Where Will They Go?

One of the biggest questions people ask related to Downtown Ogden's renovation and rejuvenation is where will all the low-rent/no-rent tenants go when Ogden is fixed up. This seems to be a logical question since everyone needs a place to live. Also, quality of a neighborhood is not directly correlated to quality of homes but rather quality of its inhabitants. If Ogden is to get better neighborhoods, some bad neighbors will need to move out.

DISCLAIMER: I am not talking about "poor people" here. I know many folks who live on meager income in my neighborhood who are the salt of the earth. I am talking about the idle, unwilling to work, won't contribute to society crowd when I speak of low-rent/no-rent.

Moving on...

So lets think on this for a moment. Why are they in Ogden? What factors contribute to attractive living for these folks? Where else would be the next best place to live if you fell into this group of people?

Ogden for the last 30 years has had some interesting economic things going for it that has made it a haven for the low-rent/no-rent individual. First, the economic decline associated with the withdrawal of the railroad took housing from large demand to little demand. Population actually decreased in Ogden over this 30 year period ending in 2000. This decline put pressure on landlords to fill their property and therefore rents stayed low. In addition, to compensate for the high demand railroad era, many landlords also subdivided their larger homes to make way for smaller 1 bedroom units. This also added to supply while demand was falling. The smaller units also highly limited the types of persons who would be interested in these types of housing. Secondly, Ogden has up until recently had an old-school brand of property owners. They did rental agreements with handshakes. They certainly didn't do background checks. If you didn't pay rent you probably could stay there a few months while the owner figured out how to get you out of the property.

Now in Downtown, we are seeing a lot of unit consolidation and restoration going on for these classy Historic homes. The supply of rental units is declining while at the same time the quality is increasing. Property managers like myself are screening people heavily in order to protect their investment from damage. This has put pressure on the low-rent/no-rent crowd who still needs housing but is having a hard time finding it in the traditional locations. So where else looks appealing if you are in this group?


Old Roy, Sunset, and Clearfield are the answer. They have tract housing that was build in the 50's and 60's that has seen serious decline over the last 10 years. The quality of construction in these neighborhoods was less that stellar and that tends (due to affordability) to attract itself to a lower income demographic with weak credit which then often leads to foreclosures and other problems that canker a neighborhood over time. These neighborhoods start to increase in the number of rentals as their original owners move or die off. These suburban neighborhoods are ripe for further decline and the lowest end of the Former-Ogden tenant base will likely help that happen.

I had dinner with somebody that works in Ogden City a couple months ago who confirmed this migration of the low-rent/no-rent crowd into Roy. His counterparts is Roy told him that they have seen a huge influx of low-income tenants from Ogden move into their neighborhoods. It happens to be that Roy is the place of least resistance for this crowd. Roy has an old-school brand of property managers who often make leases with handshakes. The condition of the housing is deteriorating which puts pressure on landlords to fill the space. Basically, all the ingredients needed for this move are present in old Roy. I suspect the Roy City folks will wake up one day here in the next few years and wonder what happened to their quiet city.

Here is a chart showing the life cycle of a neighborhood. Normally, new subdivisions reach the peak of this chart in about 7-10 years. Old Roy is in the Filtering Stage of this chart below while Ogden is on the uptake in the Land Use Succession phase.