Minneapolis rents and rental comps

The median asking rent across Minneapolis, MN sits at $1,497/month, pulled from active rental listings in 16 zip codes. That's up 1.3% from a year ago.

Rents aren't uniform across the city. ZIP 55410 tops the list at $2,399/month. ZIP 55403 comes in lowest at $999/month. That's a 140% spread between the top and bottom zip codes, which is wide. City-wide averages won't tell you much about a specific property here.

A 2-bedroom rents for $1,600/month at the median. 1-bedrooms run about $1,175. 3-bedrooms come in around $2,000.

Listings take longer here. The average is 57 days on market, which gives renters more room to negotiate and means landlords should price carefully.

Rent-to-price math is tight in Minneapolis. The gross figure sits at about 5.1% ($1,497/month against $350,000 median price). Most investors here are betting on appreciation, not monthly cash flow.

HUD's Fair Market Rent for a 2-bedroom in the Minneapolis metro is $2,560/month. Asking rents come in about 42% below the federal benchmark, which can make Section 8 properties competitive here.

Minneapolis-St. Paul has a Fortune 500 concentration you don't see in most metros: Target, UnitedHealth, 3M, General Mills, Best Buy, US Bancorp. That corporate base creates stable, well-paying rental demand. The city eliminated single-family zoning to add housing, and supply is gradually catching up. Uptown, North Loop, and Northeast are premium. Richfield and South Minneapolis are moderate. Leasing here is highly seasonal. May through September is busy. Winter is slow. Timing your lease start date and pricing for season matters more here than in most markets.

These numbers are city-wide averages. If you're pricing a specific property in Minneapolis, pull comps from the same zip code. The spread is usually bigger than people expect.