(Porter County, IN) - A Porter County farm sold for a whopping $17,306 per acre or nearly double the current record average price for top-quality farmland in the state.

 

The sale price was achieved on November 9 during an auction featuring more than 50 bidders.

 

“It was just a barn burner of a sale,” said Jonathan Kraft, who auctioned off the property at 510 East 100 South in Morgan Township outside Valparaiso.

Kraft said the 199 acres belonging to the estate of Lawrence Grieger went for slightly more than $3.4 million. The buyers are two farmers in neighboring LaPorte County with plans to use the ground for expanding their operations, he said.

 

According to Purdue University, top-quality Indiana farmland in August averaged a record $9,785 per acre, up 14.1-percent from the same time last year. Moreover, there are indications the market has taken off even more ever since. Recently, Kraft said a nearby realtor sold a farm for about $12,000 per acre, while a farm in the southeast part of the state fetched roughly $16,000 per acre at auction.

 

Kraft said one reason for the skyrocketing prices is people, including non-farmers, worried about the declining value of their cash, investing that money into the land to get the upper hand on high inflation.

 

Michael Langemeier, an agricultural economist at Purdue University, agreed.

 

“There are people out there with money and they’re looking for a place to park it,” he said.

Langemeier said the main contributors to soaring prices are continued very low-interest rates and farmers earning higher profits the past two years having deeper pockets to purchase the ground.

 

'‘That’s just a perfect combination for strong land values,” he said.

Kraft said Grieger quit farming the ground he owned for much of his life due to the rising seed price. As a result, nothing was produced on his farm for about 10-years until a friend of Grieger, who was the executor of his estate, planted soybeans in the spring, he said.

 

Proceeds from the sale are going to distant cousins of Grieger, who left behind no wife or any close relatives.

 

Kraft said he’s receiving five percent of the sale price, his standard fee for auctioning off farmland. Knowing every high bid meant a more significant payday as part of his excitement.

 

“I was smiling from ear to ear. How else could you not,” Kraft said.