Across the Midwest, buyer demand for quality cropland has remained strong, despite the sharp increases in land value from a year ago. Warren County was no exception to this trend. Farmers National Company East- Central region Vice President Nick Westgerdes says in Warren County, there is a strong demand for Class A farms with values reaching as high as $20,000.
“We also saw a rather large decrease in the number of sales in 2023 as compared to 2022. A drop off of some 59% in the number of sales between those two years. While the number of sales went down dramatically in Warren County from ’22 to ’23, the average price per acre across all quality levels of farmland actually rose 18% over that same period of time. So, you all might be in a little bit of a sweet spot where the values tend to continue to increase throughout ’24 and certainly most likely won’t drop off any.”
Westgerdes reports in his region of Illinois, and Wisconsin, there have been several auctions ‘no sales,’ indicating that buyer and seller expectations aren’t lining up as well as they have in the past.
