Housing boom comes to rural prairie province

For decades, generations even, rural Saskatchewan has been emptying out. There have been a few notable exceptions, but up until the past couple of years, the populations of towns, villages and rural municipalities across the province have been steadily dwindling.

According to conventional wisdom, the trend was largely irreversible. Farms have been getting larger and that means fewer farmers and more consolidated support industries for agriculture. There weren't enough value-added agricultural activities to compensate.

Most towns had scads of homes for sale with very few buyers. Bargain basement prices prevailed. The past couple years what many thought impossible has happened.

In a lot of small and large towns, you can hardly find a house to buy and if you do, the price has increased dramatically. Older houses that no one wanted a few years ago are being gobbled up and renovated. Even houses in old farmyards are in demand. The resource industries, particularly oil and gas are booming. The grain industry isn't directly responsible for a lot of the population growth, but there is tremendous optimism and that has certainly helped the mood in rural areas.

People are moving back to Saskatchewan and it isn't only the cities that are benefiting. Rural Saskatchewan still has issues and problems, but there has been an amazing reversal of fortunes. Local governments are scrambling to switch from survival mode to a growth mode.

I'm most familiar with communities on the western side of the province, but colleague Lorne McClinton says the same thing is happening in his region in south eastern Saskatchewan. He says two years ago, his community of Yellow Grass was slowly dying.

One by one, small houses were abandoned by owners, eventually condemned and finally demolished by the town. One year ago, McClinton says you could buy a 50-foot lot for $50 and a 100-foot lot for $100. No one wanted them. Now the town has bumped the price to $5,000 for a 50-foot lot and $10,000 for a 100-foot lot. Most have sold and the town office gets several calls a day.

Two or three years ago, for a two-bedroom home with single-car garage built in the mid-70s, you would be lucky to get $40,000, says McClinton. Now, he estimates it's worth at least $125,000.

"It is quite different to feel a sense of real optimism and growth," says McClinton. "Friends and I were discussing how different the conversations are now than they were just a year or so ago. Last year we were wondering if the school would close. This year we are building new subdivisions. People are quite excited."

At the moment two house are being built and three ready-to-move homes will soon be moved into Yellow Grass. The town is thinking of developing a new subdivision. Perhaps even more promising, says McClinton, is that people from outside the community have come in to purchase the store and a bunch of commercial property along the highway. Their feeling is that with the incredible amount of drilling and development of the Bakken oil field east of Weyburn that the town is going to have a boom not seen since the region was initially settled 100 plus years ago.

For farmers, a growing rural economy means the retention of local services and a more vibrant community in which to raise a family. There will be a few challenges with the growth and development, but overall it's an amazing time for Saskatchewan.

(prepared by Kevin Hursh/Vancouver Sun)