I know this aspect isn't what was envisioned by the thread, but I hear it a lot from friends back home. It's about the housing shortage in some places where the boom is taking place. In my home state, there is a huge housing shortage that's effecting both new oil company employees arriving and long-time residents. For various reasons, oil company employees are still often uneasy about buying real estate in North Dakota, and because of previous oil busts that left lots of towns in debt in previous decades, developers and lenders are reluctant to put up new housing. As a result, rental costs in North Dakota have reached levels I'd never dreamed of when I was a kid. The idea of a one-bedroom apartment in Williston, population 30,000, going for more then $2,000 a month is just insane to me--the same apartments would probably have gone for $300-$400 a month before that. The elevated prices are keeping potential renters out, with oil company employees living in rather sordid "man-camps" in the countryside close to their rigs, and pushing some present renters out who can't afford the rising rates. The fact that a lot of small North Dakota towns have apartment buildings that are owned and operated by only one or two real estate companies doesn't help. And even retail services are quite scarce in such small towns where there is now far greater demand. The shortage and price problems have been around, I think, for a few years already and nobody knows yet when it will change. On the upside, if you have a bunch of money and don't need loans to put up housing, North Dakota is definitely waiting for you...
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0630/Oil-may-be-booming-in-North-Dakota-but-real-estate-is-slow-to-follow
