I’ve been working my way toward Minnesota for a while now, and this confirms my goal.
Lots of fresh water, waaaay lower housing/rental costs than (every?) other blue state, its a blue state so I qualify for SNAP and other kinds of assistance (I don’t in red states as they set their income thresholds waaay lower)…
Oh, and the place isn’t burning down/flooding.
I probably can’t afford Minneapolis/St. Paul, but Rochester looks decent.
I noticed that quite quickly just from the city’s wiki page, that it’s dominated by the Mayo Clinic…
But I don’t know too much about MN other than very top down, broad metrics kinda stuff.
(Also I’m from Seattle originally and am entirely used to the local media being basically, if not literally, just on the payroll for Boeing, Starbucks, Amazon, MSFT…)
Are there any other comparably sized towns/cities, where one could rent a studio or one bed at or under $750?
So far the other option I’ve considered is Duluth, but it seems to have a far smaller rental market at $750 or below.
…
Also just in general, more comparative benefits I’ve noticed for living in Minnesota:
Rental property tax rebate.
Basically, you, as a renter, get a rebate each year based on a portion of an estimate of how much of your rent goes toward paying your landlord’s property taxes.
If my understanding is correct, this is actual cash given back to you, not just a tax credit. Though that may only work that way for someone like me, on SSDI… probably I should double check that.
Also, it seems like most of MN uses a 2.5x income to rent ratio requirement, as opposed to basically every blue state which uses a 3x ratio.
Shit like that makes a considerable difference when you’re on disability.