Our appraisers are active in their local markets every day, valuing real estate and chattel assets. In any given year, we will perform 4,000 to 5,000 appraisals and valuations and hundreds of chattels and business validations.
The team also collects, analyzes and verifies real estate sales in our four-state territory. In a typical year, we collect data on 7,000 to 8,000 completed sales.
This local expertise and depth of knowledge is reflected in our benchmark farmland reports, which are released every January and July. Every six months, we appraise the same 63 benchmark farms, proving an apples-to-apples comparison from one period to the next.
Each benchmark farm represents agriculture in its geographic area. In Iowa, benchmark farms are primarily cropland, with a smaller number of mixed cropland and pasture.
The makeup of benchmark farms changes farther west. In Nebraska, both irrigated and dryland cropland benchmark farms are valued. A mix of pasture and cropland is more common on the eastern sides of Nebraska and South Dakota than on the western sides, where puritan pasture tracts are more common.
While FCSAmerica’s land values report is the longest-running in its four-state territory, additional sources of information exist today.
FCSAmerica has always based its benchmark land values report on actual appraisals supported by current real estate sales. Surveys are the other method for reporting land values. USDA, for example, surveys producers.
Both approaches can produce reliable data. But different methodologies and data sets also can result in differences in farmland values, even when there is a consensus about general trends in the real estate market.
