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Farmland values keep gaining in west-central Illinois

Land values continue to strengthen in some parts of the Midwest.

Justin Martin is a certified appraiser for Compeer Financial in west-central Illinois and says a farm recently sold for more than $20,000 an acre, reflecting a market that has yet to peak.

“Last June we probably had prime farmland selling for like the $17,000 to $17,500 range, somewhere in there. Last fall, stuff kind of took another step up and we were having several sales that were in the $18,000 to $20,000 per acre range.”

He tells Brownfield crops in his area are struggling because of drought and that could affect the land market around harvest.

“We’ll have a good idea hopefully on the yields and stuff like that, and then if interest rates and stuff like that are high and grain prices (are lower), it’ll be interesting to see. I can’t imagine stuff is going to go up much more, but I could see stuff staying stable to being possibly slightly down.”

Martin is based in Monmouth and says they’ve been short on rain for over a month and farmers are expecting lower yields.

Martin made these comments during an upcoming Compeer appraisal podcast, a content partnership with Brownfield.