Bakken Employers Are Becoming Landlords

Several folks have sent me this link. Bloomberg is reporting that Bakken employers are becoming landlords:

Mercy Medical Center has 50 out of 500 positions to fill at any given time, said Grimshaw, chief executive officer. When $5,000 sign-on bonuses offered to attract nursing recruits didn’t get enough takers, Grimshaw persuaded the parent company, Englewood, Colorado-based Catholic Health Initiatives, to build a $12 million, 68-unit apartment building near the hospital.

“We’re facing some of the greatest staffing challenges we’ve ever encountered,” Grimshaw said, sitting behind a desk piled with technical drawings and construction layouts. “This is a most unique situation really in America.”

Among Grimshaw’s staff is Jerry Freeman, a carpenter who moved from Spokane, Washington, in search of a stable job in the oil fields. Grimshaw wooed Freeman away from the rigs by arranging housing on the hospital campus for him and his wife, in a building once used by nuns and now shared with three other people. 

Lots more at the linked article. 

One reader who sent me the link and is building housing in the Bakken, noted:

The linked Bloomberg article doesn’t mention is the rate of return on adding an employee.

For example, one company in the Bakken: for every truck they added, the company added $40,000 to the bottom line -- per month.

Each apartment unit cost $120,000 to built.  The comany built 500.  The apartments were paid for in six (6) months.

That is the model everyone is realizing is the ticket.

A long, long time ago, I posted a note regarding BEXP. They built a neighborhood of single-family homes. They put in the water, sewer, utilities themselves because it would have taken too long for the city/county to put those services in.