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Tommy Grisafi creates content for Ag Bull Media.
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The Land Talker Reveals Why Farm Prices Remain Stable Despite Low Inventory
Jim, the Land Talker, joins us to discuss the current state of Iowa's farmland market and share insights from his May newsletter. Despite low inventory due to planting season, land prices remain remarkably stable with optimistic buyers still active in the market.
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Thank you, Tommy G
everyone, tom grisafi, here at egg bowl media. We have a new episode for you today. It is monday 6 9 2025 and we like to bring you unique stuff. And this is a unique, unique guy, jim Rothmick from the Land Talker, and I got to tell you right off the bat if you get a chance, check out his new YouTube page. We'll pop that up and we'll pop it up again at the end. But Jim's got a new YouTube page and there was several videos on there. He's doing a great job. But, jim, if you don't know, he is the Iowa Appraisal Land Talker Monthly. We're going to talk about the month of May. He said it was a little slow, but he was at the Hog Expo last week, so we're going to talk about that. Let's bring him in. Jim, welcome to the show. Good to see you. I feel like it's been a few months since we did this, but I'm sure we'll still remember what we're doing, right?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, tommy. Thank you for having me today days, since we've had this opportunity to do this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but we checked our mics, we got our cameras on. You look good, I feel good. I'd be happier if corn was up but it was down. We've got to keep moving forward. The price of land, not a lot of auctions, stages, years, go full screen on Mr Jim Joe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I tell you what the inventory is down right now. And there's an off season then and and land market it's we're in it and that's because of planting season and so it's just a very low time for land auctions and so it's not a lot's moving right now. But I will say what I have seen get sold, it's been very, you know, stable. I haven't really seen, you know, any drop offs or anything. And which is surprising to me because you know there's plenty of bad news out there in the ag news media right now with markets and trade talk and tariffs. But it's just kind of hanging in there and I think part of the low inventory is helping support prices too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's go through the newsletter. I'll jump in here. We'll pop that up. This is May's newsletter. You said it wasn't too exciting and you explained why, but let's talk about the drought real quick. What's going on in the in particular? We're going to talk a lot about the state of Iowa, correct?
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, and, and you know, as you can see on the um, on the newsletter, you know we're getting the drought cleaned up here in iowa, um, and you know, three months ago it uh, in february 2025. You can see there's a lot of yellow on that map, but we're getting it cleaned up. We had rain over the weekend. Um, I tell you, tommy, I drove through northwest iowa over the weekend and I'm telling you what those corn stands look good, that really look good. I never seen a bad feel of corn or beans. Um, so it it seems like to me what I've seen that 2025 is getting off to a good start and I can concur for indiana.
Speaker 1:I drove up from nashville as you know, I'm working a lot in nashville uh with nesvicvik Trading Group and I drove from Nashville all the way up and I was amazed at how good things look. A little bit of they've had a little bit too much rain in some spots. I hear some of the bulls are trying to say that oh the, you know it flooded the replant. We'll see. You know know, things like that don't come out till uh, later, much later, if, if 98 of its plant in decent shape, we're not going to explode higher because the two percent, right, all right, here we go, you got, you got. May, are these all the maize from the prior years?
Speaker 2:yeah, it is all right, so, um, so we're down 2025, the month of May, compared to the past four years, and that's like I was saying, if there's an off time for land auctions, it's in the spring, so we're in that time. Low inventory, low inventory. But the realtors I'm talking to said the phones have been ringing. They're expecting to have a good volume this fall, so hopefully that comes to fruition, but it's just really ultra-low inventory on the market right now.
Speaker 1:Well, I got a couple ideas about that, jim. A few months ago we had that debacle with the trade tariffs and the markets. Volatile Stock markets since then have had a heck of a comeback. But probably if someone had intended to sell land and they watched that Dow Jones and outside markets break as much as they did, they probably backed off and said maybe now is not a good time correct, that's right.
Speaker 2:That's right, Absolutely You're right. And I had somebody I get a lot of phone calls from people doing Google searches. Somebody called me up and they had a lot of money in the stock market. They were just sick because it had went down so much. They said well, I'm sure the land market's diving too. I'm like, no, it's not. As a matter of fact, it's stable. The reason why is because those people that are heavy in the stock market are looking for a stable investment and they're starting to look at land Just being so solid right now, so that volatility in the stock market is also helping to land with land prices, because people want something stable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and it's short-sighted to over my whole career. You can go broke being long the stock market on one of these vicious sell-offs, but over time it goes up. Not always it could go down in uh in one thing, but uh, over time it goes up. It's funny we're doing this in my little squawk box on my trading desk is going off. They said President Trump said this. President Trump said that and he's doing an interview right now. And if you're like someone like me who has access to Bloomberg's and Reuters and all these things on X I pay for several services to read the news you would think the world's ending. You would think it's ending. You would think the world's ending. You would think it's ending. But if you go to a nice small town, a community, go for a ride. America's doing great in my opinion. Jim, what do you think?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, no, that's, that's the way it is. As you talk, as I call realtors and confirm auction results, I always ask you know what's the mood of the crowd? You know, and what I mean by that is, what are they telling you? And you know, after the election, our first year up to now, they're pretty dang optimistic. And I had a banker call me um last week and he was asking me uh, he he said, uh, you know the, the, the chicago federal reserve, said land prices are up, is that what you think? And I'm like, well, I don't know if I'd say I'd go that far, but I'd say they're pretty dang stable, that's for sure. And he was, you know, saying that. You know his, his clients are pretty dang optimistic right now. I was like I said I was surprised to hear, to hear that, but that's interesting.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll take one. We'll take one for the team for sure, we want things to go well. I had a young client. This is just time for a story, but I had a young client get out of the business and he owned some land and he's still worth a lot of money. He just didn't like the price of grain and where the industry he thought was going and he just wanted to change the pace. And he's going to get out. He's going to be worth a lot of money, he's going to sell his few hundred acres and he's going to be just fine. It's not like he had to get out of the industry because his land lost half its value. His land actually is still increasing in the part of Iowa where he is. So no problems there. All right, let's talk about the Land Hero real quick. That's another service you have. Go ahead and talk about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, sure. Land Hero is a website that you can pay a subscription to, and you can access my sale database, and so people that would buy a subscription to this would be other appraisers, farm realtors, bankers anybody that needs access to high quality sale data. Right now, tommy, we have seen a rapid increase in one chance sealed bid auctions, and so what that means is, when you bid on a farm, you've got to write down on a piece of paper what you're willing to pay for it. You got one shot at it, and so you submit that bid, and they'll tell you whether you got it or not.
Speaker 1:So it sounds like an Eminem song. You got one shot. You know you start reading the lyrics there. Explain that again one more time. Is that so? People don't play games it's, it's a.
Speaker 2:It's a very effective tool when, when the market is kind of wishy-washy, um and and it it really started up last year because last year at this time we had a lot of no, no sales at auction and it started up last year and it's really gotten a big increase and there it's still going on. Um, but you know, they'll put a sale, a farm up for auction, and you submit your bid and you give it your best shot. That's a one chance deal bid and so you've got to know what you're willing to pay that day for that farm. And you've got one chance and you might, may or may not get it. If you're the top bid you'll get it.
Speaker 2:But, um, but you know, say like, uh, back when that when the market was kind of declining, we was getting a lot of no sales and and for some reason, whenever farm, no sales, everybody can remember what that last bid. I mean, 20 years from now, somebody that was at that auction can tell you what that, what the last bid was for that farm. So it's a stigma and to do that sealed bid auction if it doesn't work out as well as the realtor thought, then there's not. That stigma's not out there and then they can you know list or whatever that's.
Speaker 1:That's why they're interesting. Yeah, well, thank you for explaining that. All right, I have up on display. We'll pull it up. Uh, just some of the prices that went off and again, uh, full disclosure. May was a slow month in land prices. Any of these catch your eye?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, they're in Mitchell County. That farm sold for $22,000 an acre. That was a very high sale price. That was a sealed bid auction too, and I'll tell you, well, maybe I shouldn't share that. I won't share it, don't share it.
Speaker 1:I don't feel like editing this video.
Speaker 2:I better not but it's a good story. Yeah, yeah, the auctioneer. There was a good story with that.
Speaker 1:I better not better not say that People trust you and a deal's a deal, All right, and uh, with that, let's talk about you had a chance to go to the hog expo, and let's talk about that.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about you had a chance to go to the Hog Expo and let's talk about that. Yeah, that was last week Iowa Pork Expo. What's it actually called? World Pork Expo, world Pork, all right, yeah. So there's people there from all over the world. They're checking things out. It was down at the Iowa State Fairgrounds and I tell you what, tommy, people were pretty dang optimistic there.
Speaker 1:And I tell you what, Tommy?
Speaker 2:people were pretty dang optimistic there. You know I sat in on an economic meeting talking about you know what they're expecting their hog producers are going to be in the block this year and they're expecting to make about $10 a head, which is a lot better, In 2023, you know they lost $35 a head. Oh, that hurts, and last year is just a little bit below break even. So this year they're going to be in the black. So people were just surprisingly optimistic. One thing they did say is you know the feed costs have come down and they expect hog producers to be able to buy corn in low fours or, you know, mid fours, and they expect that in the foreseeable future, unless there's new demand for corn. So that that's a positive for people that's buying corn.
Speaker 2:One thing they did say is those non feed costs are just a sticky high and and they just will not come down and uh, so there's essentially no new building going on in the pork industry because those costs new have just gotten so high. You start buying concrete and steel and wood. Gotta insure it too. Insurance that's. That's one thing I also talked about. A real sticky one.
Speaker 2:Just the insurance on, on, um, those hog facilities that have doubled, wow and um, uh, so, uh, so yeah, it was just surprising how optimistic everybody was. They're coming out with some, you know, pork marketing. The National Pork Producers is trying some new pork marketing techniques and expect it to go well, but they need to try to get more exports. You know just, you can't never stop uh and trying to increase demand. So hopefully mr trump will get some markets opened up and and sell more pork um across the world. Um, I will say one thing, tommy they're they're opening up a are going to build a new sausage plant here, not too far away from des moines. Jbs um bought some land there to put up a new sausage plant there. I'm just not too far from here in Des Moines, so so they're going to make sausage there and it's a lot. I don't know how much, but it's quite a bit. It's pretty stupid. Yeah, yeah, right, right. So so yeah, it was. It was a really good meeting, a lot of people in attendance, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh good, Thanks for sitting down with us, Jim. How do people get a hold of you?
Speaker 2:Well, if you want to sign up for my newsletter, it is a free subscription. It goes out via email once a month. It's got all the land auction results in Iowa and a little bit of narrative I throw in there. Go to wwwiowaappraisalcom.
Speaker 1:And your socials are everywhere. If people just Google the Land Talker, I think they'll find you just fine, don't you think?
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, check out the Land Talker. I post new stuff on there. I do two a month and the next one coming up. I interview two guys and we talk about sale leasebacks. So it'll be a very good show.
Speaker 1:Very good, very good. We'll keep up the good work and I know that when you post videos to your social media you have a really big following, so I'll get this all bundled up and put out there. But it's already June 9th. Pretty much everything you said I agree with, in the sense that corn prices, as far as the hog producer is going to be able to buy uh corn at a good value, that means, although prices are low, jim, they're low because we're on the verge of having a really big crop if this keeps up correct yeah, I tell you what it.
Speaker 2:If we get any kind of rain in july, we're gonna have a big crop. We're gonna have a big crop.
Speaker 1:I should're going to have a big crop, I should get on the phone and start letting my clients know, but I will send them this video and if they get mad I'll say hey, jim said we're going to have a big crop in prices, but at least there's still things we could do to prepare for it. Right, absolutely, absolutely All right. This is the May version of Land Prices, the Land Talker. I'm Tommy Grisafi with AgBull Media, agbull Trading. My friend Jim. He's got a new podcast. You got to pop it up, joe. Pop that up one more time so people can go click on YouTube Land Talker TV on YouTube Until next time. We'll see you next month and everyone have a great day, okay.
