KDSN RADIO News
Report finds Iowa ag land values flat
The recently REALTORS Land Institute survey shows the south-central district was the only one reporting a farmland price increase.
Spokesman Matt Vegter says the state average value didn’t change much. “From September one to March one, the state of Iowa, for tillable land across all nine crop reporting districts, is down one percent, so pretty flat market,” he says. The south-central market was up two-tenths of a percent, and the north-central was down 2.1%, for the largest drop.
Vegter says better commodity prices kept things from moving too much. “You know, we kind of put in a low back in August, right when we did the last survey, as of September one, and since that survey, throughout the winter months, we’ve seen a pretty good rally in the corn and bean corn and bean prices. So, I think that’s kind of the biggest factor, bringing us back to kind of that even mark,” Vegter says.
Vegter says it’s hard to tell right now how tariffs may end up impacting land values. “Emotionally, they’re definitely taking a toll. I don’t think we can give any data of what it’s done to the market,” he says. Vegter says he saw some changes that may be an indication that the emotional toll could have an impact. “January, February there was actually a lot more optimism in the land market, commodity prices had rallied and there were a lot of farms that had been sitting there on the market for a while with not a lot of interest, and they all got gobbled up in January and February,” he says. “And we felt like we were starting to build a little bit of steam, and then the tariff conversation started. So I think (it’s) to be determined what that does.”
He says one area of the survey was a surprise. “Eight out of the 9 crop reporting districts were actually up one to two percent on the recreational land side. And that kind of surprised me,” Vegter says. “I didn’t think demand was going to be that healthy for rec ground the last six months, but respondents said it’s there’s all kinds of folks out there still wanting to buy a timber piece or a recreational piece,” Vegter says that’s probably a holdover from the pandemic when people looked to get out away from the cities more and the rec ground became more popular.
