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> This land by the way will cost you approximately $7,183 per acre. That's surprisingly cheap. A farm near me, with similar production capabilities, recently s

> This land by the way will cost you approximately $7,183 per acre. That's surprisingly cheap. A farm near me, with similar production capabilities, recently sold for $25,000/acre. Around here, you won't find anything really worth farming for much under $15,000/acre on the low end these days.

rmason 10y ago
That's an average price of Iowa farmland statewide. But as you know there's a wide variety. I have no problem believing the price of $10,000 to $15,000 per acre for the premier land. However as you probably are aware sometimes competition among neighbors boosts those prices into the stratosphere. Then there's Detroit where you can buy city lots for $50. Assuming an average size of 50 by 100 ft or 5000 sq feet that is $435 an acre and it comes with water! http://auctions.buildingdetroit.org/sidelots http://auctions.buildingdetroit.org/sidelots
- randomdata 10y ago
  Average land price is similar here, but you won't be producing anywhere near 200bu of corn or 60bu of soys on that average land. Maybe 2/3s of that, if you get really lucky, but more like half in a more typical case for average and below. So, I still maintain that it is quite cheap.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  That $50 also comes with obligations to pay back property taxes, renovate existing buildings to meet current code standards, and improve the street-visible appearance of the lot. You're paying $50 for a property that has a $50000 debt stapled to it. Also, urban soil frequently has chemical contamination. If nothing else, it often has high levels of lead contamination from mere proximity to the streets used by cars that burned leaded gasoline before it was banned. Buying multiple distressed urban lots to use as farmland is a horrible, horrible idea. If you want to buy land for traditional farm, do it in a rural area. Urban land does not make sense unless you are experimenting with vertical farming, where the grid power and piped potable water is already available, and the local soil (if any) is not going to be used anyway.
  - rmason 10y ago
    You are wrong. If you're buying a house it might have taxes attached but not side lots if you read the site I referenced. The city is literally giving side lots away so that they are added back to the tax rolls. Also absolutely no one is going to buy a house with $50,000 of taxes attached! Instead you wait until the land bank owns it and either buy it directly from them or wait for the yearly auction. Rarely do housing sites have chemical contamination. There are however former industrial sites that do. But if you look at who is doing urban farming in Detroit it is exclusively on former residential land. Urban farming does make sense economically. Lots of young people don't have the capital to buy good rural farmland. If you're in the city you're also near great markets but the key is growing high value, labor intensive crops like fruits and vegetables. Unless you're an experienced farmer operating at scale you can almost always buy corn, wheat and soybeans cheaper from the farmer than you can grow them yourself.
    - logfromblammo 10y ago
      I encourage you to explore the difference between property taxes within the Detroit metropolis and in rural Michigan. Whether the back taxes have been forgiven or not does not obviate the future tax bills to the new owner. The $50000 bill is the average code to bring buildings up to code. You are correct that this would not apply for side lots. But people can and have purchased houses for "$50" that included a ~$50000 obligation, for use as low-income rental properties. Such houses can be made profitable by leaning heavily on the federal Section 8 voucher program. And that's why those properties sell. As for lead contamination in urban soil... http://modernfarmer.com/2014/07/lead-urban-gardens/ http://modernfarmer.com/2014/07/lead-urban-gardens/ https://soils.org/discover-soils/soils-in-the-city/soil-contaminants/lead https://soils.org/discover-soils/soils-in-the-city/soil-cont... Urban gardening only makes sense for the most lucrative of cash crops, and those intended for consumption by rich humans. You could certainly feed yourself and your family with a well-managed plot, but you're going to have some trouble selling to anyone else, unless you serve an incredibly specific niche and have some loyal friends in the restaurant industry. The business simply doesn't scale. After the restaurant buys all it needs, you're back to the farmer's market, where even the top-shelf local CSA group can match your quality and your price, at 100 times your volume. Your only advantage is that you can deliver fragile-but-unbruised produce by hand with a bicycle fifteen minutes after harvest, rather than after an hour on a delivery truck. But in practice, hardly anyone needs that enough to pay the extra cost for it. The guy growing fingerling potatoes on a 10 acre plot just past the suburbs is going to pay off their loan and then enjoy the profits, as the urban gardener works their ass off barely doing better than break-even.
martinza 10y ago
Where do you live? Prime land in California? Average acre in America is $4000 [1], so wouldn't call $7183 an acre cheap. 1: http://www.agweb.com/mobile/land/farmland-value-guide/ http://www.agweb.com/mobile/land/farmland-value-guide/
- randomdata 10y ago
  > Average acre in America is $4000 [1], so wouldn't call $7183 an acre cheap. But presumably we're talking about land that specifically can produce the 200bu of corn and 60bu of soybeans the the parent specified? There is most certainly cheaper land around, even locally, if you are willing to accept less production ability, but there is good reason why that land is cheaper. The average corn yield in the US is 160 bu/acre and 49 bu/acre for soybeans, so it seems that the average land is not capable of delivering. Not to mention that there is land that wouldn't even be worth trying to grow corn and soybeans on, which would drag the average down even further if you tried.
- knieveltech 10y ago
  That average has to include vast areas of aggressively useless and unwanted land (eg Wyoming).
  - astrange 10y ago
    Wyoming's a great place to start a wind farm.
  - soundwave106 10y ago
    Yeah, although Wyoming land is reportedly good for some things (eg grazing), quick Google searches seem to suggest price per acre more around $450 an acre statewide (http://trib.com/business/land-values-skyrocket-in-parts-of-wyoming/article_8ca06d9d-cd57-529c-abe2-e23be007b573.html http://trib.com/business/land-values-skyrocket-in-parts-of-w...). The thing is, agriculture fertility is not the only factor in rural land price these days -- I've heard ala the linked article that investing in land for hedging / portfolio diversity purposes is popular. It's also no surprise to hear that more aesthetically attractive rural areas will fetch a premium (I would seriously doubt the area around the Grand Tetons region is just $450 an acre for instance; the linked article suggests as much).
lukasm 10y ago
Do I have to be a US citizen to buy land in US?
- digitalzombie 10y ago
  I don't think so. There are rich Chinese people just buying housing property in Arcadia, California and Vancover Canada... I would like to think housing property and land are the same thing.
- beat 10y ago
  No, although you'll probably want a lawyer in addition to a real estate agent if you're a non-resident, and financing might be trickier as well.

rmason 10y ago

That's an average price of Iowa farmland statewide. But as you know there's a wide variety. I have no problem believing the price of $10,000 to $15,000 per acre for the premier land. However as you probably are aware sometimes competition among neighbors boosts those prices into the stratosphere. Then there's Detroit where you can buy city lots for $50. Assuming an average size of 50 by 100 ft or 5000 sq feet that is $435 an acre and it comes with water! http://auctions.buildingdetroit.org/sidelots http://auctions.buildingdetroit.org/sidelots

randomdata 10y ago
Average land price is similar here, but you won't be producing anywhere near 200bu of corn or 60bu of soys on that average land. Maybe 2/3s of that, if you get really lucky, but more like half in a more typical case for average and below. So, I still maintain that it is quite cheap.
logfromblammo 10y ago
That $50 also comes with obligations to pay back property taxes, renovate existing buildings to meet current code standards, and improve the street-visible appearance of the lot. You're paying $50 for a property that has a $50000 debt stapled to it. Also, urban soil frequently has chemical contamination. If nothing else, it often has high levels of lead contamination from mere proximity to the streets used by cars that burned leaded gasoline before it was banned. Buying multiple distressed urban lots to use as farmland is a horrible, horrible idea. If you want to buy land for traditional farm, do it in a rural area. Urban land does not make sense unless you are experimenting with vertical farming, where the grid power and piped potable water is already available, and the local soil (if any) is not going to be used anyway.
- rmason 10y ago
  You are wrong. If you're buying a house it might have taxes attached but not side lots if you read the site I referenced. The city is literally giving side lots away so that they are added back to the tax rolls. Also absolutely no one is going to buy a house with $50,000 of taxes attached! Instead you wait until the land bank owns it and either buy it directly from them or wait for the yearly auction. Rarely do housing sites have chemical contamination. There are however former industrial sites that do. But if you look at who is doing urban farming in Detroit it is exclusively on former residential land. Urban farming does make sense economically. Lots of young people don't have the capital to buy good rural farmland. If you're in the city you're also near great markets but the key is growing high value, labor intensive crops like fruits and vegetables. Unless you're an experienced farmer operating at scale you can almost always buy corn, wheat and soybeans cheaper from the farmer than you can grow them yourself.
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    I encourage you to explore the difference between property taxes within the Detroit metropolis and in rural Michigan. Whether the back taxes have been forgiven or not does not obviate the future tax bills to the new owner. The $50000 bill is the average code to bring buildings up to code. You are correct that this would not apply for side lots. But people can and have purchased houses for "$50" that included a ~$50000 obligation, for use as low-income rental properties. Such houses can be made profitable by leaning heavily on the federal Section 8 voucher program. And that's why those properties sell. As for lead contamination in urban soil... http://modernfarmer.com/2014/07/lead-urban-gardens/ http://modernfarmer.com/2014/07/lead-urban-gardens/ https://soils.org/discover-soils/soils-in-the-city/soil-contaminants/lead https://soils.org/discover-soils/soils-in-the-city/soil-cont... Urban gardening only makes sense for the most lucrative of cash crops, and those intended for consumption by rich humans. You could certainly feed yourself and your family with a well-managed plot, but you're going to have some trouble selling to anyone else, unless you serve an incredibly specific niche and have some loyal friends in the restaurant industry. The business simply doesn't scale. After the restaurant buys all it needs, you're back to the farmer's market, where even the top-shelf local CSA group can match your quality and your price, at 100 times your volume. Your only advantage is that you can deliver fragile-but-unbruised produce by hand with a bicycle fifteen minutes after harvest, rather than after an hour on a delivery truck. But in practice, hardly anyone needs that enough to pay the extra cost for it. The guy growing fingerling potatoes on a 10 acre plot just past the suburbs is going to pay off their loan and then enjoy the profits, as the urban gardener works their ass off barely doing better than break-even.

martinza 10y ago

Where do you live? Prime land in California? Average acre in America is $4000 [1], so wouldn't call $7183 an acre cheap. 1: http://www.agweb.com/mobile/land/farmland-value-guide/ http://www.agweb.com/mobile/land/farmland-value-guide/

randomdata 10y ago
> Average acre in America is $4000 [1], so wouldn't call $7183 an acre cheap. But presumably we're talking about land that specifically can produce the 200bu of corn and 60bu of soybeans the the parent specified? There is most certainly cheaper land around, even locally, if you are willing to accept less production ability, but there is good reason why that land is cheaper. The average corn yield in the US is 160 bu/acre and 49 bu/acre for soybeans, so it seems that the average land is not capable of delivering. Not to mention that there is land that wouldn't even be worth trying to grow corn and soybeans on, which would drag the average down even further if you tried.
knieveltech 10y ago
That average has to include vast areas of aggressively useless and unwanted land (eg Wyoming).
- astrange 10y ago
  Wyoming's a great place to start a wind farm.
- soundwave106 10y ago
  Yeah, although Wyoming land is reportedly good for some things (eg grazing), quick Google searches seem to suggest price per acre more around $450 an acre statewide (http://trib.com/business/land-values-skyrocket-in-parts-of-wyoming/article_8ca06d9d-cd57-529c-abe2-e23be007b573.html http://trib.com/business/land-values-skyrocket-in-parts-of-w...). The thing is, agriculture fertility is not the only factor in rural land price these days -- I've heard ala the linked article that investing in land for hedging / portfolio diversity purposes is popular. It's also no surprise to hear that more aesthetically attractive rural areas will fetch a premium (I would seriously doubt the area around the Grand Tetons region is just $450 an acre for instance; the linked article suggests as much).

lukasm 10y ago

Do I have to be a US citizen to buy land in US?

digitalzombie 10y ago
I don't think so. There are rich Chinese people just buying housing property in Arcadia, California and Vancover Canada... I would like to think housing property and land are the same thing.
beat 10y ago
No, although you'll probably want a lawyer in addition to a real estate agent if you're a non-resident, and financing might be trickier as well.