Posted on 03/23/2011 7:32:39 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
DES MOINES --- Iowa farmland values shot up 19.7 percent in the past six months and a total of 25.4 percent in the past year, according to the latest survey from the state’s ag land realtors.
The Iowa Farm and Land Chapter #2 REALTORS Land Institute released the results of its survey March 22 and it showed just about what everyone expected n land values jumped dramatically in the past few months.
That’s no surprise to farmers or realtors, according to Troy Louwagie, a realtor in Mount Vernon who runs the survey. Everyone knew ag land values have gone up, Louwagie says. The only question was how much.
The answer: A lot.
The six month and one year percentage increases were the largest since the institute began its survey in 1978, although Iowa State University Economist Mike Duffy, who also surveys land values, says the percentage increases were higher in the 1973 to 1975 time period.
The biggest increases came in high quality cropland and the areas showing the biggest increases were generally in Western and Northern Iowa.
Louwagie and other realtors say that may be in part because of good crops in Northwest Iowa last year, but more of it may be due to the fact the basis has narrowed in that part of the state as ethanol plants have been built and livestock production has grown. As a result, there was more room for improvement than in parts of the state that had previously benefitted from proximity to the shipping terminals on the Mississippi River.
The statewide average price for high quality land jumped from $6,128 in September to $7,389 in March. The increases were smaller for lower quality land and were much smaller for pasture or timber. For example, the state average price for timber rose from $1,823 six months ago to $1,995 now.
The survey does not provide a county-by-county number, but it does break down the results by crop reporting districts. The biggest jump came in West Central Iowa, where overall prices leaped by 26 percent in the past six months. The smallest increase came in Central Iowa, where prices still jumped 15.9 percent.
The figures for high quality cropland for each district are as follows:
Central, increase from $6,556 to $7,747;
East Central, increase from $6,348 to $7,705;
North Central, increase from $6,137 to $7,308;
Northeast, increase from $6,240 to $7,408;
Northwest, increase from $6,768 to $8,193;
South Central, increase from $4,908 to $5,904;
Southeast, increase from $6,033 to $7,229;
Southwest, increase from $5,741 to $6,670;
West Central, increase from $6,407 to $8,165.
Sounds like people are preparing for the storm.
From what I hear from my friends in Iowa—the Chinese are buying the crap out of the farm land.
Per acre prices? Whoa!
A:From looking in mailboxes all day for government checks.
Because pf Ethanol distortion, or because of food?
Because they ain't makin' no more of it.
Beware! This is not the greatest of news. Far from it!
Yep, because they were paying 20% interest for their money too.
Bingo!
The leftist useful idiots want the land in that area to be too expensive to purchase for homesteading types, and the ones who do get it will be “nudged” into allowing it to lay fallow. You know, to save the planet from CO2. You may find this Sierra Club(gag).pdf interesting.
Cliffs Notes breakdown;
Ethanol: Need more.(?)
Farming: Bad.
Livestock: Bad.
Loss of Conservation Reserve Land: Bad.
Agribusiness in general: Bad.
Food with any Corn-based ingredients: Bad.
Reduced use of Corn by Livestock producers: Friggin Awesome.
Poor people affected by surging food costs: Eff em!
Solution to everything: Sustainable Development
www.sierraclub.org/energy/downloads/IowaBiofuelsReport.pdf
commodities for anti-inflationary hedge.
chinese- much cash-on-hand, not stupid.
Getting value for dollars while they still can.
I remember hearing that line a lot. In the 1980’s right before the crash.
It will happen again unfortunately. I hate to see Iowa getting set up to go through this again.
The 80’s caused a lot of pain here.
Yeah, I know. I lived it.
I remember specifically hearing all the reasons back then why land prices would stay high. Some were: “they are not making any more of it”, “farmland is disappearing because of urbanization”, “have to feed the world”, a subset of that “China”, “investors taking their money out of equities markets and into “real assets””.
There were more but can't recall them.
Last year, and my cousin leveraged a few 100K in farm land, I reminded him of that. He just said that things were different now and that he had to grow to survive.
Honestly I hope he guessed right, but my uncle told me that they are one bad harvest from losing most of it.
I’m in Iowa and have not heard that.
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