The Real Estate Crisis in North Dakota's Man Camps

[Purveyor]

By Jennifer Oldham
September 29, 2015 — 5:01 AM EDT


Partially completed buildings stand during construction at the Williston Apartments luxury apartment complex in Williston, North Dakota, on Sept. 9, 2015.
Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg


* Local officials worry about filling new residential units
* As migrants leave, castoff RVs pile up in local scrap yards

Chain saws and staple guns echo across a $40 million residential complex under construction in Williston, North Dakota, a few miles from almost-empty camps once filled with oil workers.

After struggling to house thousands of migrant roughnecks during the boom, the state faces a new real-estate crisis: The frenzied drilling that made it No. 1 in personal-income growth and job creation for five consecutive years hasn’t lasted long enough to support the oil-fueled building explosion.

Civic leaders and developers say many new units were already in the pipeline, and they anticipate another influx of workers when oil prices rise again. But for now, hundreds of dwellings approved during the heady days are rising, skeletons of wood and cement surrounded by rolling grasslands, with too few residents who can afford them.

“We are overbuilt,” said Dan Kalil, a commissioner in Williams County in the heart of the Bakken, a 360-million-year-old shale bed, during a break from cutting flax on his farm. “I am concerned about having hundreds of $200-a-month apartments in the future.”

The surge began in 2006, when rising oil prices made widespread hydraulic fracturing economically feasible. The process forces water, sand and chemicals down a well to crack rock and release the crude. Predictions were that fracking would sustain production and a robust tax base for decades.

more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-29/man-camp-exodus-spurs-real-estate-crisis-across-u-s-shale-towns

[fasttense]

1. Unsustainable, environmentally destructive, capitalism giveth and taketh away.n/t

[Purveyor]

2. Hannity used to have callers that fled to that region for $100k jobs, living the 'american dream'.

Wonder where those guys are now?

[newfie11]

3. Yep lots of people out of work.

I've got a friend whose husband worked in ND oil field making a ton of money but his and many others jobs are gone.
My Daughter that works in hospital & lives in Casper WY and lots of layoffs there from oil fields.

[Fumesucker]

4. Q: Do you know the difference between a pigeon and a Dakota oilman?

A: The pigeon can still make a deposit on a new F350.

[vinny9698]

5. The experienced oil hands know the ups and downs of the oil industry.

I lived through the 80s and 90s oil boom and bust in Odessa, Texas. I got their at the height of the boom, doing laundry in a laundromat, I would have people pull up 5 to 6 in a car looking for work. I would tell them that work was no problem but housing was the issue. The city police let people camp out in the town square, people were living in storage units, I rented hastily converted garage for $400 per month, the garage was just cleaned out and a bed, chest of drawers were put in. Bathroom, I had to use the main house. No insulation only a space heater. I was one of the lucky ones.
I then moved to a motel room behind an Adult Bookstore. My neighbors were all working girls. I would have to park in the front and walk through the bookstore because all the parking behind the bookstore was taken and no one wanted to park in the front.
McDonald's was hiring at $12 per hour during the oil boom,
The experience oil hands knew this was going to be temporary and saved their money. Rented the cheapest.

[modrepub]

6. Defaults

Wait until the oil companies can't repay their bonds or maintain their dividends. Everyone is waiting for oil to go back up but all that fighting in the ME takes money and the only revenue generator in that neck of the woods is pumping oil. Not to mention oil consumption is steady or only increasing slightly. We'll see how the economics works out if oil stays depressed for a decade.