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I have lived in San Francisco, Portland and Seattle and I can tell you that you are just wrong. At least in terms of those cities. Every neighborhood I lived in there had very high rentals vs owner occupied homes and the neighborhoods were actually far nicer than most in the Twin Cities. Crime did not increase, in fact it was less than here. Also the home prices were dramatically more, on a sq ft by sq ft basis homes cost far more than anything in the Twin Cities so property values are up, crime was down, which contradicts your comment. The urban blight and crime you speak of on the West Side is, and this is backed up by St. Paul crime stats, located around the Caesar Chavez block around where it intersects with Robert St. An area with a huge amount of government subsidized housing or "projects". Sadly, the poor will always be with us and I'm not going to start blaming them for societies ills. But your comment is best directed at the welfare state if anything. The West Side neighborhoods up on the bluff itself are some of the most pleasant and charming old world neighborhoods in all of Minnesota in my opinion.
yeah, I think back to my high-rental LA area neighborhood (where our city's homeownership rate was 40-something percent) and the median household income was higher than what you find here in Edina (or in Rosemount). Our block had one kind of run-down house, but that was owner-occupied. It was up for sale when we moved, and I would assume that the new owners probably have since fixed it up. And crime increasing and property values down because of so many renters?! Ha! Our neighbors (fellow renters) had actually sold their house in an adjacent city to become renters in our neighborhood because they couldn't afford to buy something as nice as they could rent, and because they'd rather be renters in our location than owners in their old (perfectly nice, but the schools weren't considered as goo) neighborhood. Even in the Twin Cities you can't just directly correlate high rental rates with lower property values or high crime! ECCO (on the banks of Lake Calhoun) is certainly no high-crime, bargain price neighborhood, and yet 58% of its homes are renter-occupied. I much prefer nearby CARAG (which is more "affordable," too), where more than 3 out of 4 homes are rentals. It is NOT cheap to buy a home in these neighborhoods.
Getting back to the original post, allowing only 10% of a block to be rentals seems VERY limiting. What if more than 10% of local households want to rent? Where are they going to live? Are rental prices going to skyrocket as a result? Will people be forced into buying out of desperation? (and what does society get out of that if they really can't handle the financial obligations of ownership?) In university/college cities, will potential faculty or staff recruits just decide to move elsewhere if the rental options are too limited? Will additional rentals be allowed in certain clustered areas, and if so, if rentals are seen as so problematic, why is it okay to literally push renters into modern renter ghettos?
I think your history is a whole lot fuzzier than Glendogs! Free societies have done what? Eliminated certain people's property rights while upholding others? I don't think so. As was said previously by others, it may be that they are doing it for the best intentions, but you know the old saying. The road to hell is paved with good intentions! There are so many unintended consequences of such actions and good intentions. Insoafar as "making up rights" you really need to reread history. Property rights, for all, not just some are a bedrock of our society! Finally, reread all the posts, there has been repeated mentioning of "zoning codes" and how they are good and if these cities were to simply follow them, it would largely solve this problem.
Of course they have. Zoning laws? People own property and find it isn't zoned for what they want to build on it. Property rights are pretty worshipped, but that hasn't stopped people who OWN property from supporting laws that limit the power of the owners. Please, TELL me the source of your beliefs? Is it some collection of activist websites or something?
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The Supreme Court agreed with the lower court's denial of the dismissal motion, but overturned the outcome of the case and sided with the Village of Euclid. The Court held that the zoning ordinance was not an unreasonable extension of the village's police power and did not have the character of arbitrary fiat, and thus it was not unconstitutional.
Further, the Court found that Ambler Realty had offered no evidence that the ordinance had in fact had any effect on the value of the property in question, but based their assertions of depreciation on speculation only. The court ruled that speculation was not a valid basis for a claim of takings.
Ambler Realty had argued their case on the basis of the 14th Amendment'sdue process clause. The Court noted that the challenger in a due process case would have to show that the law in question is discriminatory and has no rational basis. The Court found that Euclid's zoning ordinance in fact did have a rational basis.
That isn't exactly new. Minneapolis has tried to maintain a balance between resident owner and absentee owner for some time. Transient communities have more crime and are a public expense. Trouble is that nonresidents come in to buy cheap houses as investments. They then rent to the wrong people and don't supervise them. Next thing you know you have places that receive multiple police calls for all sorts of disruption of neighborhoods. It isn't a matter of banning renting, it is a matter of transitioning one neighborhood after another to rental. I lived in Minneapolis rentals for decades. The idea that rentals are scarce in Minneapolis is a myth. By the way, converting your house from homestead to rental here is very expensive, for all the same reasons. We prize our owner-occupied homes.
You said "they rent to the wrong people", but isn't it illegal for them to discriminate? Aren't they very concerned about getting sued for discrimination when they make decisions about who to rent to? Are they even allowed to use their own judgment about whom to rent to?
Just asking, I also lived in Minneapolis for decades and was a renter the whole time.
You said "they rent to the wrong people", but isn't it illegal for them to discriminate? Aren't they very concerned about getting sued for discrimination when they make decisions about who to rent to? Are they even allowed to use their own judgment about whom to rent to?
Just asking, I also lived in Minneapolis for decades and was a renter the whole time.
I know there are a lot of laws about discrimination (as there should be), but landlords can and do get references, can choose to run background checks, etc. I'm sure sometimes landlords just have bad luck, and you can't always tell who is going to be a problem, but I'd guess that the worst offenders would be easy to screen out. When we last rented the management company called our last two landlords and confirmed that we paid our rent on time, that they had never received noise complaints about us, and asked if they would rent to us in the future. They didn't run background checks (just credit checks), but I know in some places landlords require that as well.
Unfortunately then I've always wondered what exactly the solution is for the people who ARE bad tenants (and would realistically also make bad owners -- I don't believe that the sole act of ownership has transformative powers). After all, even the gang members or litterbugs or obnoxious people have to live somewhere, and none of us want them in our neighborhoods! What do you do do about people like that? Right now they get foisted on the poorest neighborhoods, but it's really not their renter status that is the problem. How do you change people? If someone throws garbage all over their own yard, for example (I've heard people complaining of neighbors who have done this) what can shock them into realizing that this is not appropriate behavior? I suppose the city can get aggressive about enforcing fines, and landlords can evict problem tenants, but unless there's some sort of change a problem tenant just moves on to become someone else's problem. (problem owners exist, too, of course, but I'd guess they come with different problems or approaches.)
You said "they rent to the wrong people", but isn't it illegal for them to discriminate? Aren't they very concerned about getting sued for discrimination when they make decisions about who to rent to? Are they even allowed to use their own judgment about whom to rent to?
Just asking, I also lived in Minneapolis for decades and was a renter the whole time.
Anybody can discriminate against tenants who are bad ones. Just can't be racial or by sex, etc. But individual landlords tend to be too lazy to really check out prospects. Plus, most of the time, these owners aren't really that concerned about a neighborhood they don't live in. That's why cities want people who like a neighborhood enough to live in it. Those who shake the dust from their feet send a bad message.
As a property owner and a landlord, I think it's a good rule.
Of course any current renter would love this. It reduces supply, which drives up demand. It means you can command higher prices all while doing nothing to your rental.
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Originally Posted by Beenhere4ever
The idea that rentals are scarce in Minneapolis is a myth.
Vacancy rates in the city have fluxed in the 1.5 percent to 3 percent range in the last few years. Please tell me how rental scarcity is a myth...
Well, if all those CONDOS were to be added, it wouldnt be so scarce. But owners are still hoping their "investment" will bring them huge rewards. The salesmen really got their greed excited during the bubble years.
Well, if all those CONDOS were to be added, it wouldnt be so scarce. But owners are still hoping their "investment" will bring them huge rewards. The salesmen really got their greed excited during the bubble years.
But the thing is that they aren't included because a condo someone owns and lives in isn't a rental. Just because something is a multi-unit building doesn't mean it should be included in the rental count. If it's owner-occupied, it's owner-occupied.
And, of course, there plenty of people who bought condos not simply as an "investment" from salesmen, but because they wanted to own a place in an area where a SFH was not a feasible option. Downtown is one such place.
But the thing is that they aren't included because a condo someone owns and lives in isn't a rental. Just because something is a multi-unit building doesn't mean it should be included in the rental count. If it's owner-occupied, it's owner-occupied.
And, of course, there plenty of people who bought condos not simply as an "investment" from salesmen, but because they wanted to own a place in an area where a SFH was not a feasible option. Downtown is one such place.
During the bubble, people were given the notion that you could buy and hold a condo and make a killing. When the bubble collapsed, these owners suddenly found they were going to LOSE money on the condo. It never really made sense to sit on an empty condo, but the real estate bubble wasn't about making sense. It was about banks and construction making quick bucks.
What I'm SAYING is that instead of sitting on a condo, rent it for whatever you can get. One of my managers had a house in Two Harbors. The job situation up in that area had a real down period. He couldn't get the value of his house, but he wanted to live in the Metro. So he kept the house and found renters. With the ability to rent it, he hoped the economy around Duluth would recover at some point. If it did, he could return there to work. And either live in the house or sell it.
The investment buyers who scooped up new condos never really thought of them as a place to live. They were like flippers, except they bought new. And LOTS of condos got built. The money was ultra cheap to get them constructed, so you didn't really have to justify bulding them by immediate market demand. The banks wanted to loan so bad, they handed out cheap money left and right. The buyers were on the hook, but too much conning in infomercials and other propaganda convinced them it was a can't-fail investment. Buyers would come, money would be made. It was all smoke and mirrors. The living spaces ARE there. They could be rented for whatever the market will bear. But then they'd be used. So, again, investors are eternally hopeful. Result: Too many units to buy, too few to rent. Another way a market economy can get badly distorted. Alan Greenspan was wrong, and even he knows it now.
Of course they have. Zoning laws? People own property and find it isn't zoned for what they want to build on it. Property rights are pretty worshipped, but that hasn't stopped people who OWN property from supporting laws that limit the power of the owners. Please, TELL me the source of your beliefs? Is it some collection of activist websites or something?
The source of one's beliefs is the sum total of all their experiences and information I would say. No "activist websites" needed by me personally. Once again, absolutely people have the right to limit property rights via zoning laws, as has been said over and over on this forum, we all agree, so long as they are applied fairly and evenly to everyone! These rental bans do not apply them fairly and evenly to everyone, they arbitrarily limit or eliminate some property OWNERS rights while allowing others to keep theirs. That is not only not fair and equitable to everyone it is not constitutional on a state or federal level in my opinion.
Last edited by glendog; 03-17-2013 at 06:17 PM..
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