Moving from Chicagoland - Young couple w/ 8 month old - work at home (Minneapolis: best neighborhood)

[yerhot]

Hi all. My wife and I are fairly young and have an 8 month old. We're moving back to Minnesota to be closer to family.

We'll be taking some trips up to MSP in the next few months to start looking at houses, but need some advice.

1. We'd like a not so suburban feel. We're in the midst of strip mall and cookie cutter house central here in the outer Chicago suburbs. Would love a little more urban feel and a bit more character.

2. Decent schools for our son when he starts school.

3. I work remotely and my wife stays at home with our son so commute doesn't matter. What does is that there are some places fairly close I can shack up at for a few hours to work - i.e. coffee shops. More the better. Again, we'd prefer more mom and pop shops than Starbucks.

4. We're looking at buying and would like to find a modest 3-4 bedroom house at around $200k. Don't need a mansion, but don't want a total fixer-uper either.

5. Would like to be 30-40 minutes (at the most) from downtown Minneapolis.

We've looked at bit at St. Paul (specifically, St. Anthony Park and Como ), but have been told to check out Hopkins and St. Louis Park too. I read some other threads suggesting Hopkins for another younger couple.

Thanks.

[uptown_urbanist]

I'd add much of south Minneapolis to your list, too, as well as north Minneapolis neighborhoods like Victory. It's tough to go more than a few blocks in many parts of Minneapolis without bumping into an independent coffee shop! And while not all Minneapolis schools are good, many are decent; southwest Minneapolis has the reputation for the overall best neighborhood schools, although there are good schools elsewhere, too. You might also want to consider Richfield; it's an older inner-ring suburb and there are strip malls, but it has an urban feel and you can buy a nice place for your price range. It's currently one of my favorite suburbs, and I've become increasingly impressed with its possibilities. There seem to be lots of younger families there now, too. I go there a lot with my young son. It's a post-war suburb so you won't be getting an old (pre-war, that is) house, though. For that definitely check out the city neighborhoods.

[Camden Northsider]

St. Anthony Park is nice, as is Hopkins (both of which I view to have some more character than SLP)- I may be wrong here as I haven't kept up on recent trends, but I think you'd probably have a tough time finding a nice 3-4 bedroom house that doesn't need much work in both of these areas for under $200K. You'd likely have a better shot in SLP, which does have a lot of character and feels more city-like/less cookie cutter than most suburbs outside of its plethora of postwar housing stock.

Two areas (or one, depending on how you look at it as they share a similar border) that you should definitely check out are the aforementioned Victory Neighborhood in the NW corner of Minneapolis (where I live, so I'm a biased source here) and the directly adjacent suburb of Robbinsdale. Both have a lot of younger families living in homes with character on quiet, tree-lined streets, and both Victory and Robbinsdale have their own little downtown sections of local independent businesses (Victory's is a lot smaller, but it's only 1.5 mi away from Robbinsdale's). For coffee, in Victory there's Steamworks Coffee & Tea Co (awesome place) and in Robbinsdale you have The Daily Grind Coffee House, Coffee on Broadway, and other options (not sure what all there has Wi-Fi). A short distance to the east of Victory on 42nd/Lyndale in Webber-Camden neighborhood is 42nd Avenue Station, another great coffee shop, and if you do want the chain coffee there is a Caribou (at the Caribou HQ location) just across the Robbinsdale border in Brooklyn Center.

Loring Community School serves the Victory and surrounding neighborhoods- I know a lot of people whose children are either currently attending or planning to attend this school and are very happy with it. Henry High is on the border of the neighborhood here and has an excellent IB program and great overall rep as well. Both schools (and the local neighborhods) are very diverse which I view as a huge bonus. The area is about a 10-15 minute commute to DT Minneapolis, see below for typical neighborhood homes (4 beds) and listing prices in Victory right now (much lower overall than when we purchased 3.5 yrs ago!):

4011 Upton Avenue N, Minneapolis MN - Trulia

3826 Xerxes Avenue N, Minneapolis MN - Trulia

[Cruz Azul Guy]

If you could find a house in that range in Hopkins, definitely go for it! Given your criteria that would and ideal area for you with good schools and a charming downtown to boot. The Southwest area of Minneapolis does have good schools but you're probably not going to find a 3-4 bedroom home there for 200k. If you decide to look in Minneapolis proper, I recommend looking in the Longfellow, Nokomis and Northeast areas. I don't know enough about St. Paul to make recommendations over there but I definitey wouldn't leave it out of the search. There are lots of charming St. Paul neighborhoods with lots of ma and pa shops within walking distance.

There are alot of homes within your price range but you may find that area too suburban. It's definitely too suburban for my tastes anyway, although it's trying to become urban along Excelsior Blvd with new mixed use condo developments there...it's basically all chain stores and restaurants though, so you'd probably be settling for Starbucks and Caribou.

Richfield is worth a look but it's very stripmall happy. You may find something you like there but I think you may find the city neighborhoods more charming with more access to independant coffee stores and other shopping. That's been my experience anyway.

[Kebinminn]

Hopkins schools are excellent and Hopkins has a nice small-town downtown and if you can find a home there I would highly recommend it.

I wouldn't recommend the Robbinsdale schools, at least in the NE side. I also know several people from Victory who chose to send their kids elsewhere so reviews are a bit mixed there too.

Another option, further out, may be Excelsior/Victoria. My experience there is limited as I haven't spent a lot of time in the area but from what I've seen it has a lot of character.

[uptown_urbanist]

I agree that the city would be better than the suburbs, just threw Richfield out there as a cheaper alternative to SLP.

The St. Paul suggestion is a good one; my sense is that overall it's easier to get a cheaper home over there than it is in many parts of Minneapolis. There are a lot of very nice St. Paul neighborhoods (including more affordable ones) with independent coffee shops aplenty, but I'll let the SP experts weigh in on which ones. You've already mentioned Como; one big plus there would be easy access to the park and the zoo, which would be a great plus for anyone with a kid. I know there are a lot of social groups over there (well, in all of the TC, but I know there's are several active St. Paul meetup groups for parents with young kids) which would be an easy way for your wife to meet new people.

[Cruz Azul Guy]

Whoops, I just realized my second paragraph is missing the suburb I'm talking about, I was referring to St. Louis Park. It's one of the more popular suburbs lately with good proximity to the city and chain of lakes and there are alot of homes in your price range there. It just doesn't have the walkability that areas of Minneapolis and St. Paul have...even most of Hopkins is more walkable due to the fact that most of it is within a few blocks of their little downtown area, which is very nice by the way.

[Camden Northsider]

Originally Posted by Kebinminn

I wouldn't recommend the Robbinsdale schools, at least in the NE side. I also know several people from Victory who chose to send their kids elsewhere so reviews are a bit mixed there too.

This is an interesting topic to me and I've been keeping my eye on local trends here the past few years. It seems a lot of the families with older children in Victory used to default to sending their kids across the parkway to Robbinsdale schools or one of the FAIR Academy locations in past years. The trend now seems to be reversing itself where local families are starting to view Loring as more desirable than Robbinsdale offerings...middle and high school still seem to be a tossup between sending kids to Robbinsdale, FAIR, Henry, De La Salle Catholic, or other MPS public schools, but families that want quality education and a highly diverse student body (from what I can tell) right in the n'hood seem to be opting for Mpls Henry more these days as well.

[Kebinminn]

Originally Posted by Camden Northsider

This is an interesting topic to me and I've been keeping my eye on local trends here the past few years. It seems a lot of the families with older children in Victory used to default to sending their kids across the parkway to Robbinsdale schools or one of the FAIR Academy locations in past years. The trend now seems to be reversing itself where local families are starting to view Loring as more desirable than Robbinsdale offerings...middle and high school still seem to be a tossup between sending kids to Robbinsdale, FAIR, Henry, De La Salle Catholic, or other MPS public schools, but families that want quality education and a highly diverse student body (from what I can tell) right in the n'hood seem to be opting for Mpls Henry more these days as well.

Yeah, I don't know anyone there who sends their kids to Robbinsdale for elementary. The ones I know either do Hopkins, charter or homeschool. I've met a couple who've done Loring .

[Jennifer Rubenzer]

As a real estate agent, I can say that St Louis Park and Hopkins will not give you much bang for your buck. Although New Hope and Cyrstal may be great options or some areas of Fridley and Columbia Heights for that pricing point.

New Hope and Crystal are served my Robbinsdale Schools. My son went to Robbinsdale schools through 2nd grade and has many friends still in district; he'll be in HS next year. Although it is a more economically diverse district than say Wayzata, the parents I stay in touch with are happy there.

Como neighborhood is very walkable and has a fabulous vibe. I have a client closing on a home there at the end of the month. Just under $200k bought her 3br/2ba and a 2 car garage. The same pricing would be true for the other areas I have mentioned. Nokomis in Minneapolis may slim down the size of home, but I the vibe will be similar to that of Como.

The best thing IMO for your family at this point may having an agent set up a few automated searches for various areas so you can see what moves and for what price point.

Let me know if I can help.