Bought my first property in 68 and never looked back wish I had bought more. I figured I could enjoy open space and always have food worked mostly year round and long hours 7 days a week but love it and own it all now no more dealing with the bank. Still invested in the stock market and don't worry about the dips it works out. I missed the great depression but have seen several true recessions and the sky is falling and just kept going. If you don't take a calculated well planned risk you will never get ahead. Good credit is gold debt is bad always hated working for the banker once I got the monkey off my back life was good.

US farm income for farms (mostly cash grain farms) is estimated to be down 27% from 2023. That is corn, beans and wheat mostly. There will need to be some adjustments on payment schedules for the coming year or years. Operating expenses won't drop enough or at all to help in planting next year's 300 plus million acres of crops. Livestock producers are benefiting from lower feed and production costs. The cash grain markets are boosted by good export sales and that can be political. Livestock product sales are boosted by consumer spending and exports (pork mostly) and if consumers cut back on spending that will hurt those markets as well. Bankers have worked with farmers over many cycles on land prices and income swings. There could be a lot of farms that are losing monies in down Ag economies but if banks won't leverage higher they won't be sold unless to cash buyers and if the market becomes stagnant or worse monies may well go to land.

Bryce

Yes guys paying 10,000 -15,000 per acre might wish they hadn't.....

A lot of the issues with buying 10K per acre land can and are resolved by dollar averaging over all owned acres. Say you own 1,000 acres and have a debt on that land of say 1,000 per acre or a million. Now you buy 160 for 1.6 million and put 300K down. Now you owe 2.3 million on 1160 acres that may be worth 8-11 million dollars. That is not a huge issue. What is the issue is the rent paid on say the 1,000 acres they rent and the cost of planting, raising, harvesting and marketing the crops from 2,160 acres when the prices are below the cost of production. Machinery to operate over 2,000 acres is not cheap either. There is plenty of equity to take on more debt, but not enough profit or liquidity to cover the payments. Those that had less equity and or more debt when they purchased some expensive land will be in less favorable places. A majority of farm owners are debt free in the USA so the total debt in agriculture is owed by a minority of farmers.

Bryce

Just my observation but even when housing market tanked land prices stayed stable. Then they climbed during the recovery. So seems like a solid stable investment if they can cover the payments. Also most farmers own most of their land and paying more for land that's close or joining your farm seem like they spent to much but the time saved not moving equipment and driving across the county makes it a good buy for them with time and fule savings.
Average out what they paid over the years back when it seemed high when they paid 100 an acre people were talking the Same way back then. But it turned out o to be a great investment back then and will be the one now

“Economic moral hazard “ for $200 Alex!