urbanMSP

Developers trying out small condo projects (Locked)

Finally, someone other than Shamrock (Stanton) are looking at building condos.
Includes CPM's proposed Parkway on Calhoun. They'll potentially do more on the right sites, but will continue to primarily develop rentals.

Does anyone know of a reliable source to find estimated local utility costs? I've been playing around with St. Paul and Minneapolis, but I'm finding you really have to piece things together, and some of the information out there is basically worthless (e.g. the Minneapolis water costs page).

Based on what I'm finding, for a pretty standard SFH, you're looking at:

Garbage
St. Paul: $32
Minneapolis: $25

Water
St Paul: $25
Minneapolis: Who knows?

Gas/Electricity
(Too tired to dig right now, but figure this varies more than the others)

Property taxes, too. I'm finding three main sources — the reality websites, smartasset.com, and League of Minnesota Cities — but these estimates vary quite a bit. I also tried using the county records, based on the addresses of houses currently for sale, but that got complicated.

Any thoughts?

In Minneapolis, my single family home bill for water/sewer/trash is always between $65 and $75

This month it was
Water: 18.65
Sewer: 15.45
Refuse: 28.35
Drainage: 9.27

Best place to look up property taxes in Hennepin County is here: https://gis.hennepin.us/property/map/default.aspx

In Minneapolis, my single family home bill for water/sewer/trash is always between $65 and $75

Mines typically around $90. Wonder what's different.

I keep meaning to trade my large trash bin for a smaller one, which would save a little I think.

In Minneapolis, my single family home bill for water/sewer/trash is always between $65 and $75

Mines typically around $90. Wonder what's different.

I keep meaning to trade my large trash bin for a smaller one, which would save a little I think.

You save $2. But we don't fill it up anyway, and it's much easier to maneuver and store, so it's worth it even if the money's not huge.

St Paul bills water usage/service quarterly. Stormwater is billed yearly. Trash is private.

Broken down, I pay about 86 average a month for water/ service charges with inground sprinklers, a few 'water features', and a vast thirsty plant collection.
Trash- I pay for the whole year at once- breaks down to $24 month for a 96gal can.
Standard city lot- 91.44 year for storm water

You save $2. But we don't fill it up anyway, and it's much easier to maneuver and store, so it's worth it even if the money's not huge.

The downside of the smaller bin (as I understand it) is that everything has to be individually bagged, because the truck lifts can't pick them up and so they have to be emptied by hand.

Typically, the thing that will vary month-to-month on Minneapolis Utilities is water usage. Sewage is based on an average of water usage during the winter months (because lawn and garden watering in the summer doesn't use any sewage).

Drainage may also vary depending on the city's determination of permeability on your lot.

You save $2. But we don't fill it up anyway, and it's much easier to maneuver and store, so it's worth it even if the money's not huge.

The downside of the smaller bin (as I understand it) is that everything has to be individually bagged, because the truck lifts can't pick them up and so they have to be emptied by hand.

Typically, the thing that will vary month-to-month on Minneapolis Utilities is water usage. Sewage is based on an average of water usage during the winter months (because lawn and garden watering in the summer doesn't use any sewage).

Drainage may also vary depending on the city's determination of permeability on your lot.

Well if that is true, then our garbage collector must hate us, because we don't do that. But they haven't ever said anything in 3+ years.

They may hate you:

Small garbage carts hold 32 gallons and have a monthly disposal fee of $2. Maximum weight for cart and contents is 40 pounds. All garbage in small carts must be bagged or the cart may not be serviced.

I think the website might be out of date regarding the small carts. I'm usually still home when they empty my small cart and they use the lift. Same thing with the organics cart which is the small size. I'm guessing they updated the lifts when they rolled out the organics recycling.

The Great Housing Reset.

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/05/ ... et/559466/

The drop in ownership and rise in renting may be a long term trend controlled far more by trends in the economy requiring a workforce that can relocate easier.

Article (from 2017) summarizing the then-recent changes to MN law regarding construction defects, lawsuits, etc. Obviously the law change was pretty subtle and has not resulted in a flurry of condo projects since.

https://minnlawyer.com/2017/09/15/how-c ... velopment/

At. All.

Marketplace reports on why condos haven't made a comeback: https://www.marketplace.org/2019/05/31/ ... T7ilOIEI4c (May 2019)

Nationally, builders added only 24,000 new condo units over the past year, compared to 60,000 to 70,000 a decade ago. “On the new construction side, this is just one part of the industry that never really recovered after the Great Recession,” Dietz said.

One big reason: Condos are more expensive and complicated to build than apartments. Materials have to meet higher standards, and financing is harder to get. Insurance costs are also greater because of the risk of lawsuits over construction defects. Builders can make more money with apartments.

“Right now about 96% of multifamily construction is built for rent,” Dietz said. “That compares to about a 80% historic share.”

Based on those percentages alone, with Minneapolis adding >20,000 units since 2010, even just 10% for-sale should have resulted in 2,000 new condo units. The Minneapolis market isn't even reaching that very low bar of 4% of new construction being for-sale condos. There's the few Shamrock projects (Stonebridge, Legacy, and Portland Tower), Eleven, and the smattering of units in mixed use projects (Gateway Four Seasons, Sable condos in the Nordic project) and that planned TMBR building. There might be 1 or 2 more that I'm missing, but that's definitely it. Not sure that even totals up to 1,000 units. The thousands and thousands of rental units coming online in 2020-21 (assuming everything already planned/approved gets built) will push that condo percentage even lower.

"financing is harder to get"

Wall Street firms bought up single family homes during the Great Recession (https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/ ... et/582394/)

A skeptic might think that owning multifamily housing would bring the same benefits to Wall Street, rather than Main Street. Thus, financing would be easier for rental multifamily housing than for condos, which are individually owned and thus out of Wall Street's clutches.