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Broker sees steady prices for high quality land in Iowa

corn-field-western-iowa-7-23-13A Midwest real estate broker says prices for high quality farmland are holding steady this fall.

Kyle Hansen, ALC with Nevada, Iowa-based Hertz Real Estate Services says the resilience of the land market is a bit surprising, given continued low commodity prices.

“We had great yields here in Iowa—a lot of farms yielded very well—and sometimes that offsets some of the lower commodity prices,” Hansen says. “But for me personally, I do feel a little surprised that we’re still seeing the strength in the high quality (land)—even though that’s what the majority of the buyers want, is extremely high quality ground.

“We still have a lot of buyers that continue to look for land, whether they’re investor-buyers or farmer-buyers. About 75 to 80 percent of the farms that are sold are purchased by a farmer.”

Hansen says they’ve also seen an increase in land for sale this fall, with most it coming from estates.

“You see a lot of estate selling. Not necessarily a lot of active farmers or landowners that have had land for a long period of time.  It’s more of the estates,” he says.

Hansen says farmland prices in Iowa have declined 25 to 30 percent from their highs in 2013.

“Right now, I think we’re more in a sideways pattern on high quality land, but we continue see some softening on medium and lower quality,” he says.

Hansen also chairs the land trends and value survey for the Iowa Chapter of the Realtors Land Institute.

AUDIO: Kyle Hansen

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