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Illinois land values survey shows slight softening

An official with the Illinois Society of Professional Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers says Illinois land values showed signs of a decline in the first half of 2026.

During a recent FarmDoc webinar, Luke Worrell, who co-owns Worrell Land Services in Jacksonville, says the results of a mid-year survey of land professionals are not too surprising.

“Our professionals saw a very slight decrease in values across all classifications.”  He says, “The last couple years, we’ve seen marginal softening. Of course, this is coming after a euphoric rise in land values from 2021 to 2023.”

He says the average decline ranged from 1% for excellent quality farmland to 2.6% for average quality.

“We’ve had a nice run of strong values historically, even though we’re down value-wise over the last couple years, that’s marginal.”  He says, “If you zoom out, we’re still historically very strong.”

Worrell says 61% of respondents expect farmland prices to remain stable during the second half of 2026.