America’s Land Auctioneer
Captivate and celebrate the dynamics of rural America, American Agriculture and inspire and teach others how to live a bold and abundant life in rural America. Background: The intrigue, endless opportunities, and romance of rural life in America have never been more on the minds of Americans. The recent pandemic and civil unrest have Americans of all ages earning for a more peaceful, less hectic life. Even billionaire Bill Gates is now the largest crop landowner in America. As many Americans look for peaceful refuge in the rolling hills and wheat fields they are faced with a richness of opportunities. But where do you begin to look? This show will highlight and feature endless opportunities in every state. What is it that is so unique about rural America, the land and what it produces? How can I live that life? The American Land Auctioneer will tell stories and weave into those stories a place for you to dream, live and enjoy the abundance of all that rural America has to offer.
America’s Land Auctioneer
Land & Auction Insights: Navigating Today's Market
Land auctions are more than just transactions; they reflect the intricate web of technology, value, and market dynamics. This episode highlights our recent website revamp, tailored to improve the auction experience for buyers and sellers alike. We can navigate the changing market together as we probe into regional trends impacting farmland values.
Join us as we explore exciting insights into the land auction market, discussing how enhanced technology plays a significant role in educating buyers and simplifying the buying process. From understanding farmland dynamics to acknowledging the correlation between livestock prices and land values, this episode arms you with the knowledge you need to make informed decisions.
We’ll guide you through recent success stories and sales trends, outlining the ongoing shifts in land pricing by region. As we look to upcoming auctions, we emphasize the importance of having a local agent on your side to help assess property values accurately. Tune in and equip yourself for the next chapter of your land investment journey, whether you’re a seasoned veteran or a newcomer to land transactions. Don’t forget to check out our improved website to stay updated on everything the auction industry has to offer. Let’s embark on this journey together!
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Contact the team at Pifer's
Welcome to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm Steve Linkbroke for Piper's Auction Realty and we're glad you could join us today. Don't forget you can catch all our past episodes by visiting Piper's website. My co-host today is Andy Murnock and I want to talk about our website. We did a little revamp on it and Andy and I have been getting feedback from our listeners and from our clients and from our customers, and hopefully these last changes that we've made on our website will be well received, because the first version that we put out there was a little bit of challenges and it reminded me that if you go to our website, there's actually a podcast tab that you can go on and click and listen to past episodes. Is that right, andy?
Speaker 3:Yep, absolutely, and it's kind of nice. We've always tried to treat our website as one of the key resources, especially in the land and equipment auction business around the countryside. We kind of, you know, take a lot of pride in this and you know, the technology process is always a little painstaking, right, you know, because we're not graphic designers or we're not web designers by trade. But we certainly, you know, know what we want to provide, or the information that we want to provide to our listeners, to our buyers, to our sellers, and how we want to showcase all of our properties. We take a lot of pride in that and I think we finally got a product that we're extremely proud of. So, if you haven't already been on to Piferscom, make sure you take some time. You know, every evening if you get a chance, and there's dozens of land and equipment auctions coming up here this spring.
Speaker 3:I'm going to say, steve, that this spring looks like it's as rampant as we've ever seen. We have as many auctions booked to date than we've ever had this time of year, and it's really exciting. But now we have a website where you guys have the ability to go in there and check everything out. It's, all you know, really symbiotic. Every property is displayed the same, so you all have, you know, the same information. So Get used to how the new layout is. I think you're really going to like it. The scrolling options are there, the mapping option is tremendous and, of course, you can always go back into our completed auction sales and see what results are. You know, across the countryside.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yep, and you know you hit the nail on the head with how, when we talk, interact with our customers and our clients, and we direct them there because they can see the maps, they can see the pictures, they can customers and our clients, and we direct them there because they can see the maps, they can see the pictures, they can see everything that we're talking about. Um, cause when you verbalize that over a phone, over over the phone, call it, just they just don't get it and so, um, it's really reduced the number of phone calls that I get on a weekly basis because clients can go in there and look at what we are selling, what we are offering and how we are offering that, and 90% of the questions are answered and and so that's that's been, that's been really good. And and and Pifers, of course, is a sponsor of our show and I want to thank Pifers Auction and Realty and Pifers Land Management. Pifers team of equipment and land auctioneers and real estate agents and land managers will give you a free consultation on selling your land equipment, managing your farmland. Nobody does it better than the team at pyfers.
Speaker 2:Perfect, right on time with uh, with, with talking about the website, and then there are sponsors as well too, but uh, um, you know, as as as we want to highlight our our website or revamp of our website. Um, you mentioned completed sales and past sales, and I think when you and I are hosting this show, we want to spend some time and talk about some of the sales, past success and where the results were on this and give our listeners kind of a feel where the landmark it is, because we're here at the beginning of March now and so the first quarter is pretty much over and we get asked every day what are you seeing, what's happening on that? So let's go through some of these land sales, land results and see if we can get some trends out to our listeners.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I mean just to kind of preface that, what would you say? The trend right now is in farmland in the different quadrants of North Dakota Northwest, southwest, northeast, southeast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that might take me a good half hour to answer that in complete detail.
Speaker 2:But overall, when you get to the eastern part of the state, people are really keying into good loamy soils. In western Minnesota, eastern North Dakota, If you get the heavy wet soil or alkalized soil, that just does not seem to be well received, you just don't have the buyers that you do when it's loamy soils, and when it's loamy soils I don't know if there has we just seem to keep topping the market and the buyers show up in droves and you have the tenants and you have the neighbors and you have investors and all of the alike that are interested in that type of land. Now, when you get out of the valley and you start to get in the prairie pothole region, there is a really interesting dynamic too. It seems like when we have sales like we had last fall the Darren Peterson that we've highlighted on this show before had, I mean, we topped out the market there too. We had over $9,000 per acre land on that sale and then land just down the road from it maybe only topped out at $3,000 an acre.
Speaker 3:Is that the Pembina County ground?
Speaker 2:No, that one was down near Edgley and Lemoore in Lemoore County. Yeah, that's right, yep was down in um.
Speaker 3:It was down near, near edgely and lamar and lamar county, yep, um. But back to what you're talking about earlier with your, your heavier soils and maybe more prone to be uh, you know, into, you know, and we have some agricultural land that's in the floodplain right. There's always that possibility. We had that land auction, I believe is january 27th up up in penman county and there was a one track to land, really nice soils, 80 pi soil index and and for the the average on the average onlooker taking a peek at this ground, it sold for $3,000 an acre, which was a surprise to probably a lot of out-of-area investors that are looking at this ground. However, the same day, same breath auction, you know, just a few minutes prior to that, we topped out at $11,000 an acre on some ground, $11,550 an acre on some land within 10 miles of the same property, similar soil profile, location, just a little bit different, less prone to having maybe some disaster programs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that sale right. There really was a summary of what I think was happening in the valley. So the $3,000 per acre land was heavier soils, it was right up against the Red River itself. It was in the valley. It was $3,000 per acre land was heavier soils, it was right up against the Red River, the Red River itself. It was in the valley. It was east of the interstate. Some of it was even on the Minnesota side and that is flood prone.
Speaker 2:And I talked to some of the producers and growers in that area and they would tell me stories about when they did have sugar beets in some of that heavier ground and it rained. They had to pull their semi trucks three miles to get it on a good road, and so all of that makes a difference. And when you're looking at just a map and you're not asking those questions to your sales agent, you may not understand that. And so when you see those results it looks low. But then you have the challenges that those growers and producers have on that land versus the other land that sold for $11,500.
Speaker 2:Now that is not only good land in itself, but it also is able to grow sugar beets and dry land potatoes on it. Well, now you have these high yielding or high economic producing crops that you can grow on that. Add that into the rotation and now you have a whole different economic on those and so that $10,000, $11,000 is achievable on that. And it's really important that you work with a agent, with a real estate person, that understands that, because you could leave a lot of money on the table If you just looked at those $3,000 acre sales and you thought that that's what yours was worth, or vice versa. You'd be really disappointed if you thought yours was worth $10,000 to $11,000 and it's really only worth $3,000 to $4,000.
Speaker 3:And that's kind of why I brought that specific sale up, just to give kind of a highlight, because you could be across the road and have a different dynamic in the cropland. So, from an investor standpoint, make sure that you're contacting a Piper's representative to make sure that you got boots on the ground. Inside, information is the you know what this market should be on on each particular tract of land that you're looking at and then, on the on the backside of it, realize what the benefits are of some of the other ground and why it's becoming more valuable on a daily basis and why we continue to see that type of land profile. I'm going to call that trend steadied up.
Speaker 2:Steadyed up Yep, exactly, exactly, so you know. And then, so that was that was. That was January 27th. Prior to that, january 23rd, we had a sale in Kidder County, the central part of the state, and that sale price, if you look at our completed sales, says $725 an acre. Yep, and when you hear that you're like $725 an acre, that can't be right. Well, when you click on the maps and you look at it and half to three quarters of it is actually water, is part of a lake, and now you start to break that down what that price per acre was, per dry land, usable acre, which is hay land, Most of that's hay land in that area. Now it starts to make sense. Now that number starts to make sense and that's still a sizable investment for somebody to for for, for the number of acres and the number of output that you can get on that.
Speaker 3:And that shows a part of the different math that's used for, for, for not only those of us in Pipers who are selling the ground we offered on a deeded acre right. And that's what we're offering. We're offering you what the legal description is of that property. So as a buyer you must try to do your own diligence. But again, you can always ask a professional and figure out how to start calculating that backwards and figure out you know what's the price per usable acre and then revert it back to the deeded acre, because that's what you're going to be bidding on. You want to make sure that your key points are in check.
Speaker 2:That's a great, great point. So when I do get to see our bidders come in person, they have some of them have really elaborate spreadsheets. Some are pretty simple. They're just breaking it down for the dollar per deeded acre versus a dollar per tillable acre. But some of them have even a more, a much more elaborate spreadsheet that they're working on and it's it's.
Speaker 2:It's funny you can see it in their eyes when sometimes our sale prices go right off their spreadsheet. You know they, they, they topped it out at a certain number and and we, we blew past that and and they know that they're not going to bid anymore. But that is also some of the feedback I've been getting, why some people like to participate on our sales online and so they can sit at home with their computer and watch us and bid, but yet have their spreadsheets all spread out and not, you know, nobody can see them because they're at home or at their office and and bid that way, and that's been, that's been a nice, nice opportunity. So what's going on in the North? You've been going to a lot of the Northwest part of the part of the state.
Speaker 3:You're right, we've been busy the you know the January February sales that we saw in Divide County, in Ward County, in Botnell County, you know, across the northern tier of North Dakota it's just been a really solid, steady market. And Ward County specifically, or Botnell County, actually, we sold some land just north of the Air Force Base and it was right at a section of ground scattered throughout four different quarters and basically it came out to $4,000 per tillable acre and basically it came out to $4,000 per tillable acre. You know, obviously we had a couple properties that had some crick beds going through it. The market has been steady to strong and I think it's just been absolutely tremendous as to what we're seeing that market do.
Speaker 2:Well, I want to get into some more detail on that, but we're getting close to our first segment here and so, before we close out, I want to again thank Pfeiffer's Auction and Realty and Pfeiffer's Land Management. Pfeiffer's team of land and equipment auctioneers, real estate agents and land managers. We'll give you a free consultation on selling your land and equipment and managing your farmland. Nobody does it better than the team of Pfeiffer's. When it comes to selling your land and equipment or managing your farmland, stick with us. I'll be talking with Andy a little bit more about land values for Alta State in our second segment.
Speaker 1:We'll be right back $1,000, $50,000, where's $1,750 here now Do so. Where's $1,750? Here now $1,000, $1,000, where's $1,750? $1,750, where's $1,500, $1,750? Here, now do how many.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm Steve Linkbroke for Pfeiffer's Auction Realty. We're glad you could join us today. Don't forget you can catch up on all our past episodes by visiting Pfeiffer's website, that's wwwpfeifferscom, and clicking on America's Land Auctioneer tab or the podcast tab up in the upper right. We want to thank our sponsors, pfeiffer's Auction Realty and Pfeiffer's Land Management. Pfeiffer's Team of Land and Equipment Auctioneers, real estate agents and land managers will give you a free consultation on selling your land and equipment or managing your farmland. Nobody does it better than the team at Piefers when it comes to selling your land and equipment or managing your farmland. All right, when we close out the last segment.
Speaker 2:There, we were talking about the Northwest Quadrant of North Dakota and, andy, I cut you off a little bit. You were talking about some of the sales. I remember the first times that I spent time up in Northwest North Dakota. Well, I actually spent time, a lot of time, up in Northwest North Dakota when I was a kid and I've told this story many times and sometimes on air that I didn't understand, coming from Western Minnesota, when I got out to Western North Dakota, why all the fields weren't planted. I did not understand summer fallow. I just thought that these farmers were were had too much land to farm or just didn't understand what was going on, didn't understand fertilizer or what have you, and summer fallow. So it took me a little bit of time throughout my uh, my college years and and uh, it costs all this ground.
Speaker 3:Where's the dirt that you know? What am I going to do in the summertime if I don't have a plow or a disc to run over the summer fallow?
Speaker 3:ground to get rid of the weeds. But back in the 80s and early 90s when you started seeing the majority of the strip farming come out and go straight into no-till, yeah, our operation which which we still farm today we were, we were basically converting everything to no-till in the in the mid to late 90s, 80s and so 85 to 88, 89, it was when. When we started. Uh was when we started to see a lot of no-till corn and there wasn't a lot of guys in Bowman County back in the day planting corn Primarily for silage. It wasn't a grain crop for us back then. But when we got into the mid-90s and he started seeing some different varieties, the hybrids really started changing the the dynamics of how land was used here in the western side of the state. So can't quite keep up with uh cass county, but but uh, we can.
Speaker 2:We can certainly raise some corn at the best of them I always find it interesting because when some of those maps they'll have those strips still in the fsa board, field borders will still be on those fsa maps and I'll get that ass. I'm like, why is there so many strips on there? Well, you know, you just you just mentioned that the strip strip type farming on that, where they would leave, leave some fallow or or actually, or do or do complimentary crops that are next to each other for for soil moisture and stuff, but yeah, this no-till, this equipment that they've, that they have in the fertilizer, and all of that is just amazing. And and you know, you and I are I are well, you're, you're a lot younger than I am, but uh, you know, we, over the course of farming we've only had a small window on it and the advances that they've made on that during that small window that we've been around watching this is incredible.
Speaker 3:So when the chemical management anymore is is fun to be around. The technology that's being brought into the into the game with uh john deere's new sea and spray technology, where you can basically be spraying multiple different batches of chemical at the same time, or you can be spraying fungicide as a full broadcast over a field and you've got another mapping system that if it spots a weed, it'll spray that weed across 120 foot booms at 14 miles an hour.
Speaker 2:That's incredible.
Speaker 3:The technology is getting wild and we're starting to see that on the equipment side of pipers and we're selling a lot of equipment out there there's there's so many different varieties, kind of like what we're talking about with land so many different varieties. There's so many different, uh, characteristics of a piece of equipment that dictates the value. Yeah, and that's what we're looking at. As far as the land and like we were talking about going across the northern tier of the state, when we basically left the K-Fire Egg Show, we had a really nice sale. We'll touch on that here in a little bit. At the K-Fire Egg Show we actually closed out an online-only sale 1,200 acres or sorry, 1,900 acres down in Grant and Sioux County.
Speaker 3:But the following day we went up to Botanil and Minot and sold some Botanil County land and that stuff was really really well. It was and that stuff was really really well. Well, it was a well-attended sale. We had four quarters land up there, averaged between well, basically averaged $3,000 an acre per deeded acre. But there was a creek, a little deep creek, that basically went through all three of the four parcels and we calculated right at $4,000 per acre tillable acre and that's pretty much the math that we've been utilizing up there for a few months. So I wouldn't say that that, uh, that that market has climbed a lot, but really it climbed a lot from february last year to october of 24 right, and so that market's really maintaining to be steady and I believe if we uh, you know, get a little bit closer to highway d3, maybe a little bit closer to minot, starting getting this into some of the heavier soils up in that part of the world, then you'll start seeing those values exceed that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I talk about over the course of two years. There was a year in North Dakota the overall average went up 23% and the next year it went up 25%, and so over those two years you had a 48% increase. Now that was statewide. Some pockets are going to be a little bit less than that, some pockets are going to be a little bit less than that, some pockets are going to be a little bit higher than that. But when you do that increase in such a short period of time, and then we have sales that are, you know, maybe five or 10% higher or lower than that, I don't know if you can consider that a trend yet. I mean, because you need multiple sales to get an average right, and so is is is land down, is is land up. Well, that's where you really have to dive into that land and and really analyze it and and figure out the dynamics on some of that.
Speaker 3:And being part of these communities is a big deal too. I mean we have to have the ability to, to dissect the, you know, having boots on the ground and feel, you know, feel the pulse of the actual producers and the investors that are looking at specific markets. And I think here this spring has given us an eyes wide, open approach to what's coming.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:So and then you know basically that same area, to kind of work our way down the down, the Northern tier of North Dakota, divide County, has had some tremendous sales in the past six months.
Speaker 3:But you know, specifically here in the, in the last month and a half we saw some crop land up there top out at $36.75 per deeded acre, a little over $4,000 per tillable up there as well. And it wasn't that long ago, steve, we were selling a lot of ground in Divide County and Burke County in that neck of the woods, really kind of topping out in that $2,100, $2,200 an acre range. And all of a sudden, three years later, four years later, we've doubled it an acre range. And all of a sudden, three years later, four years later, we've doubled it. And it's a tremendous market up there and there's a lot of really proactive and progressive operators up there that really maintain a good land market.
Speaker 2:So do you think in that area, because oil has come in a big way over the last 10 years, 15 years, and do you think that that has an influence on land prices?
Speaker 3:I think you can look all the way down the line from Divide County, part of Burke County, of course, mount Trail and Williams County and into Dunn Stark, golden Valley, billings County, right, there's obviously a tremendous impact that's happened within those communities. I believe that the excess disposable income in there definitely plays a factor on the, on the mentality as to whether or not producers or or individual investors up there have the ability to bid, but I don't think that it's the deciding factor as to why land values have have gone up. You know it's following the same trends as the rest of the, as the rest of the region, the rest of the upper Midwest. We've seen land values increase consistently over time. Are there situations where two neighbors get into it and there may be a little bit more disposable income between two parties at one time? Absolutely, we have seen that.
Speaker 3:You've seen that. We've seen it for probably seven or eight years now, basically almost 10 years. 2014 was probably where we first started seeing some of that, but now even some of those excess values that happened in 2015 to 17 or 18, you know the market caught, the market caught those, you know, increases in values just organically. So I, yeah, I believe it adds a positive impact or it's a positive impact to those communities, but I don't believe it's the deciding factor well, and you touched on a lot of things there, because there obviously there's oil companies and oil execs and such.
Speaker 2:They're not major players in the land market. It is still producers and farmers. And then you have some producers that have wells on there or oil production being done on their land that they maybe, like you said, have a little bit more disposable income. But it seems like a majority of our sales is still the fundamentals of farming and what it can produce and what it can do. You know, and it maybe is less of a concern interest rates because there are cash buyers, and that you can see in certain regions and certain segments that they don't care that interest rates have doubled over this time period because they are cash buyers. And then but and it's easier when you don't have to ask permission to buy land when you come to an auction you don't have to ask permission. But you know you touched on a lot of things and we don't know what's going on in everybody's world, we don't know when they're getting a lot of disposable income coming in, and so in those situations it's best to have a competitive auction situation and competitive bidding. So we're already done with our second segment and I'm going to ask Andy to stick around for the third segment and fourth segment. And before we go, I want to just thank Piper's auction and realty, as our sponsors stick around listeners for our third segment.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm Steve Link, broker for Pifers Auction Realty. We're glad you could join us today. Don't forget you can catch up on all our past episodes by visiting pifers at piferscom and clicking on the podcast tab. And before we get into the rest of this segment, I want to thank Pifers Auction and Realty and Pifers Land Management. Pifers team of land and equipment auctioneers, real estate agents and land managers will give you a free consultation on selling your land and equipment and managing your farmland. Nobody does it better than the team at Pifers when it comes to selling your land and equipment or managing your farmland.
Speaker 2:All right, andy, we have circled our way around the east side, gone up to the north side, we're getting to the west side and now we're getting into your home country, getting into our turf, yep, your turf. For those listeners that have not been down to Bowman Um, for those listeners that have not been down to Bowman um, our facility is just North of town. Um, right on highway 85. Um many people that I correspond with on the East side or all over the countryside have driven by it. They, they recognize it, andy and Jim and Allie and John and the whole team at Pfeiffer's Did I miss anybody? They do such a nice job at this, at this facility, and handling all the sales all the way into South Dakota, montana, western, western North Dakota, and they come out to the East side and help us out a lot. So thank you, thank you for that, andy.
Speaker 3:We're the ones that get to drive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know, to get into the Southwest side of the state, it's. This has been a really dynamic. You know spring season already and we had a lot of positive feedback from last year's auction sales. You know, all the way from the early 2024 to the year's end, when we do our Western Dakota land auctions in October every year, which I think this year, steve, I think this is the 20th. Is it 20th?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's the 20th already.
Speaker 3:So I think this is the 20th. Is it 20th? Yeah, I think it's the 20th already. So the 20th Western Dakota Land Auctions. It will hold the second week of October Each and every year. Last year, we sold almost 10,000 acres in that four-day period. So from the optimism that carried from there through the holiday season into 2025, a lot has happened.
Speaker 2:Right A lot's happened.
Speaker 3:I mean, we're looking at, you know, historic highs on the cattle markets and for a couple of years it's been that way and we've always said on the livestock side that the first year of a good run of the commodity markets for the livestock producers is really a recovery year, you know. So you can go a decade of average to marginally profitable values and you got to survive that decade and that was the cattle producers got into the end of 2022, worked into 2023 and four they were became profitable years and I believe the excess disposable income caused by it into in towards the end of 2024 and what we saw here this week at the bowman sale there was 4 000 head of calves that sold on tuesday, really top in the market, and the bread heifers that we've been seeing across the countryside and the bull sales. The cattle market is as dynamic as we've ever seen and Danesha the best market we've seen since 2014. So that is actually starting to play a little bit of a key factor, key role on grassland values Becoming a key factor. I wish we had dwight in here to kind of corroborate this story, but it's kind of a key factor as well. On on lease rates, yeah, we're starting to see a lot of a little bit of dynamic change there as well. Yeah, um, we close out. We talked about this earlier.
Speaker 3:Just a minute ago, um february 12th, we closed out a 1900 acre auction in grant and sue counties. While we were at the k-fire ag show, we did a seminar seminar upstairs. We do that every year. So if you're in the area in Bismarck, that second week of February we always do a couple of seminars there for everybody to get an update on what we're doing, what we're seeing for land, land equipment and, of course, real estate lease rates across the upper Midwest. And that same day we closed out a 1,900-acre sale. It was online only Tremendous, tremendous property there in Grant and Sioux County Topped out $2,000 an acre on some cropland. But we also had a lot of freshly broke grassland that has been converted back into either back into cropland or introduced a few more acres into cropland, and a lot of that was at $1,600, $1,600, $1, 16, 1700 an acre.
Speaker 2:well, so really, really saw an increase in value in that property over the last three to five years when we started selling land in that area specifically, there was land sales that were down at the 300 an acre.
Speaker 2:You know, not that many years ago right, and so it went from three to five and it went to six to seven and nobody knew how that was going to work. You know, since then it's doubled and there again you got to contribute a lot of that to those producers on how they can make that work and how they can get everything out of that land. What's the attitude out there? Are these cattle prices going to stay this way for for a while?
Speaker 3:yeah, you know, the, the cattle industry really is banking on a uh, you know, on your standard. You know econ 101 philosophy, right, supply versus demand. Yep, and demand is always high in in beef, I'll tell you. For, you know, for for my entire lifetime and in what I foresee for the rest of my lifetime and kids lifetime, beef is still a luxury item. Yep, you know, beef is the luxury item.
Speaker 3:But I had a guy the other day. He's like beef could go up another $10 a pound and you're affected less by that than you are by gasoline going up a quarter. And the main reason he says the average beef consumer in America consumes 52 pounds of beef a year. So if it goes up $10 a pound, your overall consumption or excess uh cost for your, you know, per person, per family, is five hundred dollars. So it's really not that massive of a of a of a difference. But it is hard to go and buy a thirty dollar steak at the store when your pork chop is worth 275 yeah, and the, obviously the, the big, uh, the big item there is is eggs right now that everybody's talking about.
Speaker 2:we don't want to get political at all, but I also also fire back. I'm like you know, you can buy a carton of eggs. How many meals do you get out of that? And that's such good protein and. And then you go to wherever a coffee shop and you're all right spending four or five bucks on a, on a cup of coffee, on a latte, and and, and that makes you happy and that's fine. But I think that eggs and beef and such, I'm still going to buy it, I'm still going to consume it.
Speaker 3:And obviously, the higher it gets, the more conscious the US consumer is of it. And that's where we start to see the natural markets fluctuate. You've got substitute products. You can go buy chicken, you can go buy pork, but I still firmly believe that we'll always have demand for for beef You're always going to have. Mcdonald's is still going to sell burgers, restaurants are still going to sell, you know, steaks and burgers and and a different variety, uh, you know Philly cheese steak sandwiches, whatever the case may be, but beef is still the luxury item that everybody goes after and with that, with that market being as strong as it is right now.
Speaker 3:And of course, we live in cattle country, this western North Dakota. Forget about the rest of the US. This is where the good cattle come from, right, I mean, we're pretty proud of them. Of course, montana's right across the line there and we won't discount them at all. But the northern tier cattle are a highly demanded product and they always have been, and it's because of the hardy cattle and the good genetics that we've focused on and really a lack of dynamics of genetics. You know, you really have a smaller pool of genetics up here, because you're not, we're not dealing with brahma cattle or you know eared cattle or boss indica's cattle that you'll find on texas and florida so they can handle the heat. We're looking at good hearty um, you know product up here and that's really again. We're kind of getting off subject a little bit, but I I'm pretty proud of the beef industry and what these guys are dealing with.
Speaker 3:Finally and we've got a lot of guys that work their tail off and now they're reaping the benefit of that I do believe that there's some challenges coming up in the beef market. I believe that guys are going to have to be conscientious because as a market goes up, there's always the ability for the market to come down and it's not an overnight marketable product. It's not an overnight marketable product. You know, if you're going to buy bread heifers, by the time you calve out that bread heifer and raise that calve, you're looking at two years to profitability. Well, a lot can happen in a market in two years, yep. So you want to be careful about buying $3,500 bread heifers or $4,000 bread heifers if you're not in it for the long run. Yep, if it's a short-term, there could be some market swings that affect bottom line.
Speaker 2:I'm really curious. I have 282 acres up in Eddy County that we are going to sell by auction here coming up and that property it was actually tillable land that got converted to grass and it's been in CRP before that. Well, now the nice fence has been put up, there's cross-fencing, there's a well, there's everything that a producer wants Easy to manage. You can go up there, you can drop your cattle, you can put them in different paddocks if you want and rotate them, and I think that that's what cattle producers are keying into now, versus before.
Speaker 2:It was Obviously that's a stocking rate deal and stocking rate has always been a key component. But I really think they're keying into that, those dynamics, versus if there was a grassland easement on it or not. Now this one doesn't have any grassland easements on it and so if the cattle market does turn bad and you do want to convert it back into cropland, there's going to be some. There's going to be some work to be done on it, but that's actually an option. Or you can buy an easement on it and pay down your debt on it if you took debt on it. So I'm really curious of where that's going to top off, because to me that one checks all the boxes for a producer.
Speaker 3:You know, on the western side of the state we probably don't have that type of dynamic because the land out here that is in grass probably is meant to be in grass grass. There's some certain exceptions to the rule. But you know what? What I was getting kind of back to that uh, that week was when we traveled from bismarck to botanical county and then that same same afternoon we went down to uh, dunn county and had a tremendous sale um, in that part of the world for the houston family. It was, uh, you know, on february 13th, sold 1273 acres and I thought that that market showed as much strength as any sale that we'd had thus far this year. For at least, you know, on our side, um, acre to acre it was. It was a strong of a sales.
Speaker 3:We've been a part of cropland at 2,800. Uh, we sold one half section land was half cropland, half grassland 2,300. And then a section of grass, essentially grassland. There was 40 acres of cropland in the northwest corner of that section. That was $2,050 an acre, but primarily grass, and so that extra dynamic that we're seeing. Of course that's Dunn County. We do have some other dynamics in that area where we talked about a little earlier with some oil revenue and disposable income. But in the whole grand scheme of things, it's the strength of the of the livestock market that's. That's driving that.
Speaker 2:Yep. And then the buyers, the buyers that you typically been working with on that type of uh, um, that type of property has they? Have they been local or they've been out of the area?
Speaker 3:Most of them are local and I think the main reason there is the increase in value of the, of the, of the actual product or the actual land uh isn't compensated by the return on investment. So if I'm an outside producer, the return on investment is pretty much standard or it's pretty well set. I know there's some increases in some land rents that we're starting to see, but it's not following the same trend line of how much increase we've seen in land values. All right.
Speaker 2:Well, andy, you're going to stick around for that last segment for us? Yeah, absolutely All right. We got lots more to cover here. Hopefully we can get it all done. But before we close out here, I want to again thank Pfeiffer's Auction Realty and Pfeiffer's Land Management. Pfeiffer's team of land and equipment auctioneers, real estate agents and land managers will give you a free consultation on selling your land and equipment and managing your farmland. Nobody does it better than the team at Piper's when it comes to selling your land and equipment or managing your managing your farmland. Stick with us for our last segment.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm Steve Link, broker for Pfeiffer's Auction and Realty. We are glad you could join us today. And don't forget, you can catch up on all our past episodes by going to pfeifferscom and clicking on the podcast tab. And before we get into today's show, again I want to thank Pfeiffer's Auction and Realty and Pfeiffer's Land Management. Pfeiffer's team of land and equipment auctioneers, real estate agents and land managers will give you a free consultation on selling your land and equipment and managing your farmland. Nobody does it better than the team at Pfeiffer's selling your land and equipment or managing your farmland. All right, andy, we've been talking all over the states of North Dakota, all over the areas of North Dakota. What are you seeing? Are you seeing some trends in other states?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, we track with our office down there in Sioux Falls and Worthing, South Dakota. We do a lot of tracking of the Nebraska and the Iowa land auctions and really kind of. There's always a lot of rumors about Iowa, right. I mean, oh my gosh, did you hear they sold over $35,000 an acre. They sold over $25,000 an acre. They set a new record, you know, and there's always records to be broke, right. There's a lot of dynamics that happen in each of those sales, kind of what we talked about. Well, go back to you on that. What's the record in North Dakota?
Speaker 3:The record in North Dakota, I believe, is still that well, $17,500, $18,000 an acre, $17,500 per tillable, but it was about $18,200 per tillable off of that sale that we conducted about a year ago, yep, yep. And so we start seeing some of those dynamics. And that's non-developable land. I mean that land didn't have any dynamics of development, and so those are the type of sales that we like to track too. And here recently in February, we saw some land auctions down in Sioux County, iowa. There was 300 acres tillable, or 300 acres with 188 acres tillable Come up to $9,600 per deeded acre, $15,000 per tillable, and so you're starting to see a lot of that.
Speaker 3:$12,000 to $16,000 in acre ground from Sioux City all the way, basically to Sioux Falls and starting to track a lot of that. Some of it will trickle into that Nebraska side, but there's some lighter soils there Really kind of comes down to water. You know, is there water rights that are part of that, and those irrigated dynamics always come into play too. So a lot of different factors in that part of the world. There's a difference in the market east of I-29 than there is west of I-29. Right, and that follows all the way from the Nebraska line or from Kansas City all the way to Canada, right, you see that all the way through our entire operating region.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, and you know I was down in Watertown and in that region and looking at some sales there and there our sale topped out. One of the parcels topped out at 8,100 an acre and that was really a strong, solid sale. And then a couple of parcels one was only 60 acres out of the parcel out of the 130 acres was tillable. Well, that was down to 4,200 an acre, you know. And so that again a little bit different dynamic. There was a sale up the road that topped out at $13,000 an acre. But the dynamics there, there was a wind turbine on it and so there was that income that the buyer is going to get to receive. Another dynamic too I think one of the heirs was interested in bidding on it, and so you have that dynamic. So I don't know all the ins and outs on that sale, but if you just hear a number and don't break it down and don't understand what's going on, you may not have the full story, especially when it comes to energy impact.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know energy impact's a big deal. There's a new wind farm just entering Bowman County as we speak. The equipment's starting to move in yesterday and you know that is going to have an impact on some ground the existing towers. There's math, there's math equations that you can actually factor now as to how much it impacts either positively or negatively, and that's where it really comes into play. Give us a call. You know we can walk you through that process or walk you through the expectations of that.
Speaker 2:When I remember that Montana sale that we had, there was some easements on there that are pre-signed and some of the bidders and buyers did not like those contracts that they signed and you know that was a while ago, but they just did not want to buy that land.
Speaker 3:It stopped the bidding.
Speaker 2:It stopped the bidding, without a doubt.
Speaker 3:And there are good and there are bad energy contracts out there. Yep, you know they're only as good as the people that are making the offers or the easement riders, and you got to be careful there. So if you're being approached by an energy company whether it's wind or solar or oil or coal or whatever the dynamic may be if you're being approached by those companies, make sure you make educated decisions. They're not just going to give you this one-time offer and walk away. You need to do your homework, visit with the neighbors. It's okay to let the neighbors know that you've been approached. I think it's very important that open communication with the other people that it's going to impact. It's not only good for you, it's not good for your neighbors, it's good for the whole community who's going to be impacted by it. So develop a coalition Exactly and get everybody in the same playing field.
Speaker 2:I think that's a great, great, great advice out there, so we are running short on time, but I want to make sure our listeners know what's coming up with. A lot of the sales that we have in the region and just about everybody that's listening to us over the airways should have something in their area and or, if it's a machinery sale, they can bid online and make arrangements for it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, all of our sales you can bid online Piferscom. You can have a direct link. Every sale individually has a direct link within that sale. Feel free to click on it. You can see what's for sale and how to bid online. All of the upcoming land auctions are at Piferscom. You can click on the auction tab. It gives you all of our entire upcoming schedule. You can click on the land auctions tab, which identifies just the land auctions. There's a great mapping system on there, like we just talked about. And, of course, when you click into the equipment side it's going to take you back to our inventory page where we host all of our online bidding and that's where all of the day-to-day and real-time updates happen as we progress through all of these sales.
Speaker 3:But, steve, we are getting into heavy equipment season. I mean this is going to be as wild of a spring as we've seen in a long time. Two to three sales a week, really, starting here in a couple of weeks when we go down to Sioux Falls, south Dakota, or down to our Worthing facility and that's going to be on March 11th. Tremendous sale lined up there. Lots of good tillage equipment, lots of good tractors right at our new facility down there on I-29 south of Sioux Falls. Right after that we're going to be back here for what we always consider is one of our strongest sales of the year and that's our Western Dakota Spring Equipment Auction here, the Spring 25 sale. That's March 27th, right here in Bowman. We're getting equipment's been actually since we've been sitting here. We're actually broadcasting out of Bowman today, so it's fantastic to have Steve Link join us here at our regional office in Bowman, north Dakota. But we've been, there's been equipment coming in throughout the entire time that we've been visiting here today. But lots of good equipment coming in for that sale Some 9R tractors and some sprayers and some really nice units for that sale. A lot of good semis this year too, right, yep, really a sale that's been on the books for a while.
Speaker 3:But April 10th we're going to get into Carrington, north Dakota, for the Harmon Farm Retirement Auction and where we've got a really nice Fent tractor and all the support equipment to go with it. But that sale there specifically, steve, all of the equipment has been extremely, extremely well taken care of. Immediately after that sale we've got our Spring Dakota Central Dakota Equipment Auction. That's at our Pfeiffer's Auction Center of North America in Steele, north Dakota. That's still a Sill building. You have the ability to get your equipment into that one right on I-94. All of the some of the best display of equipment you can find. You know that interstate exposure is priceless and that'll be our final regional live equipment auction here as we enter into the rest of the retirement sales here for the spring. But those are our three facilities in Worthing, bowman and Steele, and then it looks like here by the end of 2025, we're going to have an Eastern Eastern facility too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're working on some exciting stuff and I can't wait to announce that over the airwaves on what we're got going.
Speaker 2:I had to get the wind from the wind before Yep, yep, we are we're working on it and and it's going to be fun to fun to tell everybody what we have going on. You know going in the eastern part of north dakota. So don't forget all the land auctions that are coming up. We got a half section in stutsman county. We got a quarter in norman county, we got 100 acres in otter tail county. That 282 acres of pasture in eddie county is coming up. That closes out march 6th. So that's coming up pretty fast. Some fallon county farmland, brown county, minnesota I mean that's fallon county mont Montana to Brown County, minnesota. That's a that's a heck of a drive right there.
Speaker 3:And it's going to be exciting to see what that lease auction does in Fallon County. It's a really nice property right on highway 12. Young lady's got the got a really nice piece of ground there that you know has has some great potential in an in an area where we don't have a lot of lease auctions. We've sold a lot of land in that particular part of the world but we're going to see what the new lease market is.
Speaker 2:And then the 1,900 acres that we have in Clay County. My goodness, the 1,900 acre and it's pretty much all adjoining each other. It's not far outside of Moorhead, it's near Glendon. That is some top-notch land that is really really well taken care of and a buyer is going to have a wonderful opportunity.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me on today, Steve.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Andy, I appreciate it. Join us again every week Saturday mornings and or in your podcast. Thank you, Andy.
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