pick of all the homes coming on the market & foreclosures. They'd buy in bulk & pay cash, so the average person had no chance against them. So, those people had to rent, but they also jacked up all the rents and the rest of the rental market followed suit.

[TheGrandViking]

Originally Posted by Mason3000

There was an interesting article in the Pioneer Press about a company called Blackstone Financial a while back. They targeted the twin cities and swept in buying up hundreds of homes. All under $175k and they turned them into rentals. The article said that this company had bought over 50% of the homes in the TC over the past few years (which artificially gave the appearance of a healthy real estate market). They claimed they were great for the TC because they were "stabilizing" the rental market. Their strategy was to wait until the market rebounded and then sell the houses to the renters at huge margins. It sorta made me throw up in my mouth because it froze out low income & first time home buyers since this corporation was getting first pick of all the homes coming on the market & foreclosures. They'd buy in bulk & pay cash, so the average person had no chance against them. So, those people had to rent, but they also jacked up all the rents and the rest of the rental market followed suit.

This is what my realtor said. I have also run into an interesting practice of bank owned property that lists one price and changes it upon contact with the bank (a version of bait and switch). I do have sympathy for first time home owners. I was filtering properties by putting 300k or less for single family home owners in Chanhassen, Minnetonka, and Eden Prairie. Each city had only between 7-9.

First time home owners have a difficult path.

[Ursicinus]

Originally Posted by Staggerlee666

Me and my wife moved here from NYC. We are used to paying good money for a LUXURY apartment with amenities, 24 hour concierge service, package service, dry cleaning, etc. Not enough of these type of buildings in the Twin Cities and you have to offer that if you want to attract people from other parts of the country such as Chicago and NYC that are used to luxury buildings. We sure as hell don't want to live in a run down brownstone with radiators and street parking. Wake up Minneapolis, if you want your city to be a world class city you have to step your game up.

I guess it depends where exactly you're looking, but I can think of half a dozen places like this off the top of my head in Minneapolis alone (I live in one of them). And if you're used to NYC, where you pay $2,000 a month to share an apartment with 4 people you just met, in a building in Brooklyn where the hallways and stairwells look like prison bathrooms, the options in Minneapolis should look astoundingly cheap and comfy to you, as well.