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Old 02-10-2012, 05:39 PM
 
54 posts, read 244,570 times
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So frustrating . . .
I was born and raised on Lake Minnetonka. I moved to Oklahoma at the age of 18. I'm now a 26 year old, professional, adult and want to move "home" with my husband. We have had one heck of a time finding a place to live for two key reasons.
1)We have a 100lb Bernese Mountain Dog
2)We're "out of staters"
We started our rental home hunt 8 months ago looking for single family homes (2 or 3 bdrm) for under $1000 per month (I know that's small number, but we actually have found quite a few in the $900 range west of the cities) within 30 minutes of Excelsior. I would prefer to stay on the west/southwest side of the Twin Cities. We've had a few promising leads, but once folks heard the word "dog" they pretty much just hung up on us. Lol. The few pet friendly places we've found have turned us down because they'd prefer to deal with "locals."
This pretty much sucks. We have awesome credit. We have solid work history. No criminal background. We have cash on hand for deposits, etc. My husband has a job lined up and will be able to start as soon as we arrive. We are even homeowners here in Oklahoma, but no one is willing to rent to us?! NO ONE is willing to give us a chance as "outsiders." We even have a local co-signer (my mother in Excelsior) if need be, but landlords still wont give us the time of day. What gives?!
We've recently lowered our expectations to a dog friendly townhome. We've found a few and hoped that since most townhomes are rented by professional managment companies they'd have experience with folks from out of state or at least be more willing to work with us. NOPE. As soon as "we currently live in Oklahoma" is mentioned we never hear back from them. We are extremely frustrated.
Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated!!! How do we let landlords know we're trustworthy (even though we pass application processes and they still brush us off)? What's the deal with MN landlords? Why is it so dang hard to move there? What is it that MN landlords have against someone from out of state? I honestly wish I would have never left. I didn't realize it would be so hard to go back!
We have tried . . .
*Craigslist
*Star Tribune
*Padmapper.com
*Rent.com
*Rentalhomes.com
*Several local property managment companies
*Local newspapers
Getting rid of our beloved dog is not an option, but we need to get to MN somehow! I thought as long as someone could pay first months rent & deposits they were good to go. Guess not. Thanks in advance for any reponses!!!
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Old 02-10-2012, 09:25 PM
 
1,833 posts, read 3,362,831 times
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I didn't read everything you wrote as I have no idea about the Cities and the rental aspects, but could you look into finding a realtor who also lists rentals? I know a realtor here who works with landlords to list their rental properties. I would think you could find someone like that in the areas of the Cities you are looking, and they may be able to help you out.

Good luck!!!
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Old 02-11-2012, 05:44 AM
 
20,793 posts, read 61,439,811 times
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I don't know that the out of state thing is as big of an issue, but most landlords are not going to take a 100 lb dog. Even the best behaved dog will still do a lot of wear and tear on a property. Have you considered looking for a home to buy? There are a lot of townhomes in foreclosure/short sale that would net you out a house payment much less than what you are looking at in rent. Resale isn't going to be great on something like that down the road, at least for a while, but you could then rent the place out---and as you have found, you have a market with people with large dogs.
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Old 02-11-2012, 10:48 AM
 
54 posts, read 244,570 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by golfgal View Post
I don't know that the out of state thing is as big of an issue, but most landlords are not going to take a 100 lb dog. Even the best behaved dog will still do a lot of wear and tear on a property. Have you considered looking for a home to buy? There are a lot of townhomes in foreclosure/short sale that would net you out a house payment much less than what you are looking at in rent. Resale isn't going to be great on something like that down the road, at least for a while, but you could then rent the place out---and as you have found, you have a market with people with large dogs.

Yes, we've considered buying, but we purchased our home here in Oklahoma with a first time homeowners FHA loan which will not allow us to assume another mortgage loan at the same time. We would have to work something out where we closed on the new home the same day someone closed on this one. *sigh* Since I know our home here in Oklahoma wont sell quick (market's awful here) we'd be in for a long, frustrating wait. To add manure to this manure pile, our home is now worth less than we owe. Thanks, ecomony. All that being said, our best option is really to hang onto it until the market picks up a bit and find a rental in MN.
We have, in fact, found places that will accept the dog, but they choose not to deal with someone from out of state.
Honestly, I'm starting to feel a bit descriminated against. I feel like if we were from Chicago, or New York City, or really any big city for that matter, it wouldn't be a problem. The general reception we've received from Minnesotans is that we must be some kind of backwoods, Oklahoma hicks wearing over-alls and straw hats. Sad and certainly not true!
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Old 02-11-2012, 10:51 AM
 
54 posts, read 244,570 times
Reputation: 46
Quote:
Originally Posted by fromupthere View Post
I didn't read everything you wrote as I have no idea about the Cities and the rental aspects, but could you look into finding a realtor who also lists rentals? I know a realtor here who works with landlords to list their rental properties. I would think you could find someone like that in the areas of the Cities you are looking, and they may be able to help you out.

Good luck!!!

Thanks. I will certainly look into the realtor option. I was unaware realtors worked with rentals, because how would they receive their commissions off that? Anywho, I'll give it a shot. Thanks, again!
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Old 02-11-2012, 12:09 PM
 
99 posts, read 215,247 times
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I wonder why, and to what extent people fear this. We will be looking for a rental for a medium and small dog and coming from Duluth, instate but a few hours away. Hopefully we will not run into the same problems when they see that address. I'm assuming it is the same in OK, but up here especially in the Cities rentals are at an extremely low vacancy rate and in very high demand. I suppose it is easy to cross folks off the list for any of many reasons, including long distance, because there are many more waiting. Seems silly, though.
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Old 02-11-2012, 01:37 PM
 
54 posts, read 244,570 times
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Originally Posted by twinswinmh View Post
I wonder why, and to what extent people fear this. We will be looking for a rental for a medium and small dog and coming from Duluth, instate but a few hours away. Hopefully we will not run into the same problems when they see that address. I'm assuming it is the same in OK, but up here especially in the Cities rentals are at an extremely low vacancy rate and in very high demand. I suppose it is easy to cross folks off the list for any of many reasons, including long distance, because there are many more waiting. Seems silly, though.
Hopefully you don't have this problem! It's been awful. I'm betting since you're coming from Duluth you'd be okay. Much more "local" than us. Lol.
In Oklahoma it's actually very easy to find a rental. They're also much cheaper! Before we bought our home we were in a stunningly gorgeous 3bd 2ba for $500 a month. It was a lot nicer than the house we could afford to buy. Lol.
I'm aware of the low vacancy rate in the Twin Cities. We've talked to a few townhomes that have a waiting list, but since we're not local they wont even put us on the waiting list. It seems pretty unfair to me since we pass the application process with flying colors. Just because we're not local doesn't mean we couldn't be there immediately once there was an opening. Poopy.
As I commented to another poster, we're starting to feel a bit discriminated against. Before I moved to OK from MN I expected OK to be full of uneducated hicks. Turns out I was totally wrong, but that's the way these MN landlords seem to look at us.
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Old 02-11-2012, 01:40 PM
 
54 posts, read 244,570 times
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Once we had a distant relative of my fathers come and visit us in OK from St. Louis Park, MN. She came in her RV because she honestly thought we didn't have indoor plumbing in Oklahoma. Sad.
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Old 02-11-2012, 02:06 PM
 
20,793 posts, read 61,439,811 times
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Originally Posted by Klhbrown View Post
Thanks. I will certainly look into the realtor option. I was unaware realtors worked with rentals, because how would they receive their commissions off that? Anywho, I'll give it a shot. Thanks, again!
They may or may not get a "commission" from the owners on the rental but what they are counting on is you using them when you do buy your home.

Again, it isn't that you are from Oklahoma, it's the 100 lb dog, sorry. We have rental property and we would never rent to anyone with a 100 lb dog. We MIGHT consider a very small, very well trained dog, maybe....with a big, extra security deposit, maybe.
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Old 02-11-2012, 02:27 PM
 
99 posts, read 215,247 times
Reputation: 79
I would investigate opportunities for buying a home a little closer. You said in OK you could rent a much better house than you could buy for the same price range, the entire opposite is here in Minnesota. We were renting up here, the second floor of a 115-year old house, one bedroom, undesirable neighborhood, next door to drug dealer (for real! visits twenty times a day from "customers" cops knew about it and everything..."gathering evidence" ), for $635 a month. We bought a house, great, safe blue collar neighborhood, two bedrooms, and pay $450 a month for mortgage, taxes, and homeowners insurance!) As I have looked around down there, I believe the same will be true. It appears that the house we will end up in the south metro we hope, also for less than $1,000, will be about the house we would be able to buy for 80-120k...which would be up to $400 a month cheaper!

We have a 40 pound dog and a 10 pound dog, so we want a fence, large vegetable garden, etc, and have found owning a house to be much more desirable than renting, but I don't think I'll be financed right away with new job and the house up here, so I'm sure we'll have to settle for whatever we can find and just hope to buy as soon as we can once we are there and established.

Try looking in New Hope, Crystal, or parts of Robbinsdale. Those are blue-collar, older homes, and perhaps will be more flexible as the houses likely already show the wear and tear. We may end up there ourselves.
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