By Shaila Dewan | The New York Times
MINNEAPOLIS — A few months ago, Michael N. Felix’s phone started ringing again after four years of silence. Mr. Felix is a land broker whose business dried up when the housing market crashed. But with home prices now rising faster than anyone expected, builders are again looking for what, in the land trade, is referred to as dirt.
Already, developers report that the cost of land in the most desirable areas is double what it was two years ago. At least three golf courses in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area are being carved into millions of dollars’ worth of residential lots. The race has even sent builders back to outer suburbs like Otsego, 30 miles from downtown Minneapolis, where bulldozers are laying the groundwork for four-bedroom houses with three-car garages, in subdivisions bordered by cornfields.
“Lot buyers and sellers!!!!!!!!” Mr. Felix’s Web site reads. “It is time to get moving again….!”
