Affordable Houses and Jobs A-plenty

(Excerpted from the MSN Real Estate Article by Melinda Fulmer)

Cities such as New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles might be great places to jump-start your career, but their high cost of living can break the bank for many grads and young families.

Some of the best places to live and work may be smaller so-called flyover cities such as Fayetteville, Ark., Blacksburg, Va., or Logan, Utah, according to Bert Sperling of Sperling’s Best Places.

He has put together a list of the top 10 affordable job powerhouses for MSN Real Estate: places where the cost of living and unemployment are low and the number of jobs is growing steadily.

Here, Sperling says, residents enjoy a good quality of life, including a high level of home ownership, without having to make a fat salary.

These aren’t boomtowns, Sperling cautions, but that’s a good thing, as boomtowns often lead to real estate hangovers and strained city resources and infrastructure. “These are places where people have an opportunity to grow with the town,” he says.

Number 10 on Sperling’s list is our very own Fargo, North Dakota!

More people are saying “you betcha” to Fargo, the largest city in North Dakota. The area is home to North Dakota State University and neighboring Moorhead State University and Concordia College across the Red River from Fargo in Moorhead, Minn. Thus, it’s endowed with many college amenities.

Downtown is classic mid-America with a mix of modern buildings and many well-preserved brick structures. A number of well-kept parks line the waterfront. Fargo is best known as a friendly area with a strong Scandinavian influence (although little ethnic diversity) and a strong, varied economy including farm-equipment manufacturers and food processors.

Unemployment here is the lowest in the country at 2.6%, and its central location is helping to turn it into a leading air-cargo hub. Cost of living is low, with a median January home price of $181,586. Anyone who has seen the Coen brothers’ 1996 movie, “Fargo,” might be put off by the prospect of its harsh winters, but heavy winter snowfall is actually the exception rather than the rule. Its flat terrain is, however, conducive to some legendary blizzards. In Sperling’s view, winter is the only significant negative for this town. And residents here seem to find ways to cope, such as swimming in high-school pools, which are open to the public.

Surprisingly enough, one 21-year-old Fargo resident commenting on Sperling’s Web site said she was looking forward to the action and hustle of Fargo after leaving much-larger Minneapolis.

Fargo, N.D.		U.S. avg.
Area population	181,586	647,500
Median home price	$162,800	$235,000
Cost-of-living index	90.3	100.0
Unemployment rate	2.6%	4.6%
Job growth — 5 years	9.30%	4.90%
Job growth — 1 year	0.80%	1.66%
Median household income	$44,486	$46,326