Moving to Grand Forks

[The Commodore]

Hi,

My family and I will be moving to Grand Forks from St. Paul this August, I'll be starting work towards my Ph.D. at UND. My wife and I have a toddler and we're planning to buy a house rather than live in campus housing.

While I'm familiar with most commercial areas of Grand Forks and the campus (I grew up near GF), I really don't know much about residential neighborhoods and thought I might solicit information from some of you.

We're looking for a house in a quiet neighborhood, ideally with a lot of families and not a lot of rental housing. We're looking pretty much exclusively at single-family homes as opposed to townhouses, condos, or duplexes. I'd like to be able to walk to class but it's not a big deal.

Any recommendations or tips? We're going up to GF tomorrow morning for my wife's job interview and getting a feel for the city a bit, so if you post information today it would be really helpful for us. Thanks!

[Sioux-cia]

The area around the university has a lot of houses for rent right now. These houses are usually rented to students but are in residential areas where year round people such as myself own homes. It's a great neighborhood, near University Park, a large grocery store, older homes, good neighbors, etc. This is the second house I have bought in this neighborhood because I like older homes/neighborhoods with the tree lined streets and yards, etc.

There has been controversey because the city has and wants to impose restrictions such (party) noise, number of unrelated persons leaving together in one home in our neighborhood due to complaints from home owners and people living here year round. A lot of students are upset that they can't do what they want in the homes they rent while permanent residents complain about the students behavior in our neighborhoods. Luckily, as far as I am concerned, the permanent residents have won this issue and things are better for us. I think if you rent a house in this neighborhood, you will want to know how many houses near you are also rental houses. If yours is the only one on the block, you shouldn't have a problem with your neighbors.

[PCM]

I'll chime in and agree with Sioux-cia. I'm in the same neighborhood just a couple blocks east of University Park. I work at UND and can easily walk or ride my bike to work when the weather's decent. We've lived in the neighborhood for 14 years and really like it. Our kids received excellent educations at West Elementary School and Valley Middle School.

There've been problems with rowdy renters from time to time, but it's been several years since we've had any serious problems.

If you have any more questions, feel free to PM me.

[airmail]

We're looking for a house in a quiet neighborhood, ideally with a lot of families and not a lot of rental housing. We're looking pretty much exclusively at single-family homes as opposed to townhouses, condos, or duplexes. I'd like to be able to walk to class but it's not a big deal.

The Congressional Subdivision homes may provide what you're looking for. These are the homes west of interstate, and south of University Avenue. It's a jaunt for walking, but biking to campus would be a snap. I haven't lived in town for a few years, but I think the price range for these homes would be in the 150s... more or less.