‘It’s Opportunity Time’ For Twin City Homebuyers
Some housing bubble reports on the Twin Cities. “So much for spring fever. So far, Twin Cities homebuyers seem to be shrugging off the record number of for-sale signs sprouting up all over instead of rushing to buy. That’s not to say there were no buyers in March, 2.15 percent more than March last year. But that small increase pales next to soaring inventories.”
“The number of homes put up for sale last month around the Twin Cities shot up 23 percent to 10,821 new listings. The new crop of listings brought the total active residential home inventory in the Twin Cities to all-time high of 26,182, about 42 percent higher than this time last year.”
“In other words, soaring inventory is clearly tilting the market toward buyers, and some sellers are cutting their asking prices. ‘I don’t understand honestly why buyers aren’t knocking down our doors,’ said June Wiener, president of the St. Paul Area Association of Realtors.”
“In fact, it was the eighth consecutive month of record-setting listing activity in the 13-county metro area, giving buyers a serious edge and putting downward pressure on price increases.”
“Orv Fillbrandt, a sales agent in Edina, said he recently had a client trying to buy a new townhouse, but they couldn’t sell their current home. In an attempt to move things forward, the builder offered to reduce the price on the townhouse if the buyer would drop the price on the home by the same amount.”
“‘It’s opportunity time out there right now’ for buyers, said Todd Shipman, president of the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors. ‘While sellers may pine for the days of multiple offers in the first week on the market, that type of market imbalance was simply unsustainable,’ said Shipman.”
“Shipman said that although sellers are having to price their houses more competitively and be willing to offer discounts to buyers, they’ll have the same opportunities when they become buyers. ‘Sellers need to level off their expectations on the sell side, but you’ll pay less on the buy side,’ he said.”
“For example, Shipman said, he showed one couple a house in Edina last fall but they passed on it at $585,000. This spring, it’s back on the market, at $540,000, and the couple is reconsidering. ‘So now they can let their listing go for less money,’ he said, ‘and still achieve the same dream and the same goal.’”
“I don’t understand honestly why buyers aren’t knocking down our doors,’ said June Wiener, president of the St. Paul Area Association of Realtors”
True story I just remembered thanks to the genius who I quoted above; I saw a 5-year old playing hide-and-seek last weekend. One time instead of hiding, he puts his hands over his eyes and stands in place. When he was found he said, “I don’t understand how you found me so fast!”
DIFFERENCE BEING, THAT KID IS ALOT SMARTER!
‘I don’t understand honestly why buyers aren’t knocking down our doors,’ said June Wiener.
Yeah, it’s a real mystery. You’d have to be, like, a genius to figure it out.
That reamtor™ Ms Wiener is aptly-named.
Gee, wonder why folks are knocking down the doors to buy RE in the Twink Cities. Could it possibly be because the Twinks broke all records for sales volume the past few years? At a time when the area was growing at the manic pace of under 1% a year?
Could that be it, Ms Weiner? Nah….
O.C. home gains may be over
Irvine’s Real Estate Economics, consultants advising big builders in this town, is warning clients The O.C.’s home appreciation may be history.
REE’s fresh forecasts for home prices — both newly built and resale properties — are essentially flat for 2006. The logic?
REE expects overall new home prices to rise an average 0.7% during the next four quarters: “New home product that is significantly overpriced relative to market support will experience slower sales per development — especially for product in the upper price ranges. This is a direct result of forecast higher interest rates, lower levels of resale volume and increasing price exclusion/aversion, rather than a lack of demand.”
And REE sees resale market prices up 0.3% for 2006.
Previously, REE saw O.C. builders getting ‘06 price hikes of 4.1% vs. 17.4% a year ago and 11.5% in 2004.
They might want to run this by Gary Watts first!?!?
lol
15% is in the bag, right?
“Ventura County may not see the record amounts of home appreciation it has in the past few years, but a real estate forecaster predicted Wednesday night that homeowners would still see about 17 percent in appreciation for 2006.
‘”2006 is already in the bag, ladies and gentlemen,”‘ Gary Watts told a group of more than 100 people who had turned out for the 17th annual Economic Forum at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. ”
As the resident Venturan here I’ve got this one memorized. This will go down in history with 1929 stock market and 1990 tech bubble quotes-o-note. Interestingly at current trends he’s spot on. Heck LA county went over $500k median last month.
That quote should be posted olong with these classics:
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
– Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
OR:
“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.”
– Popular Mechanics, “predicting” the relentless march of technology, 1949
http://www.permanent.com/quotes.htm
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_01/seymour062001.html
You’ll enjoy these gems, too: Pompous Prognosticators of 1929-1933.
I don’t understand honestly why buyers aren’t knocking down our doors,’ said June Wiener, president of the St. Paul Area Association of Realtors.”
It appears Ms. Wiener is about to experience her first bear market. Nobody with an ounce of common sense will (should) overpay for a house in a rising interest rate environment. It is not a buyers market yet. Inventory says its a buyers market, but prices still scream sellers market. This leads to what we call a stagnant market, which is probably a more accurate description to what is occuring. I have never seen the RE exam (it can’t be hard) but basic economics has appearantly been ommitted from the curriculum.
you said “Wiener”…heh, heh, heh (insert Beavis/Butthead voice here)
The twin cities have, like much of the midwest, lost manufacturing jobs that have made the housing market unaffordable. I would be knocking on her door if there were jobs in the twin cities that allowed me to have the same standard of living as I currently enjoy. But even with the income, I do not want to live in a place where the standard of living is dropping around me.
“The twin cities have, like much of the midwest, lost manufacturing jobs that have made the housing market unaffordable.”
Actually, the manufacturing bust hit here in the 80s, which absolutely did contribute to our housing bust at that time.
Medical/biological R&D and healthcare are growing fields in the TC, and we’ve got a good bit of IT-related businesses, too. Education as well - this place is thickly littered with colleges and charter schools. We have a very diverse employer base. Being in the midwest, anything to do with food is an expanding opportunity as well - product development, food safety. It’s a good job market if you have a college degree. Otherwise you will end up in the service job ghetto.
I apologize if I seem to disparage the twin cities - they are beautiful. I am aware of the diverse employment from computers to Cargill - but when a greater amount of income is going into housing and salaries are not keeping up with the housing increase - that is a drop in the standard of living.
The Twin Cities, being governed by the worst kind of liberals from la-la land, have welcomed with open arms every other state’s welfare caseloads, not to mention something like half a million Somali immigrants, who (surprise surprise) have been something less than model citizens. Crime, drug abuse (esp. meth) and other social ills are soaring, along with taxes in Hennipen County. It’s heartbraking to see all those beautiful older parts of the cities that have turned into no-go ghettos.
I agree completely; this isn’t a buyers market! The only reason most people bought in the last two years was because PRICES WERE GOING UP! Without the belief in future appreciation there is no reason to pay these prices; no reason at all to own. For each person who decided to buy because the price has come down a few thousand dollars, you’ve got five others who decide NOT to buy, because PRICES ARE GOING DOWN.
This isn’t going to change anytime soon.
I agree completely; this isn’t a buyers market! The only reason most people bought in the last two years was because PRICES WERE GOING UP! Without the belief in future appreciation there is no reason to pay these prices; no reason at all to own. For each person who decided to buy because the price has come down a few thousand dollars, you’ve got five others who decide NOT to buy, because PRICES ARE GOING DOWN.
This isn’t going to change anytime soon.
“‘It’s opportunity time out there right now’ for buyers, said Todd Shipman, president of the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors.”
What could be more fun than trying to catch a falling knife dropped from the highest building man has ever built?
although sellers are having to price their houses more competitively and be willing to offer discounts to buyers, they’ll have the same opportunities when they become buyers
What if they already own several houses and don’t want to buy, just sell? Guess they just have to eat it.
‘It’s opportunity time out there right now’? I think not!
It’s more like “Oh God, the end of the bubble is near time”, or maybe ” buyers see the writting on the wall time- and won’t listen to realtor garbage anymore time”.
Speaking of seeing the writting on the wall- we just posted a rates update which backs up our prediction of 7.5% mortgage rates heading our way.
BubbleTrack.blogspot.com
$500K+ houses in a fly over state! Where’s Edina? Is that the “rich” suburb of Minn/St.Paul? Hey Weiner, they should knock your walls down and put up a WalMart!
yes, edina is that rich suburb…the good-schools, right-people kinda place.
cheers…
Thanks Shel! And thank God, I thought for a moment someone out there was being asked to pay too much for real estate.
The twin cities are absolutely gorgeous. I went to school in California, lived in San Francisco and in Pacific Grove - I was glad to leave California in the late 70’s. Not many people really wish to live in a state that ones life is spent on a highway at 10 miles per hour for 3 hrs a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks ayear - that is not what IMHO is desirable. I do not live in Minnesota, but I can understand the decision to live there as opposed to California.
First time poster, long time reader (since Aug of 05)
First: thanks Ben for covering the non-flashy bubble areas too!
I’d like to say, the Twin Cities has a VERY diverse economic job base. There are 2 big exceptions to this: Northwest is doing poorly, and the Ford Plant is under duress. That said, Minneapolis/St. Paul people in general have MUCH higher salaries than do people in LA/SF and other high COL areas. (I make almost 100,000 PER YEAR more in Mpls than I would in SF or SD, which is why I moved here in the first place)
Also, Take it from a born and bred Californian (SF/SD) who came kicking and screaming to Mpls in 1999: it is awesome here in every respect EXCEPT for the piss poor winters. We don’t get much snow here (really, not much at all), but it is FRIGID! But, I, like many other people, make a lot more in Mpls than we would elsewhere, and housing is reasonable (still too high after our mini-bubble, but nothing like coasts/PHX/LV)
Mpls has TONS of outdoor things to do (beautiful parks, beautiful lakes) indoor things (some of the best theatre in the country) and everything else in between. I’ll tell you, there is 100,000x more to do here than where I moved from (San Diego). And although there’s not as much to do as where I was raised (SF), it’s actually affordable here so there’s really more to do for all us not-super-rich folk.
Plus, Mpls is very liberal AND religious at the same time. A great combo IMO. I thought it was like fly-over land too before I came here. But Mpls and Chicago are 2 very different birds compared to the rest of the midwest/plains states.
Just my 2c.
Clouseau
UAW just announced that Ford plant is St. Paul is closing in 2009.
MPLS is on my shortlist of places I will consider moving to if I can ever leave CA (family keeps me here). I figure a state which sent Paul Wellstone to the Senate can’t be half bad.
And it’s gorgeous, to boot.
They sent Wellstone a while back. Now the state is turning more and more right-wing. Once you leave the Twin Cities, it’s redneck central.
The Twin Cities are decent: good food, good people, good jobs. Weather sucks 9 months of year (too cold, then too hot). So that’s a negative. Lot more expensive then it used to be ever since RE doubled/tripled over the past six years.
Not much of interest once you get outside Minneapolis/St. Paul. There’s some wilderness a few hours north. But mostly corn, soybeans and prairie. If I lived there, I’d be visiting the airport a lot.
“Plus, Mpls is very liberal AND religious at the same time.”
Yes, all the taxpayers and productive classes are praying to God to save them from liberal lunacy.
Traffic in the Twin Cities isn’t light either. 1h at 10 miles/h a day are a possibility, especially on 35 and on 100. The general quality of life is good though.
$500K in the Cities is nothing. Get this - they are selling million-dollar vacation homes on Lake Vermilion, which is about 250 miles north of the Twin Cities and only about 20 miles south of the Canadian border, near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. It’s absolutely insane. The area around the BWCA has exploded in housing, nearly all of it high-end, and there are *no jobs there*. Except for a few service jobs in tourism, of course. Folks in this state tended to have cashed out their dotcom gains and put it into real estate well before the dotcom bust. Seems like nearly every lake in the state has seen a boom of new year-round housing as a result, as well as plenty of lavish homes out in the woods.
I could understand someone knocking down the doors there in the middle of January. Not for the purpose of buying some overpriced POS, but to try and escape the 40 MPH -20F wind and cold. LOL
Maybe this dude could invite Gary Watts up to blow some of his hot air to warm up the place. Seems a little icy there now.
I know a lot of you on this thread are waiting for a sharp drop in home values and then plan to run out and buy. That was my thinking too after being nothing but a home owner since 1973-2004, and then going into a leased home because I wouldn’t buy given current property values. Now I’m starting to like this rental thing given that new homes can be rented in prime areas at affordable prices and am thinking that instead of buying when prices bottom that I’ll buy some bottomed out commercial REIT’s as a way to play the game should RE start inflating in the future. Or, second option, buy a cheap property in a good rental area and then continue to rent in whatever local I wish to live but can’t afford to buy.
Salinisa…After my divorce I went from a 4bdrm. 3B 2500 sq. ft. new construction Colonial on 3 acres with 80 apples trees with views to Mt. Washington NH, to a 750SF 1 bedroom 1B apartment.
Psychologically, I dreaded the move.
But ya know what? The apartment complex I ended up in, was perfect. Quiet, immaculate grounds, great neighbors.
And the amount of maintenance time I freed up was absolutely enormous-for a third of the price of my SF detached.
What price freedom?
The age of SF detached homeownership is closing…the Boomers are tired and beat.
OK hd74, now I’ve got you pegged for Conway area. That would explain a lot of your comments. I feel the same about what’s happened up there….my old stomping ground in 70s, 80s when it was about the outdoors not the shopping.
hd -
Were you in the Jackson / Conway area? That place has certainly changed, as Upstater noted.
What did you do for work living there? Are you nearby there now?
hd74man,
I’ll go you one better. I ran across a guy that runs a “staging service” where you pay a fraction of even rent to live in a mansion (notice I didn’t say McMansion) to give the appearance of occupancy! (As you can imagine people are putting serious low-ball offers on empty mansions). You pay to bring your furniture and either maintain the lawn or pay a landscaper and even before the “burst” they were averaging stays of 9 to 12 months! I’ll have to give the guy a call.
Aren’t people who would buy a mansion smart enough to observe only $20K worth of furniture in a mansion, hence the ’staging’?
They’ll either see that someone is trying to scam them, and walk away, or see that the house is so much of a burden that the “owner” can’t afford to pay for anything but the mortgage, and walk away.
Too pessimistic?
Salinasron,
I’d have to say I agree. As a stockbroker nothing turns me on more than “timing the market” but like yourself (after a lengthy stint as a home owner) I am enjoying being a renter! I now grumble about having to sweep the front porch on our condo (let alone mowing a couple of acres). Summer is coming (yes, even in Oregon) and with it plenty of distractions from the bubble. Even if a hard landing and serious price corrections occur I’m now not sure that alone would entice me to buy. It would have to be the right property. Besides, like you say there are plenty of ways to capitalize on the crash/recovery scenario!
This seems to be the answer here. Interest rates just got wings.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=acqbH7wK9LK8&refer=us
WTF do these economists do all day?
Like their revelations are rocket science.
Any moron who lives day to day, knows the entire show has been built on the backs of Boomer aged tax slaves.
And now the great FED gov Ponzi scheme is coming to an end.
I have a question. Is there a website that lists recent sold prices? Domania lists them, but you need the full address. I’m talking about areas, not particular houses. Thanks.
Don’t know what area you are interested in, but we post both NAR, Census, realtor, and OFHEO pricing data for the nation, the northeast, NYC, and other areas on a quarterly basis. We also post numbers for the northeast and west monthly. Take a look at the homepage, and the archives. More data will be out at the end of the month.
BubbleTrack.blogspot.com
About 3,952 home sales closed last month in the 13-county metro area…The new crop of listings brought the total active residential home inventory (including town homes and condos) in the Twin Cities to all-time high of 26,182…
26182/3952 = 6.6 months of inventory. All righty then, a little checkmark for the Twin Cities in the “busted” column…
Too funny! But you’re right. Although I’ve lived in Oregon for a long time, I (like many) had a sensible midwestern upbringing. Well where’s the sense here? I believe that this is further proof of my theory that it was the TAX Act of 1997 that spurred the bubble, NOT LOCATION! How else can we explain the presence of a bubble in the Twin Cities of all places!
Local media started reporting California speculators in Syracuse. They were probably amazed they could pick up some huge multifamily for $79,000. They didn’t seem to understand that gang-style crime is an issue to the locals when you can own your own home outside the city in the $100s. Rents can be had in relatively crime free suburbs for $400-$500.
SU has a program for its professors offering subsidies for housing in neighborhoods close to the hill. I heard from one professor friend that the program had not been so successful….crime and city schools too scary.
It’s not as if the Twin Cities hasn’t had housing bubbles before. Back in the late 80s housing values here tripled and quadrupled. Then came the bust. In Ramsey County homes lost an average of 30% of their peak value. The market here bottomed out in the mid-90s, only to take off like a rocket in 98/99. Once again, values have tripled and quadrupled from their mid-90s low point. Now we’re at the calm before the storm moment: prices are stagnant, sales are, too - but prices are gonna go into decline once again. Probably over a several-year period, like they did before. I’m telling coworkers the best time to buy will probably be in 3-5 years.
ARGH! Why is the LA bubble so damn tenacious. No short-term relief in sight . . .
http://tinyurl.com/l8dtl
From the LA Times.
I live in the covina area of California, about 25 minutes east of downtown L.A. I checked Ziprealty houses for 91724, and 91733, the price reductions are anywhere from 5 dollars (no kidding) to 90,000. It’s happening here in Ca. but we have a long way to go.
As eyes from the ground here:
We were the only people to buy a home in the last 9 years in my neighborhood (we bought 3.5 years ago) until 1 year ago. In the last 12 months, 6 houses on my block sold, all in less than 3 days. (all went up for sale on a Thursday, had sold signs by Monday am)
Then, in September of last year a neighbor going through divorce put her home on for sale. Nothing/no activity. (although she didn’t show the house well, bad realtor, etc). regardless, before September it would have sold in a a day or 2. It just sold this week, (unsure of sale price, but at least $50k under asking). Now another house just went up for sale, and nobody’s even gone to look at it.
FWIW: I live in the Calhoun/Harriet lake area of Mpls… typical starter homes for maybe $300-350k, modest homes for about $400k or so… nicer homes in the mid $600’s-800ks… and the big mansions that are actually on the lake for $2-5 million or so. (not McMansions, beautiful 100 year old homes).
Also: Edina isn’t really a rich suburb anymore. It’s a nicer suburb, and some of the Real Estate is expensive out there depending on neighborhood, but nothing like Minnetonka or North Oaks or something. i’d say $500k in Edina is a smaller modest older home there.
Clouseau
Edina is nice, but it’s no Minnetonka. Well, that clears it all up for me. Akin to “She’s a nice girl, she’s no Penny Marshall”
Don’t know that Ms. Marshall could afford Jimmy Jam’s old digs:
http://www.edinarealty.com/Consumer/Listing/ListingDetail.aspx?Search=d574cf04-3a1a-49a2-b73f-bcd46c2604c2&Listing=7553455&Image=1&First=1&Last=10&pagesize=10&Sort=1
Jim Said:
Edina is nice, but it’s no Minnetonka. Well, that clears it all up for me. Akin to “She’s a nice girl, she’s no Penny Marshall”
ROFL!
Sorry. Edina is a nice suburb, probably the nicest FIRST RING suburb of Mpls. It’s nickname is E.D.I.N.A “Every Day I Need Attention”. It has great schools. Some of the neighborhoods are very well off, but some are just nice and some (esp NE Edina) are just above working class.
The big money is in the city itself around the lakes (like Cedar Lake, Lake Harriett, etc) or in the further west suburbs (that surround Lake Minnetonka). Example: Jimmy Jam lived in Minnetonka. The Daytons and Gedneys and Pillsbury’s etc all live in the Minnetonka area. Big money is in the Minnetonka suburbs. That’s where the 3-20 Million buck properties are (or around the Mpls lakes or in Mnpls in the Kenwood/Mt Curve area)… not Edina.
Example for you LA folk:
Edina is like the suburb Brentwood… very nice… but no Malibu or Bel Air.
Clouseau
“NOT LOCATION! How else can we explain the presence of a bubble in the Twin Cities of all places!”
Again, lose the snobbiness. Many would say the same about Oregon (I’d never live there, altough I see it’s beauty) or Las Vegas (WTF are people thinking?) or Phoenix (ugh… could it get any uglier or suburban?). It’s all relative, and highly subjective. The TC is a great place to live. Many people love it here. There are only 2 cities that have significant growth in the midwest. Twin Cities, and Chicago.
And again, our incomes are high here. (don’t believe me, look it up)
That said, there is a huge bubble in certain areas here in the TC. ESPECIALLY in the condo segment. There are many multi-million dollar condo complexes going up everywhere. Who is going to buy them?
And my house tripled in value since 1997. Part of this was a change in demographics (from working class to professional class), but a lot was bubble mechanics. although given the NEW COMP in my neighborhood I’m guessing that my house’s “value” just went down $50k in a day! comps can be a b*tch, huh?
Luckily I have a very high income and my mortgage is low, and I love my house and wouldn’t much care if it were worth 1/2 what it is now. But some of my neighbors will feel the pinch.
The only thing we have going for us now, is that the mortgages are still relatively reasonable (but too high) and so hopefully people will be able to afford them more than those in SoCal with their 800k crackboxes on a teacher’s salary.
Clouseau
The Twin Cities are NOT growing. At least not much. The suburbs are growing. St. Paul has lost population over the past few years and Mlps grows under 1% a year mostly through low-income immigrants from LatAm, Laos and other parts of Asia.
Not much of a recipe for doubling and trebling of home prices. There’s your first clue that much of the recent gains in Mpls aren’t sustainable.
UAW just announced Ford is closing the plant in St. Paul in 2009. GMAC-RF was sold off, Northwestern Airlines in trouble. This is what an economic downturn looks like…
I rent a 3br, 2ba, apt. with a garage, washer/dryer hookups, (around 1500sqft) and a backyard in St. Paul for $900. My rent has not raised in two years. Why the hell should I buy?
You’d be CRAZY to buy now. I sure wouldn’t.
I lived in St. Paul when I first moved to MN. Great city. cheap rent. Why pay a premium to buy, unless it’s for lifestyle reasons?
The only reason I don’t sell the place I own here in Mpls, is because:
1) everyone here is selling, so too much competition
2) I LOVE my neighborhood. neighbors are my closest friends
3) I LOVE my house. I love it even if I have to throw away $1800/month (my mortgage payment) away to a depreciating asset.
4) I have no plans to sell or move until at LEAST 2009, probably later.
5) it took me forever to get my house to where it is now, and I have NO interest in restarting over!
oh yeah: and because RE only goes up in Mpls. We’re special here. (sarcasm)
Clouseau
House Inspector Clouseau, don’t take all your information about CA teachers from what you read….there are plenty of CA teachers making north of $70,000 with good retirement benes at age 55.
Salinasron:
I agree, CA teachers make good money. But not enough to buy a $600k starter home.
like I said, I’m from SF, finally cut the SD umbilical cord last year (I actually just sold my SD condo last year). Teachers in SD make maybe 50-70k, yet a very small house in a decent SD neighborhood (like Mission Hills) will run you $700k. A kind of bad neighborhood like Normal Heights will run you $500k+
Heck, the MEDIAN home price for many Cali areas is north of $500k. I make way more than every teacher in America, and I shudder to think of paying that much in a mortgage! And yet people do it (theoretically… I suspect many really pay the minimum on their option ARM)
My point wasn’t to rag on teachers. It was to show the rediculousness of the Cali market. Which is why I finally sold March 2005. Until that point, I had kept my hopes alive that maybe I could find a good job in SD and move back and keep my Mpls standard of living, but that was a pipe dream… and so I gave up the dream last year. Plus, SD is turining into LA. so sad… it used to be so beautiful. But I digress…
Clouseau
The TCs are nothing like when I came here as a child in the 70s. Sprawl, pollution and right wing politics have stamped their mark on the physical and cultural landscape.
True, the cities are still beautiful, host great theatres, galleries, museums and clubs, boast sparkling lakes. They’re just shabbier, literally and figuratively, as the huge increase in population hasn’t translated into meaningful planning or increased quality of life. St. Paul, particularly, is a kind of dire ghost town after 6 pm, when white flight empties it and the former “World Trade Center,” long half-empty, rises stupidly over the deserted streets as testament to another futile downtown rejuvenation scheme (it houses our friends, the IRS, now). Along with the Ford plant, soon the city may lose its newspaper, the unreadable Pioneer Press.
In Minneapolis, much of the late-20th century identity celebrated by Time Magazine’s cover on “The Good Life” has been erased as new priorities have been stitched into the urban fabric. A Super Target sprawls downtown on a historic avenue; the panhandlers wait outside. Local fatcats cried for years (and cry still) that they needed better stadiums and a “cleaned up” E Block; they got both. Today the entertainment district is a Disneyfied nullity, notable mainly for when a suburbanite strays into it to get shot. The letters column in the Star Tribune fulminated for days about such a recent death, with calls for recolonizing the city, reinstating the draft, etc.
Leave the urban embrace and you find the TC suburbs are the great American Nowhere: look-alike combs divided by the ubiquitous corporate branding of box stores. The biggest box of all is the Mall of America, known far and wide for its coiling, bowel-like passages humming with the flatus of a built-in amusment park.
Our governor is a creep, though it’s hard to compete for that quality with our US Senator Norm Coleman, a munchkin sycophant whose handshake would remind you of a skinned, yet somehow still wriggling, carp. Both rode in on the Bubble-driven suburban vote…
That said, these are also the cities of Keillor, the Walker Art Center, the Guthrie and Jeune Lune Theatres, the First Avenue nightclub, a lot of cool galleries and notable restaurants like the Gardens of Salonica. There’s a good local weekly paper, City Pages. And a vibrant music scene. Great parks and libraries. You could do worse.
I agree, Mpls has moved rightward (as have many cities since the Clinton era), and it has changed somewhat, as all dynamic cities do… for better and worse. It is interesting to see the yuppification of Uptown. But in it’s place Lyn/Lake is now the new bohemian area. Another tale of the gay gentrification pattern common across America. You know: downtrodden area attracts gays, who fix it up, make it cool. then the yuppies move in and make it expensive. Gays repeat with new area. Same thing happened in SD with Hillcrest, in SF with much of the Castro, in Chicago with Boystown, in DC with Dupont Circle, and so on.
I am constantly amazed at how many great restaraunts there are here, and again you can actually afford them. I too LOVE Gardens of Salonica, as well as jPs, the twenty-eight cafe in Linden Hills, etc. I never go to the MOA, and I agree it’s dumb. Downtown is really for the out of towners and the suburbanites, but it has it’s fun spots too. I personally really like Tiburon as example. Also Uptown has cool places that are different, and I’d say that ALL of Lyn/Lake has unique interesting places (like El Meson and Machu Pichu) not to forget Eat Street (S Nicolett Ave) with all of its ethnic places (like Quang’s and Cafe Morales and Little Tijuana’s and Shuang Hur Supermarket and the fusion place Azia). Don’t forget St. Paul with Grand Ave, which I think is an awesome place. more places than I can count!
Plus, you can’t beat the urban bike trails, the lakes, etc. All of the lakes, the StoneArch Bridge Path, Minnehaha falls area, there are just SO many parks everywhere. I’ve never really seen so much in-city parks before except for maybe Portland. (and I’ve lived in Seattle, SF, SD, Houston, Atlanta, and spent considerable time in Chicago, Miami, Austin, and Charlotte).
I am sure that Mpls is less pristine than it once was pre-sprawl. I never really saw it then, and only have from 1999 to compare. Let me tell you, it is HEAVEN compared to SD or SF in terms of cleanliness. To me, it’s as clean and nice as Seattle and Portland- I feel like Seattle/Portland/Mpls are like sister cities… all so similar (except colder in Mpls).
Here is what I look at almost every day. Downtown Mpls from across lake Calhoun (sorry for the long link)
http://www.geraldbrimacombe.com/Midwest/
Minnesota%20-%20Minneapolis%20at%20twilight.jpg
But name a city that hasn’t seen the sprawl, and consequent negative effects.
I should stop promoting Mpls, or more people will move here destroying all it has to offer! It IS super cold here in winter, and that SUCKS. Keep out. Stay in California all of you!
Clouseau
Clouseau - Thank you for your thoughts. I could only laugh as I remember being in the TC’s in the early 70’s financing a business in Dinky Town, eating at Mayslack’s (is it still open? Motto: Nobody beats Mayslacks meat), driving with friends from Dallas to Minneapolis up I-35 to see the game, I thought it was a great city. But like you i do not wish to let my state become californicated or run over by flatlanders.
Well said, Inspector. And you’re right: there’s no more rheum here.
I sold my cool-ass loft in downtown St Paul last summer (they were conversions from an old shoe factory) and made a small profit, but now I think I’d be lucky to break even. I lost my job and couldn’t find one that paid as much, so I took a job in the NYC area.
Pretty much all of what V1M and Clouseau say is true, and while I do NOT miss the cold, I do miss the overall quality of life, at least compared to NE New Jersey, and I really miss areas like Nicollet and Grand Aves, two of the best eat-streets in the US, and the parks and such.
oh and yeah, the sprawling ‘burbs are generally vile and filled with “screw you I got mine” Republicans. generally. Burnsville? Apple Valley? Eagan? Ugh, and it was a little Schadenfreud-y to fly down 35E from downtown to Burnsville for work and see all the suburbanites in their giant ‘utes parked in the northbound lanes. suckas.
“I don’t understand honestly why buyers aren’t knocking down our doors,’ said June Wiener, president of the St. Paul Area Association of Realtors”
What I don’t understand is why mobs with torches and pitchforks aren’t knocking down June’s door.
Do any of the folks posting from MPLS know what is going on with the condo RE in Hopkins area? I got a call from an acquaintance that is sinking fast in a development deal involving 250K condo’s over there. Just wondering if anyone has any intel on that market. Thanks in advance