Photos By Jenny The FlipperA recent article in the Star Tribune discussed the rather worrisome "absentee owner" trend in North Minneapolis, as incredibly affordable properties are snapped up by whoever has cash and credit in this tough market. Houses that were once valued at $180,000 are now going for, like, $17,500.
However, I don't worry about "absentee" owners very much, for two reasons...
First, city officials and neighborhood councils are going after individuals like Mahmood Khan and others who have revealed themselves to be slumlords. In fact, the Hawthorne Neighborhood recently put a slumlord's bloody, severed head on a pole and then, (breaking news!) fed the rest of the corpse to somebody's Vietnamese pot-bellied pig.
You can't make up stuff like this. Well, OK, you can.
Our struggle right now is to deal with the empty houses, by seeing them sold or--in a lot of very unfortunate cases--demolished. But once "who gets the houses" is resolved, the next battle shaping up will be "utopians versus slumlords" to determine the character of our neighborhood for, one suspects, many decades. That battle is already starting.
The SECOND reason I don't worry about absentee property owners: some of these absentee owners are wonderful, neighborhood-minded folks who have found a way to profitably flip houses yet also improve our neighborhood by putting property owners into refurbished, high- quality homes.
These photos are of 2755 Russell Ave. N. To buy this house, and meet the increasingly-famous "Jenny the Flipper," contact realtor Jeannie Hoholik, who was actually the first to feature this story on her blog, click here.
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