Family of five considering a move to Williston, North Dakota

[Kamsack]

Originally Posted by SheenaR1316

Hows the education,medical,rent expenses in Grand forks? Is Jamestown a city near grand forks or?

I live and work in Grand Forks area... and yes UND is the liberal arts university in the state. The ND Museum of Art is on campus as well. I do know though that many fields offer opportunities to get masters via online courses....with visits to the actual campus only a few times. We had a friend in Minot who got her MS in Social Work from UND that way.....did online courses then meet with others taking online courses once a month for a few days. So that option may be there if you still want to live in Bismarck area.

I do think regardless of what city in ND you choose, rental prices will be a bit higher than what you have in Florida as the market remains tight. Fargo overall always has the most selection and cheapest prices of any town. Grand Forks would be comparable in prices in bismarck, probably a bit less, but rental prices have increased in the last 2-3 years as UND has had record enrollment. But new apartments are being built fast. Rental single family homes are hard to come by as in most ND cities. An older 3 BR house in GF for rent would run 1200-1600/mo....not including utilities.

Apartments newer ones run about 1500 for 3BR....some include utilities. With the lower interest rates, until recently it was cheaper to buy than rent....but homes prices have gone up and with higher interest rates, not sure that is true anymore. Hard to fine a decent home blo 130k....most homes here are split level or ranch with basement. New split level homes being built generally in the 250k-300k range. Property taxes in GF run about 2.2 pct of the assessed value of the house.

There is an Amazon.com center in town, that continues to grow and does offer decent pay/benefits and they are always hiring. It is a customer call center, but they do other things there too. There is always interest in hiring folks with CDL for general trucking (Trans-Systems I hear on the radio a lot).

GF is in the red river valley....a rich farming area and is very flat...flattest part of the state. We are not in the oil region....but some oil families I am sure have moved here over the years and then commute out west. Our economy is quite varied with UND and Altru being the most employed. Despite safety ratings, I would consider Altru a fine clinic-hospital. There is a Sanford clinic in East Grand Forks MN (across the river) where I live. EGF MN prices are generally a bit lower than GF. Ag land is quite costly to buy and build on....thus lot prices for SFH in GF run 50k on up.

I like the area, but I also like the cold weather and flat land. MN lakes country is about a 1 1/2 to 2 hour drive east. Grand Forks is the coldest of the ND major cities on average and has the most persistent snow cover year to year....Bismarck can usually warm up a few times each winter to near 40F at times...whereas in the Red River valley we are trapped in the cold arctic air. A normal Jan day would be highs 5-15 above and lows10 to 20 below.

If any more questions let me know..... I dont know anything specific about the art program at UND or UND specifically as I didnt go to college there. My wife got here MSW there though.
I have lived in GF-EGF since 1998.

--Dan

[SheenaR1316]

Thank you all, this has been very informative. My main questions are answered. I appreciate all the time everyone had put into answering my questions.

[keller14]

Character and lisan23, if y'all are still in the area please post again. My husband and I are moving there with our 2 kids and a third on the way. Nervous and really hoping to find other local families. Thanks

Originally Posted by Character

We are considering some job offers and one is in Williston, ND. On this forum I read about a number of single people moving to Williston but what is life like for a family with elementary age children? What are the neighborhoods like? Are their hike and bike trails, playgrounds, places to feed the ducks, community events for families? Is the local fitness center a fun place for families to hang out, swim, play sports? We live in a warm climate right now...what type of things do families do when they need to stay indoors in the winter time? Thanks much!

[JanND]

Keller14....This forum is great....seems to be a lots slower now as compared to couple years ago.

There are several nice Facebook pages too. I will put a couple links here for you. https://www.facebook.com/willistonnd?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/groups/new....onconnections/

I would suggest even reading older threads in this Williston forum to gather information.

The History Chanel is currently running a series on their channel called Boomtowners. I've found a few opportunities to watch it on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...ry=boomtowners

Good luck to you

[Willistonite]

Originally Posted by DNYGRL

personally I think this would be the very last place to bring a family.

Why would you say that? Maybe last place for someone single but lots of stuff to do for a family. Plus if you can make living your family is much happier. Take your family fishing, go to Theodore Roosevelt park and hike. Lots of trails and it is beautiful. We have the largest Recreation center in the nation. Lot more stuff coming.

[lisan23]

Originally Posted by keller14

Character and lisan23, if y'all are still in the area please post again. My husband and I are moving there with our 2 kids and a third on the way. Nervous and really hoping to find other local families. Thanks

Sorry, I don't log in much anymore. I've now been in Williston over 6 years and still love it. My daughter is entering 5th grade and I still love her school. The ARC is amazing and an absolute blast. There are a lot of great people here and I've made a lot of great friends (local and non-local alike). We have more shopping, food, and general options and I'm hoping that rent prices will continue to fall. It's been slow going but I have seen price drops. Nothing extensive, but it is still cheaper and easier to find a place now than it was 5 years ago. I haven't seen much in the way of home prices dropping though.

The Oilfield Wives of Williston group is on Facebook, they have get togethers every week that are kid friendly and they also do a Girls Night Out every other week as well as other events they post about. There is also the Boomtown Babes group which is more like a "hey, anyone want to meet at xxx" kind of group. The ARC runs some fun fitness classes and has child sitting as well (though it only goes up to 8 years old).

Let me know if you have any other questions. I'll try and check back again soon.

[65Leopard65]

I think homeschooling is heavily restricted in North Dakota.