As I sit down to write this article, it feels a little like the calm before the storm. During the next few weeks, the corn crop will be in full pollination, county fair season will be going full throttle, crop dusters will be zig-zagging the Iowa sky in full fungicide-application mode, and summer will enter its final stretch.
Yikes! Didn’t we just finish planting season and graduations?
The Iowa farmland market also resembles the comments above. For much of the past two years, we’ve talked about low sale volume and the mostly positive impact that the limited trickle of land sales has had on land prices. My sense is that late this summer and early fall, we may see a bigger flush of land sales than we’ve seen in some time.
I’m specifically thinking that preharvest, between Aug. 1 and Sept. 30, we could see a nice batch of sales. I expect peak harvest season then will see a normal selling-season pause — for much of October — before another big run of farmland sales in the last 60 days of the year.
My gut tells me that some heirs who inherited land in 2024 and 2025 — and who have thought about selling but kept the farm in hopes that the land market would strengthen — will test the early-season market and enter the front end of the typical late-fall and winter land-selling season.
For several June sales we handled across Iowa and observed throughout the Midwest at Hertz Farm Management, the land market showed itself to be “seller-friendly.” So, I understand the thinking.
Will that friendliness continue into the late summer and fall? It always depends on local market dynamics. How strong is your local crop? Is it set up to be another bin-buster, or did your area crops flood out from one of the many 4- to 8-inch rains that hammered so much of the state? Will the late-summer grain markets move a leg higher from an export surge to China, which many have been expecting? Will this Iran war situation truly settle out, and bring fuel and fertilizer stability to input prices for the 2027 crop? How did the few June sales in your area perform?
All these market factors matter, along with a few I haven’t mentioned. Know this: Demand for additional land in 2026 has thus far outpaced supply of farms for sale. And based on the sales I’m reporting below, if you are serious about acquiring additional land between now and year-end, be prepared for that seller-friendly environment.
Here are recent land sales:
Palo Alto County. Southwest of Graettinger, ± 80 acres recently sold at public auction for $13,000 per acre. The farm consisted of ± 78 tillable acres with a Corn Suitability Rating index of 80.3, and equaled $166 per CSR2 point on the tillable acres.
Cerro Gordo County. Southwest of Nora Springs, ± 61 acres recently sold at public auction for $12,400 per acre. The farm consisted of ± 57 tillable acres with a CSR2 of 75.6, and equaled $175 per CSR2 point on the tillable acres.
Chickasaw County. South of New Hampton, ± 63 acres recently sold for $12,305 per acre. The farm consisted of ± 42 cropland acres with a CSR2 of 87.6, along with ± 20 acres of Conservation Reserve Program land, and equaled $144 per CSR2 point on the combined acres.
Sac County. North of Sac City, ± 61 acres recently sold at public auction for $13,900 per acre. The farm consisted of ± 61 tillable acres with a CSR2 of 84.4, and equaled $165 per CSR2 point on the tillable acres.
Hamilton County. South of Webster City, ± 80 acres recently sold at public auction for $14,200 per acre. The farm consisted of ± 79 cropland acres with a CSR2 of 85.1, and equaled $169 per CSR2 point on the cropland acres.
Benton County. Northeast of Dysart, ± 80 acres recently sold for $15,750 per acre. The farm consisted of ± 75 tillable acres with a CSR2 of 90.3, and equaled $186 per CSR2 point on the tillable acres.
Adams County. West of Corning, ± 162 acres recently sold at public auction for $8,000 per acre. The farm consisted of ± 153 tillable acres with an average CSR2 of 65.9, and equaled $129 per CSR2 point on the tillable acres.
Lucas County. North of Chariton, ± 76 acres recently sold for $8,500 per acre. The farm consisted of ± 70 tillable acres with an average CSR2 of 59.3, and equaled $156 per CSR2 point on the tillable acres.
Keokuk County. Northwest of South English, ± 80 acres recently sold at public auction for $9,000 per acre. The farm consisted of ± 72 tillable acres with a CSR2 of 51.9, and equaled $193 per CSR2 point on the tillable acres.