Land Prices???

[kentuckysteader]

What has been happening to land prices in your area? Are they dropping a little bit? Is anything selling in your area?

Especially curious about prices here in Kentucky. We have some land we are thinking about selling but want to know a little more about the market before we make a decision.

Housing market is terrible here, but it is a little tougher for me to get a feel for farm/recreation land. There are two folks in our area that are selling some land. The first property (on a two lane hiway) is $3500.00 per acre. The second property (small blacktop road) is going for $2750 per acre.
Both properties have been on the market for a few months ...

Thanks Everyone and God Bless You!!!

[Wolf mom]

Raw land market and housing market are two different things. As is commercial. As is different areas in the country. Do your homework in your area.

Nothing is selling here if over a couple acres.

My neighbour has had 2 - 5 acre parcels (raw land) for sale for over 1 year. Electricity at the property's edge, but the buyer would have to drill a well. I've suggested he drill the well & sell the properties "with a shared well" to make it more attractive, but he doesn't want to put out the money.

Some low ball offers on things around here though. People from the big city & speculators thinking they can get steals.

We've had a few large developments come in within the past couple years & they're not building at all and have let most employees go.

[Drew Cutter]

Prices reflect the selling prices of crops . If farmer are making money then land goes higher . Most of land around here has been taken off the market for now. Wait until fuel prices start rising again , then you might see a change. Also , when bank are loaning again . It might be years before things settle down.

[Hoop]

Vacant land real estate prices are holding firm around here. Its true that real estate is moving slower, but still, transactions are occuring. Banks continue to lend to creditworthy people.
I see the current economy as a correction of the market. In the past, real estate around here appreciated at a yearly rate of 15% - 20%.

[Ramblin Wreck]

Nothing much is selling here, and if you had to sell right now, it probably wouldn't bring very much.

[Jennifer L.]

If you are talking about acreage, and not housing lots, then around here I'd be surprised if you can get much over 1500/A on farm land if there's nothing special about it. You might get more, but it's more likely it would sell in the 1200-1300 range, from what I've seen. The lowest junk around here would be 600/A, and it would be lowland/swampy land.

Housing lots here are in the 5-10K range (1A lots), depending on location, with 5 A chunks running between 12-15 K that are further out from town.

This is in Jefferson County, northern part of the state off the east end of Lake Ontario.

ETA, this area has not been hit by the housing problems for the most part.


Jennifer

[Joshie]

Originally Posted by Jennifer L.

If you are talking about acreage, and not housing lots, then around here I'd be surprised if you can get much over 1500/A on farm land if there's nothing special about it.

WOW! I cannot believe it's that cheap. Land is $3000-$9000/acre for farmland around here. Average is somewhere in the area of $6500/acre. Farmland is selling pretty well. Houses are selling but prices are a little down. This is in central IL.

[sammyd]

If it can grow corn it's worth a bunch.
Farms are selling briskly around here.
160 acre dairy just went up last month sold last week or so.
Around 2500-4000 and acre for decent farmland.
Building lots are 5-10,000 an acre or more. Don't know how they're selling.

[ET1 SS]

Land here is not changing price much at all.

Forest land goes for $300 to $900 per acre.

[sammyd]

Up here in the land of deer-mania forested land is worth a lot. Prime recreational land...blah blah blah. Even if it's not buildable.
But I haven't kept track of that stuff the last few months either.

[travlnusa]

Small 2-5 acres lots are dropping a bit in price, but most have been pulled off the market.

5-40 acres holding value, if not climging a touch

40+ gaining value, but now with $10/100lbs milk that may be chaning very soon.

[sheepish]

Originally Posted by kentuckysteader

There are two folks in our area that are selling some land. The first property (on a two lane hiway) is $3500.00 per acre. The second property (small blacktop road) is going for $2750 per acre.
Both properties have been on the market for a few months ...

If the properties have been on the market for several months, those people are not selling their land, nor is it going for... They are merely offering their land for sale. It isn't going for anything. It is just sitting there, unsold. To be selling it requires that someone is willing to pay for it. The relative selling price of acreage can only be figured on completed sales.

[ET1 SS]

Originally Posted by sheepish

If the properties have been on the market for several months, those people are not selling their land, nor is it going for... They are merely offering their land for sale. It isn't going for anything. It is just sitting there, unsold. To be selling it requires that someone is willing to pay for it. The relative selling price of acreage can only be figured on completed sales.

When property changes ownership it is all recorded with the county. But the county does nothing to track or compile data about property prices. The tax assessors office will ask for the sale price, but only to fit into their formula for computing taxes.

Most of the data that you see was compiled by realtors.

House prices going up, going down, all of that is compiled by realtors.

Which means that those public numbers and trends only look at realtor handled transactions.

Bare land is more often handled without the aid of a realtor.

[Nevada]

Originally Posted by ET1 SS

When property changes ownership it is all recorded with the county. But the county does nothing to track or compile data about property prices.

Our assessor told me that they try to assess properties at 2/3 the fair market value. However, that hasn't been easy to do recently. Up until the housing bubble burst property real estate values were going up a lot faster than the assessor could keep up with. I suspect that they have the opposite problem now (rapidly falling real estate values).

To matters worse, tax revenues are way down now. To remedy that, the assessor doubled land values for around where I live this year. There was a smug note on the back of the assessment notice saying that Nevada law caps the property tax rate, but that they can assess our properties at whatever they want. I guess they're going to get you one way or another...

The point is that the assessed value isn't likely to accurately reflect the fair value of a property.

[HermitJohn]

Supposedly you can challenge your assessment, even go to court. Of course those collecting tribute for the king on the property you are allowed to say you "own" dont want their tribute to shrink and will scheme every which way. But depending on state laws you can force them to honestly appraise property, just might cost to haul them into court to do it.

As to prices, the economy is tanking, it doesnt happen over night, takes long time to wind every thing down, but down its going and it aint coming back in a year or two like the talking heads on tv keep trying to spin.

My opinion it wont start reviving until excess money in the system disappears. A nice extended depression will do just that. Instead of just letting stuff collapse quickly we are propping things up left and right and that just extends the pain cause excess funny money has to be wrung out of the system and adding more funny money extends time it takes to do this. Anyway after few years of depression, price for land and homes will be back where it should be and much lower than now. People will get desperate enough where they have to sell for whatever they can get and there wont be much cash or credit around to bid anything up.

[ErinP]

In our area, "land" means productive ag. land and those prices seem to be holding pretty steady for the last few years, and up significantly from about 10 years ago.
Ie, pasture that used to sell around $275 10 years ago now sells for more like $380.

In fact, some good friends of our just sold their ranch at auction. All pasture, except for 320 irrigated acres. 3,267 acres total for $1.6million.
Just sold an hour ago, actually. They were expecting 1.2-1.4, so they did really well.

[Louisiana Mom]

Around here I'd say anywhere from $3000-$10,000 per acre. The $3000's would be much further out of town. Where we are right now (country, out of city limits, but about 15 minutes from city stores by using interstate is around $6-10's. I've seen a couple properties that look like ok deals, but nothing really good yet.

[ET1 SS]

Originally Posted by Louisiana Mom

Around here I'd say anywhere from $3000-$10,000 per acre. The $3000's would be much further out of town. Where we are right now (country, out of city limits, but about 15 minutes from city stores by using interstate is around $6-10's. I've seen a couple properties that look like ok deals, but nothing really good yet.

Ouch!

Maybe it will come down to something reasonable.

[highlands]

I have seen a small drop, if any, in housing prices but more than that what has happened is the time to sell has lengthened greatly rather than prices coming down.

Raw land prices don't seem to have changed at all.

The housing bubble and speculation was a highly localized thing that hit some areas hard but not other areas at all.

[sheepish]

The most recently sold bare land in our area went in the past 2 years for $195-250,000 for each of 3 10 acre plots. There was a 17 acre plot, part of our original 100 acre farm, for which they were asking $450K. It sold 6 months ago, but I don't know the price.

The 10 acre plots have been built on. There isn't much bare land left. What is, isn't being offered for sale.