Farm Credit Services of America monitors real estate value trends through semi-annual appraisals of 65 agricultural farms located throughout Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming. The Appraisal Team updates benchmark farm values based on the most recently reported real estate sales on January 1 and July 1 each year.
The average change in benchmark farm values is shown below. The number of benchmark farms is shown in parenthesis after each state.
State Six-Month One-Year Five-Year Ten-Year
Iowa (21): 6.3% 21.0% 105.5% 313.4%
Nebraska (19): 7.1% 20.5% 141.2% 332.6%
South Dakota (23): 9.5% 28.6% 96.4% 335.7%
Wyoming (2): 3.3% 3.3% -6.9% NA
While real estate sales activity continues, the first six months of 2013 had fewer real estate sales as compared to 2012, primarily due to the large number of real estate transactions that occurred in the latter part of last year.
The Iowa and Nebraska average benchmark value increases of 6.3 and 7.1 percent respectively for the July 1 update reflect a slowdown in the rate of increase when compared with recent history. While some benchmark farms indicated no increase in value, more sales data is needed before generalizing about a stabilizing land market over a broad geographic area.
The South Dakota benchmarks continue to indicate increasing values in 2013. The Wyoming cropland benchmark value increased while the ranchland benchmark showed a slight decline.
