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I'm not sure this forecast is based on the data in this article. Rural land is actually ridiculously valuable and increasing in value rapidly. I passed up an

I'm not sure this forecast is based on the data in this article. Rural land is actually ridiculously valuable and increasing in value rapidly. I passed up an opportunity to buy some prime farmland in 2008 at what I considered an exorbitant price. The same land today is worth triple. Anyway there's a bunch of very empty, very rural counties in the top decile of this analysis. Just look at Iowa where there are lots of top counties including Story County. Then look at Wyoming which looks really good in this analysis. To some extent I think this analysis is plagued by law of small numbers. It seems like the ranking is highly influenced by the fraction of disabled people but there's a lot of quantization noise in that figure, especially when a county like Teton County, Wyoming contains only 22000 people. I think the same thing is probably happening in rural eastern California, for instance in Mono County (pop 14000).

deet 12y ago
Teton County and Mono County are both unique in that they are dominated by very expensive resort towns (Jackson Hole and Mammoth Lakes).
ap22213 12y ago
Define valuable. I live in Northern Virginia, where a good acre of land can cost a million dollars. Yet, I can drive 3.5 hours and get to land that's worth under $1,000 an acre.
- thrownaway2424 12y ago
  Prime farmland (USDA class 1 soil capability) in Iowa costs 10-12 thousand dollars per acre. In 2006 such land cost 3-4 thousand. Ref: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/wholefarm/html/c2-75.html http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/wholefarm/html/c2-75.h...
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    Which is currently driven up in price by cheap money that has nowhere else to go for safe yields (after the stock collapse in '00 and the real estate collapse of '08). http://giannini.ucop.edu/media/are-update/files/articles/V15N1_3.pdf http://giannini.ucop.edu/media/are-update/files/articles/V15...

deet 12y ago

Teton County and Mono County are both unique in that they are dominated by very expensive resort towns (Jackson Hole and Mammoth Lakes).

ap22213 12y ago

Define valuable. I live in Northern Virginia, where a good acre of land can cost a million dollars. Yet, I can drive 3.5 hours and get to land that's worth under $1,000 an acre.

thrownaway2424 12y ago
Prime farmland (USDA class 1 soil capability) in Iowa costs 10-12 thousand dollars per acre. In 2006 such land cost 3-4 thousand. Ref: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/wholefarm/html/c2-75.html http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/wholefarm/html/c2-75.h...
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  Which is currently driven up in price by cheap money that has nowhere else to go for safe yields (after the stock collapse in '00 and the real estate collapse of '08). http://giannini.ucop.edu/media/are-update/files/articles/V15N1_3.pdf http://giannini.ucop.edu/media/are-update/files/articles/V15...