Agricultural Economics Department
Date of this Version
6-1980
Document Type
Article
Abstract
The Department of Agricultural Economics conducted its third annual farm real estate market survey for 1979-80. Questionnaires were mailed in January, 1980 to nearly 500 survey reporters across Nebraska which included rural appraisers, real estate brokers, professional farm managers, and farm mortgage lenders.
These reporters estimated the average per acre value of farmland in their respective or surrounding counties as of February 1st for both 1979 and 1980 by the major land uses for that area. With exception of center pivot irrigated land in the Northwest Crop Reporting District, land values generally demonstrated strong gains during 1979 with the largest increases being reported in the East, Northeast and Southwest Districts. Additional information in the survey was collected for current farm real estate market developments, seller·fi'nancing (land contracts)and cash renta1 rates for Nebraska.
Given the economic problems and uncertainties of the past few months, a follow.... up telephone survey was conducted in May among a sample of survey reporters to determine any further changes in Nebraska's farm real estate market thanearlierreported. These results indicated that land values had remained relatively stable since February 1, 1980. However, many mentioned that there had been little or no market activity since the early months of 1980.
This present "market mood" may well be indicative of the outlook for the remainder of 1980; namely, a generally less active market with fairly stable l nd values into 1981. Some forced sales due to farm financial problems may occur toward the end of 1980, but these sales are not expected to be prevalent in Nebraska. However, a degree of caution will probably prevail in the land market dampening price bidding by buyers until present economic conditions improve.
Comments
Published by Department of Agricultural Economics, Report # 105, June 1980. The website address is: http://www.agecon,unl.edu/realestate.html
The authors wish to express their appreciation to the survey reporters for their participation in completing and returning the Nebraska farm real estate market survey questionnaire. Without their efforts and interest, the availability and publication of the data within this report would not be possible. Special thanks is also extended to the Federal Land Bank of Omaha for providing the farmland sales data for Nebraska published in this report.