A pleasant visit to Camden. (Emily, Lowry: house, transfer, neighborhood)

[wil45]

In my search to find an affordable home to buy in Mpls I centered on the Camden neighborhood and was mostly pleasantly surprized by what I encountered. My search was for homes between $40-100,000. Yes, there were homes that were dumps that I spent all of 2 minutes in (4 out of 11). There were 5 that had possibilities and 2 that were great deals IMO. I'm still working on a company transfer from Denver. I found mostly well maintained homes with a few exceptions and a racial mix that was refreshing with alot of children, families and singles. I took friends out to Sauced bistro and had great food. Emily's was like a small town cafe for breakfast. I know there's crime/drugs in various parts of this neighborhood and it must happen at night because I saw nothing that would alarm me during the day. Some of the postings I've read here call Camden the "hood". There were some blocks in Folwell that I would approach cautiously but aside from that it seems very livable with alot of upside potentially. My point being is that I don't believe the hype that surrounds this area of Mpls.

[Slig]

If you can find a decent place in the 40-100k then go for it without hesitation. That amount of money anywhere else in the metro area is going to pay for a nice swift foot in the butt out the door. However, make sure you have a very trusted professional inspect the place from head to toe to make sure there isn't anything wrong with the foundation, roof, furnace, plumbing, etc. because your 80k home could turn into a 160k home in a hurry.

[wil45]

Do you or anyone else have a trusted inspector that you can recommend? PM me if necessary.

[nick is rulz]

all Camden is really missing to me is a neighborhood anchor. Some kind of hole in the wall everyone knows about it bar or restaurant or something....kinda like Matt's in Powderhorn.

I love it though, its a great area.

[kuan]

Sauced is a great little place. I hope it thrives.

[wil45]

But, only for breakfast/lunch it closes at 2 PM.

[Camden Northsider]

Originally Posted by kuan

Sauced is a great little place. I hope it thrives.

They've had two pretty positive reviews now: A bright spot in the north and Go Get Sauced, page 1 - Restaurants - City Pages - the buzz around sauced itself is bringing 'outsiders' into the neighborhood which is a different but welcome sight (see Make It a Date: Sauced - City Pages - Twin Cities Eater). We finally made it there and thought the food was awesome so we'll definitely be repeat customers (we had went while they were in transition mode and it was a little hit and miss, but with the new fryer and full conversion it was night and day from our last visit).

I somewhat agree with you Nick as there are some neighborhood business needs, but there are also neighborhood anchors that like most things "Camden" are things you have to discover and for the most part are patronized by local residents - Papa's, Emily's, Streamworks, Tootie's on Lowry, etc. A little neighborhood grocery/ market would be nice, Kowalski's tanked but it sounded like they didn't try too hard with it, and the proximity of a handful of Cubs/ Rainbow close by I suppose doesn't help out the cause.

Originally Posted by wil45

In my search to find an affordable home to buy in Mpls I centered on the Camden neighborhood and was mostly pleasantly surprized by what I encountered. My search was for homes between $40-100,000. Yes, there were homes that were dumps that I spent all of 2 minutes in (4 out of 11). There were 5 that had possibilities and 2 that were great deals IMO. I'm still working on a company transfer from Denver. I found mostly well maintained homes with a few exceptions and a racial mix that was refreshing with alot of children, families and singles. I took friends out to Sauced bistro and had great food. Emily's was like a small town cafe for breakfast. I know there's crime/drugs in various parts of this neighborhood and it must happen at night because I saw nothing that would alarm me during the day. Some of the postings I've read here call Camden the "hood". There were some blocks in Folwell that I would approach cautiously but aside from that it seems very livable with alot of upside potentially. My point being is that I don't believe the hype that surrounds this area of Mpls.

Wil, was there ever any doubt about how awesome Camden is?? I'm glad you were finally able to get to NOMI and it's great that you're not afraid of homes that may not quite be move-in condition (we like to surprise people by telling them that our house had at one time been vacant and boarded - although come to think of it, with all of the projects we still have to do, it's probably not all that surprising). Good luck and let me know how things go-