Town Rental Restrictions Leaves Real Estate Investor With Home He Can't Rent

In Northfield, Minnesota, the Northfield News reports:

• [I]n late 2007, the city council approved a rental ordinance that permits no more than 20 percent of homes in a block to be licensed as rentals. The idea was to limit rentals, which the council said tended not to be kept to the standard of owner-occupied properties.

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• Carl Almen has lived in Northfield for 50 years. For almost 10 years he has been a landlord, renting five apartments and two storefronts — all in Dundas. So when he and his wife bought a foreclosure [in Northfield], he never imagined he wouldn’t be able to rent it. “I think it’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard,” Almen said of the city’s density limits, adding that rule gives the impression that city leaders value homeowners more than tenants and landlords. “What they’re saying is you should be on the back of the bus, and if you’re a landlord, you’re scum. I really resent that.”

• The ordinance, which Almen says forced him to sell the house, isn’t stopping him from owning rental property. Just not in town. “It will make me not invest in Northfield,” he said.

For more, see Rental code: Keeping homes vacant?