Tag Archives: Oil Boom greed in North Dakota

A Type Of Greed That Hurt An Individual’s Own Family In Dickinson, North Dakota

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A week ago I wrote two blog posts about “Causes And Effects Of Excessive Land Greed In Dickinson, North Dakota”.  I wrote that during this most recent Oil Boom in Dickinson from 2007 through 2014, land owners were unwilling to sell vacant, unoccupied, barren grassland outside of Dickinson for less than $100,000 per acre.  In addition to that, the land owners would not sell off just one, two, three, four, or five acres, the buyer had to purchase the entire 30 acre to 120 acre parcel.

One of the reasons why the land owners would not sell off just one to five acres, was because they feared that someone putting a house on one lot, would make a developer no longer want the remaining lots for industrial or commercial use.  Or, an industrial building on one lot, would make a developer no longer want the remaining lots for residential use.  An additional reason why the land owners would not sell off just one to five acres was, greed.

Outside of Dickinson, there is still a tremendous amount of vacant, unoccupied, barren grassland stretching for hundreds of miles in every direction.  And, there are not very many single family homes on one to five acres outside of Dickinson, you can drive around outside of Dickinson and you will notice this immediately.  The houses just stop, crowded small houses all together next to each other, and then they just stop.  This is because the land owners would not sell off just one to five acres.

I met some of the land owners in Dickinson during the Oil Boom.  Some of the land owners I knew very well.  I will explain what happened to one of them, though what happened to the other land owners that I knew, is very similar.

This particular land owner was born in Dickinson on his parents’ farm.  He inherited some land from his parents, but purchased an additional parcel of land in the 1990s for about $800 per acre.  He was very poor throughout his life.  He had two marriages that did not last very long.  Most of his life he was single.  What he described to me about both of his marriages, was two wives with young children that just could not stand the many periods of being broke, and having to go to charities for food and diapers.  In Dickinson, when there was not an oil boom going on, employers paid very low wages and it was very difficult to get any job at all.  His two wives left North Dakota, taking their young children with them.

His ex-wives and children did not want to have very much contact with him for twenty to thirty years because of the bad memories.  He would have liked to have traveled out of state to visit them, but he never had the money.  When the Oil Boom came back to Dickinson in 2007, within several years most of the people in the United States began to hear about it, including his ex-wives and children, who were now adults.

The land that he had purchased for about $800 per acre in the 1990s, he now wanted to sell for $100,000 per acre.  He turned down many offers from people and businesses to purchase one to five acres at $100,000 per acre.  He turned down offers to buy the whole parcel for $2.5 million, which was just over $80,000 per acre.

Meanwhile, from 2007 through 2014, he informed his family members that soon he would be very wealthy from the sale of his land.  He wanted his adult children to talk to him, and have a better opinion of him, so he talked about what he planned to do with his millions, and what he could do for them.  He informed his adult children, some of them who were now married with young children, that when his land sold he would be willing to buy each of them a home of up to $160,000, with some conditions.

His adult children had grown up poor without a father, and with bitter mothers who hated their father.  They had all moved on with their life, had adjusted, and had an equilibrium in their life with their jobs, spouses, children, and households.  The adult children had mixed feelings about their father in North Dakota now wanting to have involvement in their lives, now that he was expecting to be very wealthy, and trying to make up for the past.  The adult children replied “No”, with his offer to buy them homes, probably seeing that this was an attempt by him to have the right to visit them and his grandchildren whenever he wanted, without them being able to refuse.

The Oil Boom came and went, with all offers from buyers being refused, because the land owner felt that his land was just too valuable to sell.  Though the highest offer was $2.5 million, no one would buy this land now for even $400,000, because no one needs it now or wants it now.

The land owner’s adult children had not thought about their father very much once they had families of their own, until he began informing them weekly and monthly for seven years, that soon he would be very wealthy.  Whatever their feelings for their father, at least they could expect to have a large inheritance one day.  What is $3 million divided five ways, $600,000?  I believe that each of the adult children had some hope of receiving something, because that is what they were led to believe.

I believe that many many North Dakota families went through this.  Growing up poor with a lot of bad memories and disappointment, but finding an equilibrium and way to get by in life as an adult.  When the Oil Boom came back, land owners believed that they had a chance to become very wealthy.  Adult children and their spouses waited to see how much money their parents would receive from oil leases, oil revenue, and the sale of land.  How much money would this be, and how would they share it?

Because of the Oil Boom, many North Dakotans that were getting by in life, began to wonder how their life would change.  Would they be able to move from an apartment into a house?  Would they be able to buy a new reliable vehicle?  Would they be able to go to college?  Would they be able to get their teeth fixed?  Would they be able to have a different kind of life?  If often depended on what amount of money a family member would receive, and if they would be willing to share this money.  The Oil Boom caused a lot of disagreement, animosity, and hard feelings in families that otherwise would not have happened.

Causes And Effects Of Excessive Land Greed In Dickinson, North Dakota

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The entire population in the state of North Dakota is currently less than 800,000 people.  There is more vacant and unoccupied land in North Dakota than just about any other state.  The land in North Dakota is mostly barren and desolate.  There are very few trees, rivers, or mountains, it is mostly grassland.  But I have never before seen people so excessively greedy about land as around here in Dickinson, North Dakota.

One of the few explanations that I can determine why the people around Dickinson have been so greedy about land is that nothing else really exists here in North Dakota.  They could have been greedy about coal, oil, horses, or cattle, but that pretty much involves land too.  Another explanation that I have written about before, was that the people around Dickinson never envisioned becoming successful through ingenuity, innovation, or creativity, but just by getting more land.

If you ever watched the old West television shows like Gunsmoke, Rawhide, High Chaparral, The Virginian, and The Rifleman, there were always episodes where some insane old fucker was trying to shoot at people who came near his land, bought the adjacent land, were thinking about buying the adjacent land, or he was trying to kill his neighbor in order to take his land.  These insane old fuckers that were trying to shoot people are actually more rational and less mentally ill than the land owners in and around Dickinson.

The land outside of Dickinson is worth about $1,000 per acre without the mineral rights, because there is just so much vacant land in North Dakota.  Outside the Oil Boom areas in North Dakota, you can still buy land for $1,000 per acre.  If the Oil Boom does not come back to western North Dakota within the next five years, land owners outside of Dickinson will only be able to sell their land for about $1,000 per acre.

However, during the Oil Boom, there were many land owners in and around Dickinson that would not sell vacant barren grassland for even $10,000 to $70,000 per acre, without the mineral rights.  In the other states where I lived, Florida, Virginia, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, and Idaho, these states grew, development extended out from the towns into the wetlands, orange groves, farms, prairies, and deserts.

In every other state where I have lived, when a town or city needed to grow, it would grow outward.  The least expensive new housing would be the apartments, next least expensive the town homes, third least expensive would be manufactured homes on small private owned 1/4 acre lots, then conventional framed houses on 1/4 acre lots, then manufactured homes and conventional homes on five acre lots, and so on.  This outward growth did not happen in the Dickinson area because of the excessive greed of the land owners.

Yes, apartments did get built just on the outskirts of Dickinson.  This is because the developers went ahead and paid more than $100,000 per acre in order to construct three-story apartment buildings, side to side, and back to back, with the intention of renting each unit for $2,000 to $3,000 per month.

Just about every working adult realizes that for $2,000 per month, for that kind of money, that would be like paying the mortgage on a $250,000 house.  Why would you want to pay $2,000 per month to live in an apartment, $24,000 per year, and not own anything?

Beyond the new apartments, why weren’t there new manufactured homes on 1/4 acre lots, and new conventional homes on 1/4 acre lots.  There were some, but not that many.  A manufactured home costs about $80,000, a 1/4 acre lot in a development should cost about $30,000 with the utilities completed, that’s a cost of $110,000, couldn’t a developer sell that for $150,000?  There would have been about one thousand individuals and companies trying to get one of those, because the mortgages would have been about $1,100 to $1,200 per month, much less than rent, and you would own the home and the land.

The reason that affordable home ownership did not occur in and around Dickinson during the Oil Boom, was because the land owners would not sell land at all, thinking that the land was much too valuable to sell for any reason, or because they would not sell land for less than $100,000 per acre.  We are talking about vacant, unoccupied, desolate, grassland that stretches hundreds of miles in every direction.

It has not been talked about or written about explicitly, that all of the workers who came to western North Dakota to work during the Oil Boom made up their minds right away that they would never be able to live here permanently due to the extremely high cost of housing.  But this high cost of housing was completely, completely created by the excessive greed of the land owners in and around Dickinson.  No where else in the United States is there such an abundance of vacant, unoccupied, barren, desolate grassland stretching for hundreds of miles.

Because of the excessive greed of the land owners in and around Dickinson, not only have most of the out of state workers left, more will continue to leave, and they will never want to come back.  Some merchants, property owners, and business owners made a lot of money for about seven years.  But what good will that do these merchants, property owners, and business owners when they can’t make any money for the next five, ten, twenty years because they drove all the new residents away?

That property that all the land owners would not sell for less than $100,000 per acre, the tax appraiser will asses high taxes for the next five years at least.  By the time the land owners in and around Dickinson have to go to the nursing home, their land will be appraised at about $1,000 per acre.  It will cost them about 100 of those acres per year in the nursing home.  That will be reaping what they have sown.