One of the great blessings for me in life is to get away from the fast lane and drive tractor on our family farm North of Willmar. Farming around 500 acres we still enjoy using some of the old tractors with the new (see pic of the JD 70 alongside our Case IH 215 Magnum).
As I was digging for my dad and he was planting corn, I was thinking of the wise advice one of our investor sellers told me: none of us are smarter than the market, and the best investors are always thinking about today’s opportunity in regards to where the market is going. In hindsight, some of these investor sellers made some very smart calls. They unloaded many parcels of tillable land in 2012 and 2013 (one of our investor sellers used those proceeds to buy distressed homes in the Twin Cities at bargain prices). They are now seeing tremendous growth in their investment with the housing market coming back strong. I sense, and am hearing, those investors are now eyeing farmland again, knowing that they can purchase parcels at 15 – 30% of a discount from the peak.
With talk of strengthening commodity markets in 2017, will we look back and think that 2016 was the year of opportunity for the buyers? Only time will tell what the market will do, but it seems to me this is not the time to say no to the parcel next door to you and for sale – the prices of today may seem like a bargain 4 years from now.
Glen