Iowa Farmland Auction Prices for September 2017

September 2017 brought about a higher volume of farmland sales across the state of Iowa compared to what we have been seeing through the Summer.  As we get into harvest the volume of land sales tend to pick up every year because of Iowa’s farm tenancy laws and its a very natural time for most to sell a farm once the crop has been removed.

Iowa’s farmland prices remain very strong in September with a continued slight weakening for farms with  lower quality soils or higher ratio of non productive acres but quality tillable farmland has held its strength statewide and especially in areas where there have been few land sales in the last 18-24 months.  Sioux County topped the charts this month at $15,600 per acre on a 91 CSR2 farm in extreme northwest Iowa but in extreme Southeast Iowa all the way across the state Henry County came in 2nd place with a $15,000 sale on a 40 acre parcel with development potential and a CSR2 of 69.8 at $15,000.  Guthrie this month was a strong indication of investor demand with disclosed prices and buyers on 3 of the sales achieving up to $14,000 per acre which came down to a competition with an investor winning.  In the other 2 auctions investors were successful in another of the auctions.  Guthrie County had not seen anything for sale in almost 18 months which led to good demand in the county.

Iowa Farmland Price Outlook

Moving forward we expect farmland prices to remain steady or at least on the same course they are.  We do see waning demand among farmers where land has been more available and increasing demand from investor types.  October looks to again have a decent supply of land coming on the market at auction and some November December sales are starting to hit auction calendars across the state as well.  We have held that land prices will be at least partially attributable to the supply available and so far supply has not outpaced demand.  A weaker farm economy is leading to a situation that could potentially add supply to the market from farmers with cash flow problems and we can see that farmers debt to income ratios are starting to move to a more negative position.

The September farmland auction results are below.  You can always find Iowa Farmland Prices on our Dollars And Dirt website as they happen each month or look here for summaries each month.