Home inspection in Greenwood.

What we see in Greenwood homes.

Greenwood is a small city on Saint Albans Bay of Lake Minnetonka, incorporated in 1956 out of Excelsior Township. It totals 1.03 square miles, but only 0.36 of that is land, so the lots are tight and the shoreline is everything. The elevation is 942 feet, and the lake itself covers 14,528 acres with about 125 miles of shoreline. The lake's resort era ran from the 1870s to the 1920s, and Greenwood's housing shows that history: 726 residents in 2020, small older cottages, postwar houses and large rebuilt lake homes, often sharing a lot line with the shore.

On these lots, water and age drive the inspection. Grading and drainage, foundation walls, sump pumps, and any signs of past moisture in basements and crawl spaces are the things to watch. Where a cottage has been added onto or rebuilt, how old and new framing meet deserves a hard look, along with insulation, windows and roof tie-ins. Visible shoreline retaining walls, stairs and docks get a condition note, but we recommend a specialist for structural or shoreline questions. Older cottage wiring and undersized panels also come up regularly.

Local facts checked September 2026 against: Wikipedia, Wikipedia.