Three days at the Boardroom Real Estate Mastermind in Dallas confirmed something I have been circling for two years: in Western North Dakota, earning well and owning well are different things, and only one of them keeps paying you when the work stops.
A paycheck is a transaction. A property is a position. The people quietly winning in this market are the ones who converted income into assets while everybody else was waiting for a better time.
The room
Why would a Williston broker fly to Dallas for three days?
The Boardroom Real Estate Mastermind is not a conference you buy a ticket to. It runs roughly a 4% acceptance rate, and the point of the room is not motivation. It is people who own real estate telling each other the truth about it.
I came home with two awards I did not see coming, but the awards are not the story. The story is the question that got me into that room, and it matters more to somebody working in the patch than it does to me.
My read
The most expensive habit in a high-income market is assuming the income is the achievement. Williston has minted a lot of great earners and far fewer owners. That gap is the whole ballgame.
The line
What was the one sentence that changed how I look at real estate?
Almost two years ago at eXp Con, Brandon Brittingham had the very last session on day four. I figured nobody would show up. Six hundred of us did, and he said something I have not been able to unhear since.
You might be the most successful agent in your own market, but that does not mean anything if you have no passive monthly income. If you are not buying real estate yourself, you are running on a hamster wheel and you will never get off.
Brandon Brittingham, eXp Con
I had spent years being very good at selling other people's real estate. I owned very little of it. I signed up for his coaching that same day, and Dallas was the checkpoint on what that decision produced.
What this means for you
Swap "agent" for whatever you do. Rig hand, crew lead, welder, business owner, nurse. The sentence still works. Being excellent at earning here does not make you an owner here, and nobody else will make that conversion happen for you.
Transacting vs owning
What is the actual difference between making money here and owning here?
I have been part of more than 1,400 closings in this market, and the pattern I trust most is the one nobody posts about. Two people can earn nearly identical money in the Bakken for a decade. One ends that decade with a paid-down asset and a deposit that shows up whether or not they went to work. The other ends it with better trucks. Neither did anything wrong. One converted and the other did not.
The conversion is also broader than people assume. In Williston, Watford City and across Williams and McKenzie County, ownership shows up in four categories, and I negotiate in all of them:
Where ownership actually lives in this market
Residential. A rental house or townhome that carries itself and gets paid down by somebody else.
Industrial. Shop space and shop condos, one of the most consistent asset types we deal with because operators here genuinely need them.
Commercial. A small building where the tenant covers the note and you own the dirt under a working business.
Land and acreage. The most patient play, and the one plenty of owners here already have without treating it as an asset.
My read
Most people here are one honest conversation away from owning something, not one lucky break away. The barrier is rarely the down payment. It is that nobody has run the numbers with them without trying to sell them something.
Open books
Why did nobody in that room protect their playbook?
Here is what made Dallas different from most rooms I have been in. Not one person guarded what was working. People opened their books and told the truth about the deals that went sideways, not just the ones that printed.
That is rarer than it should be in real estate, and it is the standard I want on your side of the table too. If a property does not pencil, you will hear it from me long before you hear it from an inspector. Talking somebody into a bad deal costs me a client for a decade to save a commission for a month, and that math has never worked out.
Pencil is not a feeling, either. I hold the Crexi Platinum Broker designation and I am Institutional Investment Services Certified, and the practical value of that is boring: I underwrite a shop condo or a small commercial building on real numbers before anybody gets attached to it. What it rents for today, not what it could rent for. Real taxes and insurance. Honest vacancy for that asset class in that part of town.
What this means for you
When you are evaluating anybody to help you buy an investment property, ask them to walk you through a deal they told a client to walk away from. If they cannot produce one, keep interviewing.
Conviction
What did 2020 teach me about buying in the Bakken?
The first award was the Playmaker, for the biggest strides over the last quarter. When they called it, what I thought about was 2020, when West Texas Intermediate crude settled at negative 38 dollars a barrel and every move we made here felt insane to the people watching.
The Bakken rewarded the people who stayed, and it has done that more than once. This region's production and rig activity gets watched nationally and misread locally, and the misread is always the same: treating a price swing as a verdict on the place. Williston kept adding infrastructure, employers and rooftops through cycles headlines said should have emptied it out. I have been licensed here since 2015 through the boom and the slowdown, and the buyers who did well underwrote individual properties instead of forecasting a barrel.
The second award was MVP, for helping the rest of the room win. Being recognized for what you gave rather than what you took is a fair standard to hold me to. None of it happens without Courtney, who was in the trenches in Dallas learning the investment side right next to me.
My read
Conviction does not get tested when the market is loud. It gets tested at the bottom, on a Tuesday, when the right move looks like the reckless one. Everything I own that matters was bought in a moment that felt slightly uncomfortable.
The honest part
When is waiting or renting actually the right call?
I am not going to pretend everybody should buy something this quarter. Three situations where waiting is the smart move, and I will say so out loud:
You have no reserves. A property with no cushion behind it is not passive income, it is a second job with worse hours. A furnace in February does not care about your spreadsheet.
Your income is unsettled. Six weeks into a new role or a shaky contract, rent, stay liquid, buy from strength in a year.
The deal does not pencil. Not "it is close." Not "rents will probably come up." If it does not work on today's numbers, it is a hope with a mortgage attached.
What I do not accept is waiting as a permanent strategy. "Later" quietly became a ten-year plan for a lot of people who earned very well here. If any of the three apply, the honest answer is a timeline, not an indefinite pause. Programs through the North Dakota Housing Finance Agency and a real pre-approval conversation are the usual first steps, and neither costs you anything.
What this means for you
Put a date on it, not a feeling. If the answer is not this quarter, decide what has to be true for it to be next spring and work backward. Almost nobody does this, which is exactly why it works.
Questions I get asked
Common questions about buying investment property in Western North Dakota
What is the Boardroom Real Estate Mastermind?
It is an invitation-based mastermind group for real estate professionals and investors, with roughly a 4% acceptance rate, focused on ownership and investing rather than on sales production. The 2026 gathering I attended was three days in Dallas.
Do I need a lot of money to buy my first investment property in Williston?
Less than most people assume. What matters more than the down payment is having reserves behind it and a deal that works on today's rent rather than tomorrow's. I would rather help you buy a modest property that carries itself than a stretch that keeps you up at night.
What kinds of investment property exist in the Bakken besides rental houses?
Four main categories: residential rentals and townhomes, industrial space including shop condos, small commercial buildings, and land or acreage. Shop space is often overlooked by out of area buyers and is one of the more consistent asset types here because local operators genuinely need it.
Is now a good time to buy a rental in Williston, or should I wait?
It depends on your reserves, your income stability and the specific deal, not on the calendar. Waiting is the right answer if you have no cushion or your income is unsettled. Waiting is the wrong answer if it is just a feeling, because "later" has quietly cost a lot of people in this market a decade of ownership.
Does owning my own house count as passive income?
No. Your primary residence is a place to live that also builds equity, which is genuinely valuable, but it does not pay you monthly. If your income stopped this month, your house would still cost you money rather than send you any. That is the distinction the whole Dallas trip came down to for me.
I have built Proven Realty brokered by eXp in a market most of the country only notices when oil is up. 256 transactions and just over 84 million dollars in volume last year did not come from a secret. It came from staying in the room, keeping the books open and giving before asking.
But the question I carried home from Dallas is the one I would rather ask you. If your income stopped this month, what would still pay you? If the answer is nothing, that is not a failure. It is just the next thing to fix, and in this market it is fixable faster than you think.
EP
Proven Realty brokered by eXp
Want to know what your first deal would actually look like?
Bring me a property or nothing at all, and we will run real numbers on what ownership in Williston or Watford City would take for you. No pressure, no pitch.
Crude pricing from the U.S. Energy Information Administration; production data from the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources. Transaction and volume figures are Proven Realty's own. Nothing here is investment, tax or legal advice. Verify specifics before acting. Equal Housing Opportunity.
