Want an apartment in the Fargo-Moorhead area? No problem. The area boasts no fewer than 29,000 apartment units (23,000 multifamily living units in Fargo alone—housing nearly 52 percent of the population). While officials say this number is not unusual for a college community—Fargo is home to North Dakota State University—competition to fill those apartments is great, with rental ads touting free cable TV, laundry, garages and even rent.
The 2003 Fargo apartment vacancy rate was 6.7 percent. That is the highest annual rate in years, up from 5.7 percent in 2002 and 4.6 percent in 2001.
But those figures haven't deterred builders yet. About 500 new apartments have been built annually over the past three years in Fargo, and in 2004 the city already issued permits for 372 multifamily units, with permits for another 120 units pending. However, an April 2004 housing plan prepared for the Fargo Housing Authority and city of Fargo estimated that an average of 200 to 300 multifamily units per year would be enough to meet overall household growth through 2010.
—Kathy Cobb
