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Land prices / insane!!!

The key to bringing prices on rec/hunting ground down is landowners being realistic. Most of the time landowners think their land is worth more than the market says it is, and that has been exacerbated by the raging bull market in land in 2021 and 2022. The raging bull sellers market has been over for a while now. It is still a sellers market, but if you're looking to sell you better be real close to market price with your list price or your land isn't going to move. The best thing to help landowners see reality about market value of their land is "time on the market". When their new high-priced listing sits for months on end with no serious offers, that helps to start bringing their head out of the clouds. Good land deals for buyers in southern Iowa right now are still few and far between. Who knows what the next 6-12 months will bring but if I had to guess I'd say the land market will continue to slow down a bit.
 
Need more listings to hit the market . Nothing is for sale. In Minnesota, there’s not anything for sale over 40 acres in my county ! Nothing

The lake market is still on fire ! There’s maybe one home for sale on a 8000 acre lake that I live on. A cabin here was $300k-400k now it’s over 500k

A nice house with 100 feet of shoreline is six figures on the lake .
 
Fwiw, the rec pieces I see staying on the market for anything longer than a few days are the "weird" ones...the ones no serious deer hunter wants. These are weird because of strange boundary lines and/or too close of neighbors, etc.

I hope the market cools because I would like to buy another place, but I am not seeing it in my area yet.
 
Daver said:
Fwiw, the rec pieces I see staying on the market for anything longer than a few days are the "weird" ones...the ones no serious deer hunter wants. These are weird because of strange boundary lines and/or too close of neighbors, etc.

I hope the market cools because I would like to buy another place, but I am not seeing it in my area yet.
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Agreed, or they are so expensive very few can afford them. There is a 1000 acre piece in Southern Iowa for sale now that looks incredible, but not many can afford 5.5 million.
 
It’s tight. Hard to find good buys. That will change…. At some point ;)……. I can see case for strong land prices ongoing BUT but I can equally valid reasons it will decline….. I have my gut & bet - but that’s all it is.
 
Daver said:
Fwiw, the rec pieces I see staying on the market for anything longer than a few days are the "weird" ones...the ones no serious deer hunter wants. These are weird because of strange boundary lines and/or too close of neighbors, etc.

I hope the market cools because I would like to buy another place, but I am not seeing it in my area yet.
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Those may be factors in some cases, but more than anything else the majority of places for sale at least here in southern Iowa are just asking too much $. Part of it is landowners who are unrealistic about the real market value of their land, and part of it is that some realtors will tell a landowner whatever they think he wants to hear, in order to get the land listing.
 
tall@wide said:
Agreed, or they are so expensive very few can afford them. There is a 1000 acre piece in Southern Iowa for sale now that looks incredible, but not many can afford 5.5 million.
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Lucas County is where we live and that place is about 10 miles from my house. That property does have some nice wildlife habitat, but there are reasons that it is *way* overpriced at 5.5 million ($5,500/acre). For starters, once you get over about 100 acres, the pool of potential buyers starts shrinking quickly, which means less demand, which means you have to lower your price per acre. Second, a third of that property is floodplain and in WRP (wetland reserve program). That means it's probably in a 30 year easement or a perpetual easement. Great for wildlife habitat, horrible for land re-sale value. If you ever see a property anywhere in Iowa that looks like it's priced for sale at an unusually *low* price, look close at the aerial photos and contour map (and description), chances are pretty good the property is enlisted in the WRP program. The pros about that property are that there is a lot of habitat diversity, plenty of crop ground for food, and it is extremely rare to find a property in southern Iowa that has that much acreage for sale in a single contiguous chunk. That said, any buyer who can afford to buy that property is likely to be an experienced land buyer and will understand the reasons it's not worth close to $5,500/acre. If I had to guess, I'd say if it is purchased as currently constituted, it's likely to sell closer to $4,000/acre than $5,500/acre. Which is still obviously a bigger chunk of change than about 98% of hunters can afford to put into a hunting property.
 
I’ve never understood why some people see no discount for WRP ground? It kind of makes me laugh.

They were paid very well for the easement, and it’s very restrictive! You can’t farm it, build on it, in some cases no food plots, or even permanent deer stands .

Then they advertise it like it’s a huge positive? Such as “the bottom is in WRP which means it will be permanent wildlife habitat forever “

In my opinion (as a licensed realtor)It’s best to disclose that it’s a restrictive easement and the prior owners were paid for the easement.

*Yes it can create some interesting habitat !
 
jflournoy said:
Lucas County is where we live and that place is about 10 miles from my house. That property does have some nice wildlife habitat, but there are reasons that it is *way* overpriced at 5.5 million ($5,500/acre). For starters, once you get over about 100 acres, the pool of potential buyers starts shrinking quickly, which means less demand, which means you have to lower your price per acre. Second, a third of that property is floodplain and in WRP (wetland reserve program). That means it's probably in a 30 year easement or a perpetual easement. Great for wildlife habitat, horrible for land re-sale value. If you ever see a property anywhere in Iowa that looks like it's priced for sale at an unusually *low* price, look close at the aerial photos and contour map (and description), chances are pretty good the property is enlisted in the WRP program. The pros about that property are that there is a lot of habitat diversity, plenty of crop ground for food, and it is extremely rare to find a property in southern Iowa that has that much acreage for sale in a single contiguous chunk. That said, any buyer who can afford to buy that property is likely to be an experienced land buyer and will understand the reasons it's not worth close to $5,500/acre. If I had to guess, I'd say if it is purchased as currently constituted, it's likely to sell closer to $4,000/acre than $5,500/acre. Which is still obviously a bigger chunk of change than about 98% of hunters can afford to put into a hunting property.
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I haven't researched the details of this farm because it's out of my price range right now. I do think it will sell for more than $4000 acre, and probably a small group will buy it. No doubt some giants call that place home.
 
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