Bakken Housing Crunch Spreading East Across the State -- North Dakota, USA

Link to Bismarck Tribune here.

Outside of Grand Forks, vacant apartments [in the state of North Dakota] are almost nonexistent. He said the vacancy rate in Williston and Minot is zero. In Dickinson it’s half a percent and in Bismarck it’s 1 percent. Even in Fargo the rate is low, at less than 4 percent. Between 5 and 8 percent is considered healthy.

Carbone said people are coming to North Dakota thinking it’s a land of opportunity but many of them are unprepared for the housing crunch.

Lots of comments could be made, starting with temporary housing.

I remember about nine months ago one of the oil companies, it might have been BEXP, asked the county for permission to simply add a few more temporary units to the land it already had set aside for such units. The county said no. Williams County has put a moratorium on new temporary housing.