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100-acre Iowa farm sells for $2.6M at auction

cigaretteman

HR King
May 29, 2001
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A farm in Plymouth County sold for $25,000 an acre on Friday, a price more than twice as high as the average in the county.
Bruce R. Brock, whose Brock Auction Company conducted the sale, said the land -- about 96.33 acres of farmland and a 3.67-acre farm place at 38625 200th St., a gravel road about 5 miles southeast of Le Mars -- sold for a total of more than $2.6 million.




Brock
Jesse Brothers, Sioux City Journal

The buyers are neighbors to the north of the farm, who Brock described as "a great farm family."
The land, which Brock described as top quality, was put up for sale following the death of Eilene L. Rolling, the owner of the farm. Rolling's husband had died several years earlier. The family had owned the land for decades.

"I think it was a very good farm, no question about it," Brock said in a phone call Sunday. "It had a lot going for it, it didn't take on any water from anybody else, there was just a teeny little bit of slope to it, so that the water drained well off it. It was top-quality soil, in a good, high state of productivity."



The auction was attended by more than 100 people, Brock said.

The price was well above average farmland values in Plymouth County or anywhere else in the state. As of 2021, an average acre of farmland in Plymouth County was valued at around $12,416 -- a 31.4 percent increase from the year prior, according to Iowa State University data. That figure was the fourth-highest in the state, behind only Sioux, O'Brien and Lyon counties.
Farmland in Northwest Iowa is generally the richest and most valuable in the state.
Statewide, farmland values were up an average of 29 percent last year, according to ISU data. Prices are likely to increase further this year, as the war in Ukraine constricts global grain supplies, driving up farm revenues and the value of land.


"Last year, and the last couple months in 2020, we sold $78 million worth of land, and it just steadily went up and up and up and up and up," said Brock, who predicted that farm prices are likely to continue on their "up" path, with a possible "retracement or two for a short period of time."
"Then the land will come back strong. It's a good investment, there's no question about it," he added. "There's a lot of interest, we get several calls a week from people looking for farmland, of all types."

 
Neighbors and relatives always pay the most for land, but no one can show me how $25K land pencils out for them. Its another bubble.
Especially if their is bad blood between the neighbors or relatives. And I agree, no way that pencils out. You can’t even rent it out for a return.
 
Especially if their is bad blood between the neighbors or relatives. And I agree, no way that pencils out. You can’t even rent it out for a return.
They don't make more land. That's how it "pencils out", or so I've been told. It's definitely out of my league to purchase any.

Farming today is primarily a rich man's game (at least from my perspective) and I know quite a few of them in NW Iowa. A good share of them reside at Lake Okoboji in the summer too. Good gig if you've had the farm in the family for generations.
 
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