Minnesota Investing

[Christopher Lombardi]

Hello BP,

I am a NJ and PA investor but travel to St Paul/Minneapolis a lot to see family.  I'm considering looking into buying MN multifamily but heard it doesnt have very favorable landlord/tax laws.  Anyone family with investing in MN or the Twin cities, and can shed some like on it for me?

Thanks,

Chris

[David K.]

I'm a Minnesota investor, and have owned rental property on and off for 35 years. It seems to me that many landlord/tenant laws/rules are more localized than state by state. The two cities I'm most familiar with, Minneapolis and Bloomington, both have rules for rentals. They both require licensing and rental inspections. Some people grouse about these, but so far I have found them to be reasonable. Whatever city you are considering buying in, check the city website to see if they have their own regulations for rental housing.

The housing market here is pretty strong, and because of that I have never thought it was a great area for cash-flowing rental properties, at least SFH and duplexes. But every property stands alone from an investment perspective.

MN is a blue state, and has been generally liberal for many years. IMHO, the result of this is we have strong schools, many white collar employers, an unusually high number of Fortune 500 company headquarters, a very robust economy, that almost always outperforms the rest of the country, and a strong job market. The down side of this, of course, is that our taxes are a little higher. Then there are the below zero days!