Natural gas workers boost real estate market

By Bill Toland, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Marcellus Shale field can be portrayed as a boon or a bane, depending on whom you talk to, but to the Realtors operating in Washington County, there's not much of a downside.

Natural gas drilling companies and firms related to the development of the shale are doing some hiring locally. But many of the field crews, engineering experts and front-office workers are imported from out of state because they have an expertise that the native work force doesn't yet possess.

They've been coming here since 2003, scouting drilling sites and establishing satellite offices. In 2008 and 2009, the pace of new arrivals has quickened.

Their presence, and their need for housing, has helped keep afloat Washington County's middling real estate market.

"The transfers coming in. That's helped keep our market very strong here," said Bonnie Loya, a Coldwell Banker Realtor.

In Washington County last year, both average home price and median home price slipped slightly, according to RealSTATs, a local real estate information service. Still those numbers are stable compared with the rest of the country, and they could have been worse.

As it was, 2009 marked the first time in two decades that the Pittsburgh region's average home price dropped.

There's been talk in Pittsburgh about proposed Marcellus Shale gas rigs hurting property values -- the prospect of towering rigs in urban settings such as Baldwin have concerned residents and homeowners.

In rural and suburban Washington County, where the homes often are farther apart, there are still occasional run-ins between neighbors -- one charging another with ruining his view, his farm or the stream running through his property, for example -- and those will likely increase as new rigs number in the thousands this year.

But it's not enough to worry the people charged with selling the homes. And the fact that many properties are sold along with their mineral rights has helped to buttress land prices.

"The land prices have increased, if anything," said Karen Marshall, of the Karen Marshall Group, a Bethel Park-based realty group affiliated with Keller Williams.

"We're getting 93, 97 percent of asking price."

The big players in Marcellus Shale also need office space, and that's helped to goose the county's commercial leasing market.

"We've had great luck with companies coming in," Ms. Marshall said.

"Capital Oil & Gas, Texas companies ... all of my guys want to be in Washington County."

It's more than anecdotal; other home agents report the same. Southwestern Pennsylvania's natural low home churn, coupled with the newcomers, sometimes makes it seem like the gas workers are the only ones buying these days.

"The last house I just sold was for someone who was in that industry," said Kris Marra of Prudential Realty.

"Their next-door neighbors are in the business, too."

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