St. Cloud area, looking to rent, maybe rent-to-buy (St. Paul, Sauk Rapids: apartment, rentals)
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St. Cloud area, looking to rent, maybe rent-to-buy
I'm moving with family (wife and kids) to the St Cloud area, from West Virginia, so completely unfamiliar with the area. Would like to rent. I'd love to find a 4-bedroom home for rent in St. Cloud/St. Joseph/Avon area. About $1000/month realistic? Any leads or suggestions? Can't find much in rentals on the internet.
St. Cloud/St. Joe are college towns so finding rentals for that price is going to be fairly easy. For whatever reason people in MN don't really advertise online much for house rentals. You need to look in the local newspapers, St. Cloud Times, but also just on bulletin boards around town. I would also contact St. Cloud State University, College of St. Benedict/St. John's University and see if they have any listings. They often have lists of people that have rentals, and some are more for professors coming on sabbatical. Chances are you don't really want a "college" rental but there are some nicer houses, especially in St. Joe and Avon, that would probably work.
Where in St. Cloud will you be working? I would suggest also looking in the Sartell area as well as Albany. They are two of the better school districts in the area. There is also a very good Catholic School system in St. Cloud if that is of interest.
If you go after a place that's housed college students, keep in mind it's probably been beat up. College boys didn't get their reputation as party animals for nothing.
This is helpful. I'm not sure I want college towns. Looking for more quiet neighborhood where there are families. Where's best to look for that? I'm working outside of St Joseph.
This is helpful. I'm not sure I want college towns. Looking for more quiet neighborhood where there are families. Where's best to look for that? I'm working outside of St Joseph.
I don't like St. Joseph. But I would look at West St. Cloud, Sartell, Avon, or Cold Spring.
This is helpful. I'm not sure I want college towns. Looking for more quiet neighborhood where there are families. Where's best to look for that? I'm working outside of St Joseph.
St. Joe is actually a pretty residential area that happens to have a small college. Downtown St. Joe is busy on weekends but the rest of the time it is a nice, small town. I wouldn't discount it, especially for all of the activities on campus, many which are free. The Minnesota Orchestra performs there, they have a concert series where they bring in plays and concerts from all over the world. The Art center on campus is world famous-actually the MN Orchestra does their recordings there because of the acoustics. Add in national caliber sports there and at St. John's and it makes for a great family life. That and I am an alum of that college and think highly of the school and programs there.
Sartell has the best schools in the area but if you are working in St. Joe, why drive if you don't need to. If you don't mind the drive, I still think you should look into Albany. It is a very nice town, good schools, easy drive on 94 over to St. Joe.
St. Joe is actually a pretty residential area that happens to have a small college. Downtown St. Joe is busy on weekends but the rest of the time it is a nice, small town.
Sartell has the best schools in the area but if you are working in St. Joe, why drive if you don't need to. If you don't mind the drive, I still think you should look into Albany. It is a very nice town, good schools, easy drive on 94 over to St. Joe.
St Joe is mostly residential, but between the college students and the low end rentals, it doesn't have the best reputation. The only neighborhood that I'd live in would be to the north of CR 75 off of Northland. Sartell is only 5-10 minutes from St Joe if you take the back roads. Albany is nice.
The hospital area is the best, but that isn't saying much. Finding rentals for 1000 will be easy peasy. We rent a 3 bedroom apartment for under 800 that includes all amenities except electricity, well and tv/phone/internet.
I have met some incredible people(well just one actually) From St. Johns in St. Joseph.
As far as where to look for houses, just drive around looking, and pick up local newspapers and look on craigslist. There is no "bad" and "good" neighborhoods, the city is way to small for that. Anywhere in the city is fine, and college kids are all over. When I lived in an apartment in Waite Park it was full of college kids. Theres what, 16k college kids, and like 60 some thousand people in St. Cloud, (NOT including St. Joe, Sartell, Waite Park, or Sauk Rapids), but it's still a high percentage of college kids, and you won't be able to seclude yourself from them 100%.
I have no sources to back this up, but one of the teachers at school(I go to Tech High School) was talking about one of the reasons they haven't got a new building is because the ratio of something like people with kids is below average or something like that, and there is a high perecentage of older people without kids that don't want taxes raised to support a new building. Tech has the oldest school building in the state(oldest school building, not oldest high school in the state, the oldest high school in the state is Central High School in Downtown St. Paul, somehow people don't seem to understand the difference from oldest school and oldest school building) It's ancient(built in 1917 and has had several expansions(4 or 5 I think) built up until sometime in the 60s I believe) and it has yellow bathroom tiles on the wall throughout the entire school. W/e, Im graduating at the end of May and am leaving St. Cloud, so I don't care(A very cliche response from a 18 year old) Theres ALWAYS talk of them getting a new building, has been for years, but so far nothing. I also always hear teachers talk about it as well, one of my teachers told us how many millions of dollars go into the old building and smokestack every year, and he said it would only raise taxes on average a couple dollars for everybody each year. I think most people don't understand how much money they put into that ancient building and why it would make more sense to get a new building instead of pumping tons and tons of money into the old one.
As for where your working, anywhere you pick a house will be a reasonable commute to St. Joseph, unless 5-10 minutes is unreasonable for you. I have a teacher that lives in Little Falls, one that lives in Buffalo, and my dad works in Annandale. Gas prices are deadly though, 3.89 today when I left my apartment to go shopping, but there like that all over the country.
One thing I will note is the selection of grocery stores here sucks. Most of them are Coborns/Cashwise which are owned by the same company. Cashwise took over Cub Foods here and took out most of their competition and now their prices are even more ridiculous than before. And Coborns is more expensive then Cash wise. We have a Byerlys, A Walmart Supercenter, and Aldi, which is some small place and not a full fledged grocery store. Oh ya, both the Targets have grocery sections now, small, but well it's atleast some kind of competition. The post office parking lot downtown is also very outdated and small, lol. Just something random I thought I'd tell you. And theres always people outside Planned Parenthood downtown protesting as well, waste of time IMO(ESPECIALLY when I see them doing it in the middle of winter when It's less than zero degrees outside), and anyone getting an abortion isn't going to change their mind after seeing a sign that says "Choose life" or "Abortion doesn't make you unpregnant, it makes you the mother of a dead child"
But hey, it's their right.
Last edited by Radical_Car; 04-09-2011 at 07:26 PM..
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