Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Farm land prices?

I bought some land in Goodhue county MN last month for 4k/acre, wooded recreation land. Neighbors thought I was crazy, but in the same township last week there were two, 2 acre building sites that sold for 60k each.

Land prices like everything else cycle up and down depending upon commodity prices, input costs, interest rates, and external pressures like housing sites.

Long ago, my parents bought a lot of prime farmland for $5 per acre. Lightning killed a bunch of their livestock they were planning to sell so they had to sell the land as they couldn't make the payments. A few years later, they bought it back for $10 per acre. Would likely now sell for somewhere in the $15,000 per acre range. But... I know a bunch of farmers who went broke buying expensive land during the Carter years when interest rates went crazy and he imposed grain embargoes.

$5/acre?

Where?

Land lust at an all time high in NW Iowa, 96 acres farmland in Plymouth county went for $25,000/acre.
Where will it end?

I think I'm kind of prices a real farm is just going to pay interest rate instead of rent and still be in debt to the land when they purchaser is dead

Hmmm, might be time to sell 100acs I have in Maine....

I've heard some people speculating that the lending institutions in my area are going to start to tighten up on loaning money on this high dollar land............but, I've not seen any evidence of that, yet. As I've written about before, the Mennonites and Amish are responsible for the high prices here, especially the Mennonites. They buy anything and everything that comes up for sale, and don't seem to mind paying whatever it takes to buy it. With their population growing, they must have a place to live or else move elsewhere, so price is whatever they are willing to pay.

Sounds like they are setting the market there.

Two things...

1) Are they paying cash, or financing?

2) With inflated land sales like that, higher tax values will follow the comps. They aren't doing their neighbors any favors at the tax office.

Barry, some of them sold land back in Pennsylvania for some very good prices, and that has allowed them to come here and buy more land than they had back where they came from. They were the lucky ones, as they didn't have to go in debt to buy land. But, not all of them fit into that category. A lot of them have to finance what they've bought, and from what I've been told, quite a few are just paying the interest and nothing on the principal. But, they are usually considered good risks by the people who loan them money, as it's rare to see any of them being repossessed.

As far as tax values go, we are very lucky here in Kentucky because farmland is both evaluated and taxed at a much lower rate than is other property. But, they have driven property values up dramatically, and it's probably just a matter of time before our taxes will be adjusted for that. The one thing that's in our favor is that a lot of the elected officials that make the laws here come from rural areas and they don't like paying taxes anymore than I do.

There is no way to pay cash for land or finance it that it will pay back the money invested in it or make the principal and interest payments if it was financed, let alone make living from it.

If one has money to pay cash for the land, he/she can make lot more money investing in other things.

Good farmland is a solid investment.

I disagree.

Land values have increased beyond all expectations. Certainly better than lots of other investments.

They ain't making anymore dirt. Rio7

I have not found this to be the case in my buy and sell land transactions.

I agree, but real estate with both cropland and timber is an even better investment.

Iowa ground went up 23% last year. Good luck on paying it off in the future

Just had a 117 acre parcel a few miles from my place sell for $2.6 mil.

Sure is a far cry from $1-2k an acre locally 15-20 years ago.

I buy and sell a fair amount of land here in SC. The prices have doubled to quadrupled in the last 18 months. We have seen this show before...

You better have your hand on a chair when the music stops...

And some cash to buy at the fire sale.

How many dollars will an acre of soybeans or corn on land like that net after input costs, assuming current crop prices?

I agree with this, in most cases. I bought 640 acres in 2010. It’s appreciated quite a bit but I’d have been better off in other investments. I have been fortunate in that two oil pipelines were run across my land and they paid good money. And I’ve made CRP income. I do not regret the purchase and am trying to buy an adjoining 320 acres.
I view this land as a long term “hard asset” investment as opposed to “paper” investments.