Moving to the Twin Cities for a job at UMN - need rental advice (St. Paul: neighborhoods, living in)

[Fran66]

In coastal Southern CA, I paid over $200/mo. for utilities. In New Mexico, I paid approx $150. Minneapolis residents know if their utilities are expensive.

And I already found out they answer.

Thanks.

[Fran66]

Originally Posted by highlanderfil

I think you might be able to answer this question on the website of the local utility company. Everyone’s experience is going to be different due to personal habits, but you should be able to get at least a per-unit cost there, unless someone here knows it offhand.

Utilities aside, does anyone know what the best mobile coverage is in MN? Driving through Nokomis Park, Verizon barely had a couple of bars of LTE.

In coastal Southern CA, I paid over $200/mo. for utilities. In New Mexico, I pay approx $150. Minneapolis residents know if their utilities are expensive.

And I already found out they answer.

Thanks.

[highlanderfil]

Originally Posted by Fran66

In coastal Southern CA, I paid over $200/mo. for utilities. In New Mexico, I pay approx $150.

Those are two data points which don't tell anyone anything. You aren't saying if your place in CA is bigger or smaller than in NM or whether or not you're using certain appliances (e.g., A/C, washer/dryer, etc.) more or less. There's no real basis for comparison. Picture this: if (I'm not saying this is your situation, just an example) you're paying $200/month in utilities for a 3-bedroom house in L.A., but move to NM into a 2-bedroom apartment and are paying $150/month, are you really paying "less"?

Minneapolis residents know if their utilities are expensive.

"Expensive" is a relative term, which, once again, needs a comparative basis. This is why you need a per-unit comparison. I googled it - Los Angeles residents pay an average of 24 cents per kilowatt hour. Minneapolis residents pay 16 cents, similar to Albuquerque's 15. So, it stands to reason, that for a home of similar size you will pay 50% more in L.A. than Minneapolis. But even there your costs may vary if, for example, you didn't have an in-unit washer/dryer in L.A. but will in MN, or if certain portions of utilities were paid for by the landlord in one place vs. the other. Moving from Ann Arbor as we are, we will likely see a slight reduction in our bills because we're downsizing in square footage (similar amenities, though), Ann Arbor's kwh rate is 19 cents and because our landlord pays for the heat and water.

[highlanderfil]

So, after saying we wouldn't visit prior to the move, we did end up going this past weekend - to drop off some stuff at my wife's new colleague's place and for a job interview for me. The drive wasn't too bad, but we did break it up with a stop in Tomah, WI on the way there and Chicago coming back. We'll aim for a one-day drive in two weeks, as we'll have the cats with us and don't want to deal with having to find a hotel that will accommodate us. Pretty sure it's doable in a day if we both drive (this time only I did). Some first impressions:

- Our apartment wasn't ready yet, but we did get a chance to take a look at the work in progress. As the online reviews mention, lots of elderly folks and the building itself has seen better days, but I think we'll be fine for at least the first year. They're renovating our apartment almost completely top to bottom, so that will definitely be a plus. The location looks good, as well. The drive along the river is beautiful.

- My wife's commute will definitely present some challenges, given weather and parking issues. There will be days she'll drive or bike, there will be days I'll drive her if I don't have morning calls or there's apparently a driver service at the apartment complex one can utilize for occasional errands that we might also want to look into. This is a major TBD, though.

- Really enjoyed driving on Minnehaha Parkway through the parks and the residential area near Nokomis where my wife's colleague lives. A quick look at Zillow suggests this might not be a bad area to look to buy a year down the road.

- My job interview was in St. Louis Park. I drove around there a bit and kinda regretted not looking there to rent, as well, as there seems to be a lot of new rental housing stock there. The commute to the University wouldn't have been that bad, either.

- I can definitely see how the area around the University can get dicey after dark. We stayed at the Graduate right on campus and some noises we heard out of our window were...concerning, shall we say.

All in all, we didn't manage to do a lot of touring apart from walking around the campus and grabbing some food in Dinkytown, so that will be what we'll focus on a lot between the time we move and orientation starts in late August.

[old fed]

Really enjoyed driving on Minnehaha Parkway through the parks and the residential area near Nokomis where my wife's colleague lives. A quick look at Zillow suggests this might not be a bad area to look to buy a year down the road.

keep airport noise in mind. it's hard to avoid it completely but some places are worse than others.

https://macnoms.com/

[highlanderfil]

Originally Posted by old fed

Really enjoyed driving on Minnehaha Parkway through the parks and the residential area near Nokomis where my wife's colleague lives. A quick look at Zillow suggests this might not be a bad area to look to buy a year down the road.

keep airport noise in mind. it's hard to avoid it completely but some places are worse than others.

https://macnoms.com/

Yeah, we noticed that, but honestly airplane noise doesn't bother us for some reason.

[wamer27]

How are things going since the move?

[highlanderfil]

We're settling in. So far, so good - if you don't count the fact that I just lost my job. So the next few months are going to be pretty bumpy. With that in mind - any favorite grocery stores that don't charge $6 for a pound of cucumbers? L&B and Kowalski's are going to be a bit out of our price range for a while. Aldi has always been a frugal favorite of mine, but I'm sure there are plenty of ethnic stores that get their produce wholesale and keep prices down (like, $0.99/lb for in-season fruit and veg - CA, MI and IL has plenty of those and I'm sure MN does, too). Would appreciate if someone pointed me towards a few.

Apart from that - our building is definitely a relic of a past time (wall ACs in every room, fixtures that haven't been updated in decades), but you can tell management really tries. The neighborhood is wonderful. We haven't even been able to take a breath from the move to be able to truly enjoy it, but I can already tell we're going to love it once the weather cools off a bit. So far all we've been doing is driving around the box stores in the suburbs getting our place ready for my wife to start the semester (and, now, for me to begin the job hunt I was hoping to put off until next year). Haven't yet seen any of the negative aspects people have described here, but we've also not been to any of the iffy areas, either.

[rodolfocostarica]

Sounds great.. if you are lonely maybe volunteer locally for DFL politics doornocking for city candidates this fall.
Can meet some nice people and get free potluck dinner and drinks after completing your assignment.

Whatever. Enjoy and make sure you have all your cold weather gear ready. Maybe a bit colder than back home.

[wamer27]

Farmer markets happen all over each week. Hyvee is worth checking, Cub Foods too, Cub being the biggest player in town. If you go on Instacart you can search many to get a ballpark of what they charge for certain things.