Report confirms housing in Grand Forks ‘unaffordable’
November 14, 2012 at 4:11 pm in Grand Forks Herald
The price of homes and rent has risen faster than wages, to the point that housing can now be said to be “moderately unaffordable,” according to a report released by the Blue Ribbon Commission on Housing. Continue Reading
Well yea and guess what the people on your little board are the ones that have made it that way.
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After looking for an affordable place to live and not finding anything I finally gave my kid money for a down-payment on a house. I couldn’t let him get caught up in the rental scheme. What a rip-off that is.
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Bingo…that is the answer right there Mr. Wilson. GF apartments are very expensive (lots of college kids will do that).
The article said that apartment costs have gone up 32%, that is because that is what the market will bear.
Logical conclusion is to build more apartments to saturate the market and drive down apartment costs.
Lower rental costs = more people renting
More people renting = less people buying homes
Less people buying homes = lower housing prices.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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It would have been interesting if the article had included how wages changed between 2000 and 2010. If wages remain the same and home prices/rents rise, then housing becomes more unaffordable.
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You are correct fishy: wages are stagnant.
Do you realize I earn less now than I did when I left CA in 1998? I earn within a dollar of what I did when I left ND in 2006.
ND wages are so stagnant you could play hockey on them. They are that flat.
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The 2% growth was predicted 15 yrs. ago as a chronic condition of the economy.
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You know that you are FREE to move anywhere that you please to find those better wages and cheaper housing. That is the beauty of America. Sitting in GF and complaining will get you nowhere. If you are expecting some level of government to come around and help you out then you, well, we did just re-elect Obama… You know, it shouldn’t be much longer. I’m sure some guy with a little bit of money in Virginia or Nevada will have a little bit of it transferred into your pocket to help out. Sit tight.
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If the slum lords hadn’t bid up the price of family housing by outbidding families for the purchase of homes to rent to students we would see a different profile for GF. You can’t allow the so called free market to work in a city of 60,000 when the student pop. is as large as it is in relation to the size of the housing stock. The slum lord/developers will game the limited supply of family housing without a care for the well being of the larger community. In the process they destroy the neighborhood schools parks etc.
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As a student who rents a house that was purchased by a developer from a single family, I’d like to be considered part “of the larger community” you speak of. After all, there are over 15,000 of us, or 25% of Grand Forks’s population. And I don’t understand how my renting such a house destroys parks.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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I don’t know about destroying the parks, but I have seen first hand how the college students renting homes in Grand Forks has made it impossible for a family to get a decent affordable home. We pay $1000 for a crappy northend 3BR and are told that the rent will go to $1200 in May, because he can get it from students. It’s not about what its worth…it’s what you can get. His other rental property across the street is rented to students and it is a constant party house. underage, after hours. Calling him or calling the police seems to do no good. We cater to the college students. A decent, law abiding, 2 wage earner family with children has no value compared to the college kids.
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knox, this disscussion has been going on for yrs. here @ this site. It used to be that students lived in the basements of family occupied homes as I experienced growing up by Univ. Park. When developers realized they could outbid new families from purchasing homes from retirees and then pack too many students into each house & charge each student sometimes exhorbitant rent but even if not still make a killing off the simple fact too many students are housed in one house. This has resulted in fewer families in Univ. neighborhoods & thus fewer kids in schools. Parks have become less attractive with fewer children using them. This issue isn’t about “bad” UND students but the rental policies that have developed favoring absentee owners who don’t keep up the properties which diminishes the remaining families environment. The new zoning/occupancy laws enacted 7-8 yrs. ago helped but as in most college towns the problem continues with the development of student ghettos. The fact that so many students are underage that live in these houses makes for an “house as bar” scene that isn’t good for anybody except the absentee owners & the liquor stores.
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As you say spearman, you have brought up this point numerous times before. But out of the other side of your mouth you want the revenue and jobs these students generate. What would hurt GF more economically: losing the AFB or closing UND. It is not even close. Lose UND and we look like Hatton with two WalMarts.
You can’t have it both ways. You cannot have Mayberry and the income from a university. The two simply do not go together.
Out west it is the same. They love the money but decry the loss of their small town values. What did they think would happen?
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Yes FN, when there were fewer students there were also fewer people in town so it’s a wash as far as the amount of housing available. The only thing that has changed is the investors have become more mercenary & sophisticated.
The laissez fair process you advocate could have been effected in a more constructive way if UND admin. hadn’t had its head in the sand & dealt proactively as they increased student pop. Now they have created a reputation as a party school because they have about 100 underage drinking emporiums called “former family homes” scattered around UND & the rest of the town. Your sarcastic comments about Mayberry are off the mark when we consider that the same issue is being fought over in big city St.Paul around its many college residential neighborhoods.
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I agree with half of that. I agree UND was anything but proactive in building an infrastructure to accommodate the number of students they were trying to attract.
I disagree that more dorms is the answer. Like we have talked about before, the average student only lives in the dorms during their first year, after that they are “on the economy” to borrow a phrase from the military.
The rental companies are very sophisticated and I would agree predatory. That does not necessarily make them wrong. Your mother lives downtown. What if one of your siblings wanted to convert her house into a boarding house after she died? Follow all the codes, keep the cars off the street, play by the rules but have a source of income every month as an investment for the grandkids college. Would that be wrong?
After leaving GF for the first time I went to the University of Arizona and to keep expenses down lived near campus (I walked EVERYWHERE. My car did not move for months at a time). Because UofA has as many students as GF has people, the college ghetto is the size of GF north of DeMers (at least).
Wherever you have college kids you have drinking (the houses on each side of mine had red tags on the door – those were non removable placards placed by the cops saying we have been here too often for parties and if we come back the owner is going to jail) and college ghettos.
I am not sure you can have one without the other. Maybe at Concordia.
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FN says, “Wherever you have college kids you have drinking (the houses on each side of mine had red tags on the door – those were non removable placards placed by the cops saying we have been here too often for parties and if we come back the owner is going to jail) and college ghettos”.
There wasn’t drinking in family housing when families rented out their basements to students. The housing investors brought the present scenario on & the boos establishment jumped in bed with the “city council/UND/investor complex”. If you knew any GF history you might have a leg to stand on.
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Spearman: we have already established there is not enough housing to accommodate the students. If your utopia of single family homes with students living in the basement were real, 1/2 of the students at UND would be homeless.
We argued this to death with the pika dot house.
College towns destroy the old neighborhoods around campus. It is simply a fact of life.
My son goes to MSUM. His house is just like the ones around UND.
You want students, you get red solo cups in your yard.
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Spearman, I see where you’re coming from. Students and families don’t always make for the best neighbors. It’s true; I wanna light a fire, drink some beers, and play music under the stars once in a while. I know that not all my neighbors appreciate it.
But that’s what us young folks do. I’ve been to several “student ghettos” with modest old homes crammed full of young people just a bicycle ride away from school, work & downtown. We all spend a lot of money on alcohol, food, and coffee. Rents rise, as do home costs, in part because all our artists and musicians can add a cool factor that’s impossible to manufacture. You don’t get that experience in a dorm. You get it in a quirky little neighborhood with cafes, bookstores, art galleries, and decent sidewalks.
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I think we can expect more from our college students. Fly, you brought up Concordia. When I went there, they required students to live on campus 2 years. We had a blast in the dorms. And yes, you can have a “quirky and unique” experience in the dorms. When my friends and I rented a house after the dorms, we were a year older than most. We kept our lawn mowed, did not have wild parties (no red solo cups left in the lawn) and were respectful of our neighbors who were young families or professors. That doesn’t mean we were perfect and yes, there were some houses full of students that had problems, but maybe it helped that we were a year older and wiser.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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Where are these slums that people are lording over? And if the areas where families are being outbid for houses are slums then why would you want to live there?
Move somewhere else.
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Ya, think? We needed a consultant to tell us this? Wow, now we are going to pay consultants on how to make housing more affordable. Yikes & Wow.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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Bonehead Brown has acted irresponsibly in forming a “Blue Ribbon Commission”; then packing it full of people with a personal or professional interest in raiding the treasury. If there were any decency to those members, they’d recuse themselves because of their obvious conflict of interest.
The Commission is comprised of Real Estate Industry Insiders and Social Workers, there is absolutely NO ONE on the Commission that has a history of looking out for the taxpayer. The Fox has been commissioned to inspect the hen house.
OF COURSE they’re going to find problems that can be mitigated with massive infusions of tax money; that tax money will end up in the pockets of Real Estate Industry leaders in this town. “Consultants” have been hired, not to provide any NEW information, but as a shield for criticism and blame for the Commission–Just like the School Board did after they decided to build a new, unneeded elementary school–but before telling the public about it. Then they pretend that it’s all justified by the Outside Expert–who leaves town with a big paycheck after “miraculously” discovering that the best course of action is whatever their employer wanted to begin with.
Every homeowner in Grand Forks is not only going to pay for their own house, but be forced under penalty of law to help buy housing for some stranger.
The Citizens of Grand Forks are being manipulated by a crooked politician, and the unethical “Commission” he’s created. The “Blue Ribbon Commission” is a fraud and a crime against the Taxpayer.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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The primary problem with “Unaffordable housing” in this town is not the price of homes, it’s the fact that North Dakota has been a low-wage state up to the advent of the current oil boom. If there’s a bright center to the oil boom, Grand Forks is the major city it’s farthest from. The Grand Forks area is all that remains of the long and sad, low-wage history of North Dakota.
Students are a legitimate part of our city, and our economy. Blaming them for high housing prices is ridiculous–as is blaming investors for renting to students. Does make me think that the management of UND needs their collective heads examined–why did they allow a hotel when they should have built a series of dormitories?
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Schurkey says, “If there’s a bright center to the oil boom, Grand Forks is the major city it’s farthest from. The Grand Forks area is all that remains of the long and sad, low-wage history of North Dakota”.
Fargo is further from the oil boom than GF because Minot is directly in the oil patch while Bismarck isn’t so GF is closer than Fargo to the oil patch. I agree with you though, there is a sad low wage history in N.Dak.
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It’s a METAPHOR, Spearman.
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Yes Schurkey, “bright spot to the oil boom” is a metaphor but your geography isn’t.
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God have mercy on my soul: I agree with Schurkey.
As I chided spearman above, you can’t have it both ways. If you want Mayberry, get rid of the university. If you want the jobs and revenue the students create, grow up and accept the fact that your home town feel is the price you pay.
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Shurkey says, “Students are a legitimate part of our city, and our economy. Blaming them for high housing prices is ridiculous–as is blaming investors for renting to students. Does make me think that the management of UND needs their collective heads examined–why did they allow a hotel when they should have built a series of dormitories?”
Did I say students weren’t a legitimate part of the community or blame them for high housing costs? Your insistence on using straw man argumentation on every discussion is annoying. How you can say developers haven’t skewed the housing market is ridiculous. Low wage ND has been with us for 130 yrs. so high cost housing in GF doesn’t track with low wages but real estate interests purchase of family homes for students does track. Families used to be able to buy GF housing as reasonable as any place in N.Dak.
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The reason wages are so low in this town is because the vast majority of the jobs are service field jobs that require no special skills or education to fill.
You cant scream about low wages when you are the fry cook at McDonalds.
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You are 100% correct. Everytime I say the same thing I also get 10:1 thumbs down. I never have figured out why facts are so offensive to some people
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It’s not the “facts”, FN. It’s just you.
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There’s got to be much more than just service jobs…..Every once in a while I drive around some of the new sections of the city….Have you seen some of those places? Either people are really up to their eyeballs in debt, or they’re bringing in the baqcon from someplace. A lot of very expensive places out there.
As for the other jobs……..There must be more than service jobs drawing so many young people to the area. Of course we don’t seem to keep some of the big plants for a real long time, but there must be something drawing them here. When I was a kid we hit the road for CA, NY, CO, or WA (Primarily…Of course all other areas too) Generally we found the hard way that the streets weren’t paved in gold, and some of us just didn’t stay comfortable being around so many people every place you went…No open spaces in some cases…
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We retired and left GF almost 10 years ago. We still have family in the area and would like to return but it’s still the same old things keeping us from doing that – high property taxes, no tax incentives for senior citizens, housing prices continue to increase, affordable rentals do not allow pets and a high population of students relative to total population. South Dakota, Sioux Falls area in particular, looks much more appealing without a lot of the minuses present in the GF area.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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My property taxes in GF are over 2000 a year. Closer to 2500. My mother’s property taxes in Aurora (eastern suburb of Denver): 600 a year. She even got a rebate check from the city after they reassessed her house and found out she had overpaid.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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You couldn’t pay me to live in Aurora. I have clients with offices down there and have had to do work in and around Denver, it isn’t as bad as it was 20+ years ago when my sister did her Social Work internship, but it hasn’t improved to the point where I would invest.
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Yeh Maverick, so much for FN’s fetish for low property taxes.
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4x the amount? Are you telling me our streets, sewer, and library are worth 4x the property taxes on a 100,000 home?
Oh thats right, this is GF. We do not have $100,000 homes anymore. That is the whole purpose of this discussion.
For the record, I am not against taxes. I am for getting my money’s worth. As of right now I am not.
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South Aurora is great. Total yuppieville. Go hiking, people running with their babies in the stroller. Lots of crossfit gyms.
North Aurora is being revitalized but it is still a ghetto. Home grown gangs. North Aurora (which is east Denver) = African American Gangs. North Denver = Asian gangs. West Denver = Hispanic gangs.
South = scared white people hoping everyone else stays out.
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All this talk about “hiring” consultants is confusing to me. Can someone tell me the name of a consultant the city hired? And how much have these consultants been paid?
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More than you or I will earn in the next 6 months
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Among other things, I found one suggestion interesting. Larry Nybladh made a suggestion to use any money that would come from the state, primarily from oil production taxes, to the individual citizens. He threw out an estimate of $400 per person. He suggested that, instead of giving cash to each citizen in Grand Forks, that the money should be put in a revolving fund that would be used to incentivize development of affordable housing. I like it when people get creative and think “outside the box”. However, the next comment he made causes me to question whether he thought this through deeply enough. He said that if he and his wife were each given $400, it wouldn’t last very long. 2 meals and a tank of gas would use it up. Sounds a bit Mitt Romneyish to me. Not in touch with the average citizen, let alone low income citizens. $400 per person for a family of four would probably pay (even with high grocery prices) for four months of groceries. Not a large amount to him, at his income, but a significant impact on the average family.
He said that this wouldn’t increase our taxes, but, if it is given to the other citizens of North Dakota, it would still be a reduction in the money the average citizen has to work with. It would mean that even the low income citizens who already are paying for their housing, would be subsidizing the developers of affordable housing for other low incomers.
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I agree wholeheartedly that 400 is a lot of money to the “average” person.
As for four months worth of groceries? When all 4 of the boys were home my Hugos bill was 600 a month at least.
I still spend 400 with only 2 home
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I think you are overreacting to his comments. We are an average household and I would use that $400 up on 2 trips to the grocery store as we average $200 each time. Yes we have children, but so do lots of other households. Plus, I spend lots on gas each month because kids are in activities across town and we are on the go a lot…so $400 doesn’t go very far for many families nowadays.
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Melody, wouldn’t you agree though, that the average person would stretch $400 a lot farther than two meals and a tank of gas? I realize that you can blow that amount of money on a night out, but your average family isn’t going to do that.
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Katie, Don’t get me wrong. I would love to have an extra $400. However, it might do more good to keep that $400 from each household and do something collectively like Nybladh suggested…as an incentive for affordable housing. I was just saying I don’t think Nybladh’s comments are “Romneyish” at all. Unfortunately, $400 doesn’t go as far as it used to.
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Maybe i’m missing the boat on this one but if houses are selling for such a higher than value price, why arent you people out having homes built to put on the market?
Buy up a bunch of residential land and assemble the prefabricated homes on the lots.
That would be low cost and you could sell them for under 100k.
It seems to me that everyone is complaining that there are no homes for under 100k.
dont buy one then, build one.
Just a quick glance at the websites of these companies shows that cost of a prefab is at least 25% less than an actual on-site construction.
$1200 a month for rent or $800 to own… seems like an easy choice to me.
And it would drive the cost of other homes down. bet that would make property owners happy.
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I asked that question repeatedly during our last discussion on this topic. No one had an answer.
I think it is our city’s ridiculous special assessments. Want a sewer? Pay for it yourself. Want a paved street? Pay for it yourself.
Want a fancy wellness center or another indoor ice rink? That’s important. Everyone has to pony up for those.
Infrastructure benefits everyone. It should be paid for by everyone.
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I think that only half of the people should have to pay for infrastructure. You know, the way it is at the federal level. Why should it be any different at the local level?
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My prediction is that Grand forks will find a way to subsidize housing and encourage less expensive homes. I also predict that five years from now a new round of complaints will begin asserting that the subsidized housing has hurt existing home values and it isn’t fair that taxpayer X bought his house for $175,000 and now he can’t sell it for $160,00 because of the cheaper subsidized houses. Anyone who bought a modestly priced home in the last five years is going to have their home value adversely impacted if the City decides to provide subsidies or other incentives for house in that price range. You don’t have to look very far to see a very similar set of circumstances. The housing bubble and subsequent drop in housing prices was due in part to access to cheap loans and credit being extended to people beyond what was realistic to ever be repaid (partly the fault of banks and partly the fault of consumers). Unbelievably, congress recently started to hold hearings on why banks are restricting credit and refusing to provide home loans; the cycle of government intervention, followed by a worse problem, followed by more government intervention begins again.
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Capitalism is not fun. It does not make you feel good. It is not warm & fuzzy. It is rigged in favor of big corporations.
That said, when left alone it works.
Everyone is not equal. Not everyone gets the house their friends have.
There is no such thing as too big to fail.
If we remember this everyone wins in the long run
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Flyingnurse, I agree with your post with the exception that capitalism is rigged in favor of large corporations. Those large corporations just didn’t pop into existence, they started out as small businesses. You can trace just about every large corporation back to somebody’s garage or basement. Crony capitalism is certainly rigged in favor of large corporations. When the government picks certain industries to either bail out, provide with tax incentives or give financing to, capitalism becomes distorted. While pure capitalism would be far to brutal to sustain, when the government expands its role beyond providing a reasonable safety net and necessary public services and starts to influence or participate in the market place the result is generally harmful to individuals. Of course, everyone is going to have a different opinion on what constitutes a reasonable safety net.
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Capitalism serves those who care enough to help themselves.
The sky is the limit under Capitalism
It can however be a cruel mistress to those who sit on the sidelines and just want to exist.
This is where we have problems between the Liberals and Conservatives, under Capitalism you have to be willing to let those who dont care enough to advance just fail.
But we spend too much effort propping them up for too long.
Socialism and Capitalism are like Oil and Water. and right now thats exactly what we are doing.
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Well said, now prepare to get blasted for pointing out the truth.
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Damn it FN, I hate it when I have to agree with you!!
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Can’t get off the “consultant” issue. To the best of my knowledge, no consultants have been hired by the city for any of the housing issues. I’m wondering if someone could prove me wrong, but I doubt it.
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“Can’t get off the “consultant” issue. To the best of my knowledge, no consultants have been hired by the city for any of the housing issues. I’m wondering if someone could prove me wrong, but I doubt it.”
“Harrison’s presentation was sponsored by the Blue Ribbon Commission on Housing, a city group formed to identify problems within the Grand Forks housing market and recommend ways to solve them. ”
Harrison was sponsored by the Blue Ribbon Commission, which was called into existence as a propaganda tool by Mayor Brown.
http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/249330/
Even if he “presented” for free, which does not seem to be the case…his intent is to profit from subsidized housing by cramming appealing nonsense down our throats. Curving streets, rainbows and butterflies.
Has it been confirmed that the Blue Ribbon Commission itself is a “volunteer” group? Who says THEY’RE not being paid?
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Fact:
Harrison was sponsored by the Blue Ribbon Commission, which was called into existence as a propaganda tool by Mayor Brown.
Fiction:
Even if he “presented” for free, which does not seem to be the case…his intent is to profit from subsidized housing by cramming appealing nonsense down our throats. Curving streets, rainbows and butterflies.
Has it been confirmed that the Blue Ribbon Commission itself is a “volunteer” group? Who says THEY’RE not being paid?
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The solution is NOT to add more housing, but rather to decrease the cost of rent and the prices of houses. Most property owners (including landlords) have fixed-rate mortgages so there is no reason to increase rent every year to make sure they are able to make payments on their properties. There is even less of a reason if the property is paid off or if tenants pay the utilities. Even in instances in which landlords pay the utilities, they don’t increase so much that rent has to increase every year.
I am a self-sufficient single parent. If I were forced to sell my home (a single-family house), my children and I would end up in the welfare system. My house payment is less than $450 per month and with utilities my total payments are still no more than what rent alone is for an apartment. My total payments for rent and utilities would increase and if I were to buy a home with the same configurations (# of bedrooms, bathrooms, size, etc.), my house payment would nearly triple.
I was a renter at one time but it wasn’t so bad then. I had a cute 1-bedroom apartment and was paying less than $200 per month. That was just over 10 years ago. Now, I feel bad for renters with the cost of living expenses. The rent for that same apartment is between $500 and $600 per month now. It is definitely more expensive to rent than to buy in some cases. The key is to not have to have the absolute fanciest and best but to be practical when looking into buying. My own family, for example, has a home with one bathroom. For awhile there were 4 people living in the home and it still worked out for us. Even with 3 of us it still works out for us. And, I chose a home that I won’t have to sell after the kids leave home because it is too big for just me. The smaller size has worked out for our family and will work out well for only me after they move out so no major life changes will be needed other than getting used to being alone.
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Thank goodness we finally have a solution! Just make rent and housing cheaper. You know, they should just make cars and fuel and food cheaper too. With magic…
How do you propose they lower the cost of housing? Do you expect people to rent for less and sell for less out of the goodness of their hearts? By the same logic, why don’t you take a pay cut at work so your company can sell its product or service at a lower cost so I can buy it cheaper?
If you were a landlord and were renting a house and making $600 a month would YOU decide to rent it for less and maybe only make $200 a month? I suppose if you can’t find someone to rent it for what you are asking but that’s supply and demand.
These are the two views in America right now:
If you are the one making the money, you think it’s perfectly fair to charge as much as you can get for your good or service.
If you are the one paying the rent, you think it’s unfair that the evil rich man is making money off of you.
Do you know who’s right? The person making the money. They took the risk buying the place to rent to someone else. No risk, no reward.
The solution is competition. More housing. Someone needs to come to town with the ability to build houses cheaper than Crary which shouldn’t be hard. But that probably won’t happen since, A: Crary and Greenberg own every piece of land in GF and B: there is this little group of people called the city counsel who won’t let you come to town and do business if they don’t like you or you threaten even a small chunk of their business interests. (see Fantasy’s) (see the second hospital that never came to town)
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I’m not saying that rent should be lowered so much that landlords don’t have enough to maintain their properties and aren’t making a little income, but I don’t think it is necessary to increase rent every year, especially if a property loan has been paid off. Sure we see increases in many of the things we buy and services we utilize, but they are gradual increases which means a landlord won’t be suffering if he or she chooses not to increase rent every year.
For several years I operated a childcare facility in my home. I increased my rates once in the almost 10 years that I provided services. Childcare Resource & Referral was on my case about it quite often because I was “competition” with other providers and could have taken business away from them. I stood my ground in continuting to be fair to the families whose children were in my care and guess what. . .my own family did not suffer because I was not raising my rates to help with “cost of living increases”. All of our needs were always met and we were able to enjoy a few luxuries as well. The same will hold true of property owners even if they don’t increase rent every year.
If new housing is built, it needs to be in the form of single-family homes and single-family transitional housing. . .not apartment buildings. We already have an excessive amount of apartment buildings in our city. I think we need more transitional housing. One type would be for individuals who have the goal of home ownership but can’t yet afford it or are simply trying to save up for a down payment. Transitional housing for these individuals and/or families would offer lower rent while providing services that help individuals and families prepare for full home ownership such as a savings/goal setting plan, budgeting, household management, lessons in home maintenance such as cleaning of gutters and minor home repairs such as replacing a flapper in a toilet, etc. So many people go into home ownership without any idea of the level of responsibility that it takes to own a home. So many people don’t know how to make minor home repairs and instead resort to calling expensive contractors. I believe that these things could also result in more families becoming self-sufficient instead of having to depend upon government assistance.
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I’m wondering how they became a Blue Ribbon Committee? Nice name. Sounds very elite….
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Because Brown SAYS they’re a “Blue-Ribbon” Commission.
His Commission, His choice of name.
That’s not what I call them, though. I call them “The Self-Serving, Anti-Taxpayer, Socialist Housing Propaganda-and-Lies Committee”.
Doesn’t have the same “ring” to it as “Blue Ribbon”, though.
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Housing property in general across this state has gone bonkers. You can hardly find places to rent in Bismarck, property values have shot through the roof and wages remain stagnant. The only people making money are the property brokers.
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They are in the enviable position of having something that is in demand. When you have the supply of what is in demand in a “somewhat” free market, you stand to make some money. I’m not sure if you were just trying to point that out or if you were whining about it.
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Every time I hear how expensive it is to live in Grand Forks, I just have to laugh. I recently moved here from the western side of North Dakota where, as of this past summer, a one-bedroom was renting for $1200/month, a two-bedroom for $1800/month, and a three-bedroom for $2400+/month. None of which included any kind of utilities. The cost of houses on the market have tripled in the last three years. During that time, my wage did not change. I was priced out of the area.
Very high cost of living, very low quality of life out there.
Compared to the western side of the state, Grand Forks seems like a paradise.
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I was out there for the boom in the 80′s….It was just as bad. Booms produce huge growing pains at an accelerated rate so it all seem bad…..The 80′s boom suddenly got shut off about the time a lot of the towns around the southern area out there had just started to get enough things in place. Then suddenoly it went from a boom to a bust. All those expensive places couldn’t hardly get someone to stay for free once the oil money dried up.
From the sounds of it this boom will be longer lasting…Unless there’s a big drop in oil prices…But that sure doesn’t look likely
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Oh, give it time…
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But, you have to remember that you came from a unique situation. I don’t think you can compare the western part of the state with any other part because the situations are quite different. Because people are making so much money over there everything increased significantly, not just a little bit. Former, long-term, renters lost their homes because their rent doubled [and tripled in some cases] even though their own situation did not change. They just could not afford it. I think that the conditions in lease agreements should have remained in effect for those who were “grandfathered in” when the boom hit.
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Then again if the boom should come to a stand still…..Look out. When it did last time many people who bought FMHA built houses just abandoned them and went back to where they came from. Those houses were built with unfinished basements (Just electric and plumbing) and I think they went between 50 to 60k or so at the time (Not sure, but I think so). Eventually they had so many houses sitting that the government came in and auctioned them off. I had a friend who picked up one of the newer houses with an unfinished basement for 25k. Neighbors were not happy because they were paying full price and suddenly homes around them were sold between 25 to 35k…Which brought their value down….Nice huh?
As for renting. The same with local retail. People remembered the gouging and some store had to close, and some property sat empty for a long time….And they deserved the burn for their gouging…….Same reason I never walk into Hugo’s…..I remember the gouges after the flood and will never give them business ever again.
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Exactly. So many of us have had to move away from the western side because we’ve been priced out. When the boom goes bust, who’s going to be left to pick up the pieces? I know I’ll never move back there again.
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I understand what you’re saying. But, we have to remember that the people who are suffering out there due to extreme costs of living are still in the same state as us. We’re not talking about people in another state or another country who have nothing to do with us. They are our fellow North Dakotans and most of the eastern side of the state are completely oblivious to how bad it is out there.
It costs more to live in Williston and Dickinson – small towns with 3-screen movie theaters and a walmart – than it does to live in some parts of NYC. We should be outraged about this – these are the fellow citizens of our state.
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Unless they put in fixed pricing there’s little that can be done. That’s not really an option because it would be political suicide. The only other option would be to build affordable government housing for people at certain income levels, but once again the idea of using tax money for something like that would get very many people riled…
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I’ve been involved in a couple of “Blue Ribbon Commissions”…me and some friends solving the world’s problems around a case of Pabst in the garage.
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And was the result….Bud…Wise…Er…..?
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