Minneapolis/St. Paul Nesties
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
North Suburb housing question
In the next year we're thinking about buying a house. We love the Plymouth/Maple Grove area. I've heard to steer clear of the Robbinsdale school district and Brooklyn Park and Center. The majority of the houses we're falling in love with are actually right across the MG boarder into Brooklyn Park in the Osseo school district. Basically the best "bang for your buck." Are there parts of these towns that are ok? Any advice? We're hypothetically looking right now to get an idea of where we'll want to live.
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Re: North Suburb housing question
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That's pretty much exactly where we're looking. We're finding tons of new, 4 BR 2+ Bath houses for under $210K. It's crazy.
Are there any school districts up there that are okay? I've heard bad things about Robbinsdale and Anoka, but not as much about Osseo. Ugh, it sucks when you have such great houses and terrible school districts. Hence the reason they're inexpensive though!
Mostly a lurker, I don't post too much but I wanted to for this
DH and I live in Brooklyn Park, within a few miles of where you are looking. We LOVE where we live for a ton of reasons. We have been here two years now. The area you are looking in is a good area. The Osseo school district isn't bad... there are some bad schools within it but a lot of good ones too (from my research at least- I don't have kids yet)! The Osseo district includes BP and Maple Grove as well. The Brooklyn Center school district is not too great, but it doesn't sound like you are looking there anyways.
I could go on for awhile, since I love our neighborhood! If you have any questions feel free to PM me or ask in this thread! We are really invested in our neighborhood and try to be in the BP community so I get really excited when people are interested in the area.
Yay that is so good to hear! I think BP gets a very bad rep. because of Brooklyn Center and most likely some areas within the city. My brother lives in MG and we're looking at houses within 2 miles from him, but in BP. I do hope 610 gets finished in the next year though, and that I get a new job within a reasonable commute from the area. I just can't believe the houses I'm finding there right now- we'd almost be stupid not to buy.
I live in that area also on the north side of 610 although I am technically not in BP it is right across the street form me. Like all the previous posts say there are areas to stay away from but there are also some decent areas as well. Yes, the school districts can be a trade off but you can always send your kids to private or a charter school as alternatives (this is what we most likely will be doing).
On a side note...it sounds like a few of us live within a few miles of one another!
It would be really nice if they got around to finishing 610! I work in St. Paul though so even when it is finished I probably won't use it much. At least there are tons of other major roads around here.
The house prices are awesome for what you can get! We got a great deal on our home and prices have dropped even more since then. I like to tag along sometimes when DH is previewing houses for clients in our area and I can't believe the prices on some really great houses. I kind of wish I was still looking!
We looked around that area as well and a lot of the homes are really nice. We had a crappy realtor at the time that tried to steer us away just because of the BP address.
We also moved from Plymouth and are out near Albertville. Depending on where you and your DH work it may be worth looking into. We got an amazing home for the $$.
Nicole and Sam 10/3/09
IMO, every city has "bad" areas within its limits. I don't want to feel fearful of where I live at all, and as long as I feel I'm in a safe, nice area, I don't care what city it is. The only drawback of living in BP will be the re-sale...because of those darn stereotypes. I'm assuming/hoping though that by the time we'd want to ever sell, the housing market would be back on the rise again.
I wish we could move that far north but I doubt it with our jobs. He's business and I'm an RN, so most of all that is near MSP. MG/BP is the farthest we're willing to relocate.
I used to work as a nanny in this area and it was very family friendly. The kids are still young, so I'm not sure about the school district. I also nannied in Plymouth, and those kids are in the Osseo school district. Their parents seem happy. We actually intend to buy a home in the same area of Plymouth soon. While we would like Wayzata school district for our hypothetical future children, we know you certainly have to pay for it! good luck. I really like the northern suburbs.
We're in this district. We're childless (for now), so school district wasn't a huge motivator for us. (And because we moved here from Atlanta, and pretty much every SD here is better than all of the ones there!)
We love this area. My H works downtown Minneapolis, and his commute is 20ish mins.
I figured the furthest commute of mine would be to St. Paul so roughly 40 min, which is 10 more than I'm doing now. I could survive that I think!
I actually teach in the Osseo Area School District. There are 3 high schools and one alternative secondary school; I work at one of the high schools so I don't know as much about the elementary level.
You have a pretty significant range of quality of schools in District 279. Park Center High School, for instance, is an International Baccalaureate school, but it does struggle to meet standards and doesn't have the best reputation. Maple Grove High School, on the other hand, is very highly regarded and is one of the top 5 wealthiest schools in the state. Somewhere in the middle is Osseo High School. There are fabulous teachers and administrators at all three, and what is really reflected in the 'quality' of the schools is the socioeconomic statuses of their students and the time their parents are able to contribute to their child's education.
Even if you happen to be in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota allows open enrollment, meaning you can pick the school you want anyway. So if you love the house, go for it! There are definitely great schools nearby, even if they aren't the 'neighborhood' school we traditionally think of.