Minnesota nursing jobs

Question:

I'm moving to Minneapolis next week and will be looking for a place to live. I'm from out of state MN originally and lived in Duluth for many years and for the past year have been a ‘traveling nurse’ and have worked in the Seattle area and am now in Eureka, California. Anyway, I've decided that I'm never going to whine about lousy healthcare in MN again, as you just don't know what you have until it’s gone!!

I'm moving back and have been offered a job at Abbott-Northwestern Hospital. Now, I know where a few basic things are down there--I can find the Metrodome, Target Center, XCEL Energy Center, State Fairgrounds, the airport and the Renaissance Festival, and that’s about it and I need a good map to find those. I've never even been to the Sprawl of America but I suppose I will almost have to go now that I'm living down there. (Or maybe not.) :)

So .here's my question(s):

1) Are there any rental/property management companies or known slum lords that we should definitely AVOID?

2) Any neighborhoods that are big trouble and that I should avoid?

I don't mind diversity and rather like quirky, eclectic sort of areas--no fancy schmancy 'burbs for me, if that helps but good restaurants and locally owned specialty shops are a plus especially bookstores. Street peeps don't bother me as long as there are not too many gang bangers around. I just want some 'relative' safety and not too far from work. We're going to be looking for an apartment fairly close to Abbott I've been doing some searching online for apartments and using Map quest to figure out approximate distances and such a couple of areas that seem to come up fairly often are Powderhorn Park area and Painter Park area. Also, St. Louis Park seems to be a fairly close drive and looks like a reasonable choice for a surburb if we go that route.

Am hoping to find something a little different and not your typical ‘cookie cutter apartment. Complex’ like a renovated brownstone or something like that not too many choices on rent.com or apartments.com though mostly complexes on there I swear if I look at another picture of fitness centers and swimming pools, I'll puke! I looked at the Trib rental ads online but don't really want to ‘go’ there until we're actually in the area, which will be around June 22. Just looking for ideas for now.

Answer:

How much apartment can you afford?
How much of a fan of public transport vs. commenting to work are you.

If you look South and Southwest of Abbot Northwestern past 40th streets, the
Neighborhoods get better the closer you get to 50th and beyond.
Due south, you might even be on a direct bus route which can save you the cost of driving and parking.

You can also look due west along the corridor of 30th and I-94/394
There are buses that run (one way) East on 28th and West on 26th streets.
The areas West of Nicolet (and 35w) are pretty decent.

Those would be my first choices for finding a temporary place to use as a base for a more structured search if you want to buy.
There are few big trends happening right now. One is the conversion of industrial space to loft space. If you take a cardboard box and write loft on it with magic marker, someone will pay $400K for it. A lot of new loft buildings are going up, and $300K seems to be the entry point for a loft. A second trend is the inner tier suburbs building new downtowns. They do this by building these massive 3 story retail and housing complexes. Two that I know of off hand are Excelsior Blvd in St Louis Park and Nicollet in Burnsville. Downtown Shakopee did this very successfully a few years ago, and Savage is in the process of doing this.

The net-net is that what you are looking for is the same thing that a lot of other folks are looking for, and that has pushed the prices up to the stratosphere. The other end of it is that conventional apartment complexes are starting to see vacancy levels raise a bit, and some are even starting to offer move-in deals.

One idea is to take advantage of the summer housing glut. Students rent housing from September to September, but few use the housing in the summer months. As a result, you might be able to pick up a sub-let for June, July, and August for very little money, and use that as a home base to go find what you really want. The key is that you would have to have something lined up for September.