Iowa Land Auction Prices, August 17-23, 2018

Posted on August 27, 2018 at 10:58 AM by Jim Rothermich

There was more auction activity this week with 2,529 acres being offered, of which 2,388 were tillable. Based on conversations with realtors, farmer buyers are currently being very conservative in their bidding. As a matter of fact, a couple of realtors who recently had land auctions said the only bidders were investor buyers and no farmer buyers bid. Why? I think farmers have some uncertainty as to how good their crop is and crop prices are lower than expected. This may be why we are seeing farmer buyers being less aggressive at land auctions than they were this past spring, and we are seeing some price softening. September is going to be a fairly active month for auctions. The Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour indicates the state of Iowa has a decent corn crop and a good soybean crop.