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Iowa land values down nine percent
Iowa farmland values fell about three-and-a-half percent over the past six months and are down nearly nine percent in the past year.
That’s according to the latest survey of land values conducted by the Iowa Chapter of Realtors Land Institute. The group’s chairman, Kyle Hansen with Hertz Farm Management, says the drop is not surprising given the dramatic decrease in commodity prices.
“I think it’s encouraging because we did see the drop in commodity prices—we also expected a drop in land values—and it shows the buyers are taking into consideration potential future earnings and are not becoming over-leveraged as a whole group,” Hansen says.
Hansen says the outlook for the next six months appears to show more softening of farmland values.
“If commodity prices continue to decrease, we will continue to see land move,” he says. “I think the biggest indicator is actually going to be in our March survey release because we will then know what type of crop we have harvested, what type of carryover we have in our commodities, and how that will affect our land prices moving into the 2015 planting season.”
Northeast Iowa had the largest annual decrease at 13.6 percent.
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