Northwest suburbs? (Minneapolis, Brooklyn Park, Plymouth: rent, houses, neighborhoods)

[Juniper148]

My husband accepted a job in New Hope, MN and our family will be moving there in the coming months. We are moving from rural Iowa and spent several years in Des Moines, specifically the Southside.

With 5 children obviously the schools are important. Specific experience with dyslexia and/or IEPs a plus. It has not been an enjoyable experience here in that regard but I have nothing to compare to.

Safe family friendly neighborhood with a sense of community is also high in the list. We regularly meet with our neighbors with lawn chairs and beers while kids run amok on the weekend and would enjoy a similar laid back family centered feel. We're LGTBQ friendly (have a flag flying outside our house currently) , support BIPOC and are a multi racial family ourselves. We care less about our neighbors political leanings and more about how they treat others in their day to day life.

From our research and polling random friends of friends they have encouraged us to consider New Hope Plymouth Wayzata and Golden Valley and told us to avoid Robbinsdale, Brooklyn Park Brooklyn Center and one person also added Crystal. We are moving from a much lower housing market so that is a concern as well, needing to stay under 400k with as much space as we can get for a large family. I care very little about how fancy the nearby stores are and much more about the feel of the community.

[Izzie1213]

Your list of preferable cities are ones. I will add that Golden Valley has recently been listed as "gay friendly". I grew up there. I would choose to look at homes that are in the Hopkins school district. There is open enrollment but that doesn't always guarantee there is a opening. A part of Golden Valley is in the Hopkins school district. There is also At Louis Park. Although I've seen property taxes in St Louis Park have been abnormally high, but this is based on one persons taxes, I have no idea why, but way higher than my parents in Golden Valley.

[wamer27]

See if you can find anything in the Maple Grove/Andover area.

[naycherboy]

New Hope is a nice place to go if the job is there already

[knke0204]

Originally Posted by naycherboy

New Hope is a nice place to go if the job is there already

Is it though?
WOOOOO

[knke0204]

Originally Posted by wamer27

See if you can find anything in the Maple Grove/Andover area.

Yeah, check out the Plymouth/Blaine area too while you're at it.

[Camden Northsider]

If you are a multiracial family that support BIPOC/LGBTQ communities - and you have friends telling you to avoid **Robbinsdale** of all places-- I highly recommend that you get new friends (or new friends of friends?). Reason: the ones you have are profiling areas that are in actuality very nice but might have a higher percentage of BIPOC persons, and/or are adjacent to areas of the city proper that are more diverse. I'm not very familiar with suburban school districts but it's safe to assume that almost all are good/perfectly fine (and best researched by touring and/or reaching out to them directly)-- and from what you've described about yourself, I would definitely put New Hope, Robbinsdale, and Crystal on your list, SLP if you can afford it, and I don't really see any reason to avoid the Brooklyns either. You might even want to consider some areas of Minneapolis proper, but it sounds like you are looking for more suburban in feel.

And I'll just be honest-- you all sound laid back, down to earth, not snobs and wanting a community vibe/feel where it's easy to make friends-- please do yourself a favor and *do not* look at suburbs like Plymouth, Blaine, or Andover recommended above (Maple Grove might be OK, but it's basically a polished suburb with miles of faux 'downtown' shopping where people that think they're too good for Brooklyn Park live). Good luck!

[Cruz Azul Guy]

I’ll offer a different take on the OP’s question about the northwest suburbs. If you’re looking at a number of houses or driving around you will notice fairly subtle differences in the housing stock, demographics, socio-economic standing of the residents and geography, but you will likely see more similarities than differences between them. Each one has their nicer and more modest neighborhoods as well. Your bigger goal should be finding a house that meets your budget and size requirements and getting an offer accepted. This is the reality of the housing market in the Twin Cities, which was recently reported to have the worst housing shortage in the nation -

https://www.google.com/amp/s/minneso...hortage/%3famp

This means that there are many more buyers than sellers. When a house hits the market it will usually have double digit offers within days, many of which are significantly higher than the list price.

Thus, my advice to you is to either rent for a while with the hope that the market returns to a certain level of normalcy, or to take what you can get for now, which may not be in a prime location, smaller than you hoped for or it may be a fixer-upper. Sorry to be a Debby-Downer.

[knke0204]

St. Michael

[paiste13]

Your budget with that many kids will be a challenge. I found taxes, as a percentage of house value, to actual be lower in MN than IA.