The main thing going for the state, according to the paper, is its low unemployment rate, as joblessness hovers around 4 percent compared to a national average 9.1 percent. This may be due to the state's record amount of oil production over the past several years.
"The continuing oil boom in western North Dakota - about 110 million barrels in 2010 - not only results in many high-paying jobs in the West; [it] creates job for truckers and suppliers, etc., in our Fargo-Moorhead area," Morris Pyle, an associate broker for a real estate firm in Fargo, told the source.
Pyle also told the paper that the few changes seen in mortgage loan qualifying, combined with high home affordability, should make 2011 a better year than 2010 for the state.
According to Freddie Mac, 30-year-fixed-rate mortgages dropped to 4.76 percent this week from 4.88 percent.
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