$20,000.00

[nwobcw]

  SS What town would this ground be close to?

[nwobcw]

   Kay, the midwest corn belt is almost a totally different world from where you are.  We drove thru Iowa on a vacation once and it's a lot different than my eastern corn belt location.  I know what the 1 poster meant when he said outsiders aren't welcome.  I went into a JD dealer out there to BS and they weren't that awful friendly.  What I did find interesting was the JD  place was also a Chevy dealership.

[farmandfire]

Hull, Ia.

[verbatime]

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@jrsiajdranch wrote:

I do not think you guys even have a clue about that area of Iowa. It is very unique and this land will prolly never come up for sale again in 100 years. So the best time to buy the farm is when it is for sale.  I'll bet the folks already had everything else paid for so it isn't any big deal for them.

In that area no one thinks the farmers are poor.

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I understand all that but, was saying what the windfall and perception and or reaction will be when the pendulum swings back the other way.  I 'm not saying I even care what they think just saying.. that's all.

[Kay/NC]

Exactly what I was saying in my first reply.  a) It is their money, so they could do as they pleased with it. b) This figure serves to dispel the myth of the struggling farm family. 

In the area I grew up in, with the $2 million per acre mineral deposits, there turned out to be all sorts of interesting ramifications to the influx of the perception of immense wealth, all at once.  That was a very wealthy farming community, too.  I venture to say that the farm I grew up on was as good a piece of farmland as any ever tilled on the East Coast. 

Since all of those families had worked hard to build wealth gradually, it wasn't as "in your face"  as scores of foreign interests working the royalty leases.  That  was like Twain's "Man Who Corrupted Haddleyburg."  Worst instincts started to manifest everywhere. 

Results of financial planning ran the gamut...and ended with such disparate effects as one kid of a set of twins having a multimillion $ windfall, the other nothing, since one tract was mined, the other not.  Really disruptive to the fabric of the community, families and friendships within it.  Not necessary for it to turn out that way, but it did.  Sad.

I think this experience crystallized one concept for me: Being wealthy and being rich, while not necessarily mutually exclusive states, are not synonymous ones. 

[highyields]

Some interesting thoughts about this whole deal,,, How old of guy was it that bought the place?   I wonder if there was another generation coming on board? 

In my opinion the only reason to buy $20,000/ac farm ground is because you want to farm and you want to secure acreage.   as an investment?  Not for the average non-farmer investor. 

Thats my thoughts on it. 

[Kay/NC]

We don't buy land at auctions, but, I have done quite a bit of auction buying for antiques and vintage items for our home, at estate sales. 

My rule is not to fall in love with anything.  As I said below, s,art buyers never fall in love with a house.  Emotions will get you skint. 

There are a couple of related rules for bidding to buy.  I can afford more than an antiques dealer - similar to an investment-only buyer for farmland.  I don't have to have a margin for the next buyer to decide to jump on a piece, whereas a dealer does. 

If there is an item that really makes a functional differnce in my surroundings, and it is unique, then like that piece of land, I will pay whatever I feel I want to spare for it.  If I needed some more land application  space, to allow an expansion in animal units, that woud mean more income.  That sort fo a purchase is logical, not emotional. 

I read what the wife told Jeff, though...her husband had "always wanted" that land. 

[nwobcw]

  One thought on the 20K ground came to mind recently.  Up until the last few years 1 acre unimproved building lots here were going for around 20K, depending upon location of course.  Some higher, some lower.  So few have sold lately I don't know what the market is for them now although a 5 acre piece with a storm sewer has been for sale for a while at 62K.

[Kay/NC]

Having farmland prices for agricultural production approach or equal residential development prices for the same kind of acres either says a lot for farming, or very little for housing, these days.  Probably a bit of both. 

A thought that was in my mind this morning is that there is a lot of competition in a not-so-nice way in that community, too.  That small a piece of land is probably not going to make or break either of the men who were bidding on it. 

I think we have all agreed that it won't cashflow in and of itself, at that price.  If the one who had so clearly wanted it for so long was bidding, and it was clearly meaningful to him on some level, it would take a very aggressive person to bid him up that high.   Shark pool....

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

"I do not think you guys even have a clue about that area of Iowa. It is very unique and this land will prolly never come up for sale again in 100 years. So the best time to buy the farm is when it is for sale. I'll bet the folks already had everything else paid for so it isn't any big deal for them.

In that area no one thinks the farmers are poor."

JR, nobody believes what you say, but my sister lives in Rock Valley and I get up there every so often.  I know you are saying it exactly like it is.

Many ethnic and cultural groups have settled portions of the U.S.  We talk of Amish communities, Hutterites, the Swedes and Norwegians in the northern prairies, the Germans in Wisconsin, the Scoth Irish in the Carolinas.  Each of these ethnic groups lends more or less  direction to society in that local area.  In northwest Iowa, the Dutch heritage is very strong and is unique.  The farmers there are very well to do and they are getting bigger all the time.  That area of Iowa has been leading in land value increases for many years.