September 30, 2025 • 9 mins
We track Iowa’s move from a quiet August into a real selling season, where auction volume doubles and pricing barely flinches despite cheaper corn and higher costs. We dig into why equity-rich owners keep the floor firm, who’s under pressure, and how stimulus chatter could ripple through rents and bids.
• August to September shift in auction volume
• How more acres “test” price stability
• Mitchell County sale at $24,400 per acre
• Minimal year-to-date price decline despite lower corn
• Drivers of listings: divorce and financial stress
• Why stress volumes remain small and get absorbed
• 84% of Iowa farmland with no debt
• The haves vs have-nots among operators
• Cash rents holding steady against rising inputs
• Potential effects of stimulus and a federal shutdown
• How to access Land Talker Monthly and Land Hero
• Land Talker TV interviews and upcoming content
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Thank you, Tommy G
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:13):
Well, how are we doing, everyone?
Tom Grassofi Ag Bull Podcast, AgBull Trading.
We got the uh land talker onhere today, and we haven't met
with the Land Talker for a fewmonths.
Summertime's probably quiet forland prices, and we know
commodity prices have been goingsideways, but let's see what uh
the one and only the landtalker.
How are you doing, Jim?
Good, Tommy.
(00:33):
How are you doing today?
I'm doing well.
Well, I skipped you last monthand not on purpose.
I was just a little busy, butwe'll get back on track.
There's nobody in the businessdoing a finer job than what
you're doing with this here,Land Talker Monthly.
And I think people can uhsubscribe to it for free,
correct?
SPEAKER_00 (00:49):
Absolutely.
That's a free subscription.
I keep track of all the landauctions in Iowa, and all you
have to do is go to our websitewww.ioappraisal.com and sign up
for that.
It's a monthly newsletter thatis free subscription.
It goes out first business dayof the month via email.
So well, people like free stuff.
(01:11):
Yeah, it you know, I just putthe whatever happened as far as
land auctions go in that in atable, and then whatever uh I
pick up the narrative I put inthere is you know what I pick up
talking to auctioneersconfirming those results.
SPEAKER_01 (01:27):
Well, we uh first page is a little bit about the
weather.
We had some drought, I think wegot out of that.
We did see the Mississippi Riveruh lower, but this is the August
land talker.
We're coming into the end ofSeptember.
What's changed much betweenAugust and September, my friend?
SPEAKER_00 (01:42):
Well, right now, the difference between August and
September is the volume of acresgoing to auction is is starting
to increase.
We're getting into sellingseason.
August, you know, for if there'san off-season for land auctions,
it's it's from you know Apriltill August.
And so now we're starting toramp up those volume of
auctions.
I mean, as as you see in thenewsletter there, I think it was
(02:05):
like 6,700 acres went to auctionin August.
Well, in September, there's13,000 acres, a little over
13,000 acres going to be.
Yeah, so you know, we're testingthe market.
Uh, okay, it says 6874 acresgoing to auction in August.
So that's not really not enoughto test the market.
(02:26):
But what now we're getting up to13,000 over 13,000 acres.
That's testing the market,Tommy.
And I'm telling you what, justtheir first week of September,
we had one farm sold in MitchellCounty, Iowa, right along the
Iowa, Minnesota border, northcentral Iowa,$24,400 an acre on
80 acres.
SPEAKER_01 (02:48):
Is that right?
Oh, there we go.
I got it a little bigger in thescreen.
And uh, let's go through thesehere.
I want to start in the beginningbecause I didn't I didn't have
it on the screen real nice, butI'm getting it pretty.
Okay, we got our drop map,that's what people can see.
We got the land talker monthly,acres auctioned in Iowa.
These are the August month.
You were saying that it's down,it was way down, but coming in
(03:10):
September, we pop up from six,seven thousand.
Okay, you got your land hero,that's the the digit software of
all this stuff going on.
Now we get to the good stuffbecause this is kind of like the
best of August, the endSeptember, but uh come October
1st or 2nd, you'll release thisagain and we'll we'll jump back
on here.
Yep, yep.
The question everyone wants toask is with corn markets down,
(03:33):
are people still buying land?
And I think the answer is yes,isn't it?
SPEAKER_00 (03:36):
Absolutely are the market is incredibly stable.
You know, as I measured myauction data, you know, we're
down a little bit, but not verymuch.
I mean, we're talking like onepercent from the from January up
till now.
So I consider that a stablemarket.
SPEAKER_01 (03:54):
I can't I call that a win when you look at how much
commodity prices are down andhow high expenses are uh versus
that.
A few episodes ago you had toldme that you were a little
surprised how much land wascoming to auction from well,
obviously there's a naturalprogression of people dying, but
you also said divorce, and thatthat kind of caught us off
guard.
(04:15):
You said, you know, there's beena lot of people getting
divorced, and that land'sgetting auctioned off.
SPEAKER_00 (04:20):
Yeah, there's there was it seemed like there was an
uptick in divorce cases.
I don't know why, but uh, butlike right now.
SPEAKER_01 (04:31):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (04:32):
Well, one thing that I'm hearing a lot about in the
news media now is you know,there's some financial stress
out here.
Absolutely.
And so there's some of thoseauctions where that there was
some being auctioned because offinancial stress.
But one thing I want to pointout, there's not enough acres
that's hitting the marketbecause of that to you know
(04:56):
flood the market with acres.
We're still you know runningpretty low on acres going to
auction.
So the market's eating thoseacres up, and you know, that
that's not a problem right now.
Now it could be going in thefuture, but right now the
market's just you know whatlittle bit there is coming to
(05:16):
the market because of financialstress, uh, it's just getting
ate up by other farmers.
SPEAKER_01 (05:22):
And there are the haves and have nots right now in
agriculture, Jim.
I mean, there's people who havethe money and the people who
don't, and you're seeing alittle bit of everything, right?
SPEAKER_00 (05:33):
Absolutely.
That's that's how I would callthis.
There's haves and have nots.
You know, 84% of the farmland inIowa carries no debt.
Those are the haves.
SPEAKER_01 (05:42):
Amazing statistic.
Just amazing statistic, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (05:45):
That's that's under that the land is
undercapitalized in Iowa, andI'm sure it's that in other
states around Iowa too.
Yeah, that's interesting.
But you know, with that strongequity positions, it's gonna
take something to you know to toreally affect the market.
Yeah, not saying it couldn'thappen, but you know, in the
(06:07):
80s, you know, there's peoplecarrying a lot more debt than
they are now.
Yeah, it's different.
It's different.
SPEAKER_01 (06:12):
Hey, I'm sure you heard the news.
You heard about the Trump bucks,right?
SPEAKER_00 (06:15):
Yeah, I did.
I did the first thing I thoughtis like, oh, we're gonna have
another run-up in land prices.
SPEAKER_01 (06:21):
Ah, the old Trump bucks, ring the bell, ring the
bell.
I love that graphic there.
The old Trump bucks.
You also probably heard thatthey might be we might be
closing down Washington, D.C.,right?
I hadn't heard that yet.
Tell me about it.
Well, we may have a shutdown.
And uh apparently, yeah, yeah,you know, we spend too much
money, but we're gonna give awaymore money.
We helped Argentina this week.
(06:42):
That was weird in itself.
Not that we shouldn't helppeople, but uh we really did the
Argentine farmers a big favor.
But uh it is what it is, youknow.
America's uh a fun andinteresting place with that.
If they give away Trump bucks,that probably just floats more
money.
Sometimes they say when theygive away money like that, the
money gets put in the wronghands.
Like, sure, the farmer gets it,but they immediately pay off
(07:04):
debt, do this, do that.
Like it just flows, right?
Ag retail says, Oh, they justgot a payment, we don't need to
lower prices.
SPEAKER_00 (07:11):
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
As a matter of fact, I was gonnatell you, yes, sir, I've gotten
a little uh uh cash rent data,and there's no change from last
year.
Uh haven't no change from lastyear.
SPEAKER_01 (07:22):
Some of that'll catch people surprised, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:25):
Yeah, yeah.
And now how do how do I explainthat?
Because expenses, you know,fertilizer prices are said to be
going up, you know, because oftariffs or what have you.
I can't explain it.
You know, corn prices have beenessentially cut in half, or
almost cut in half from the peakin 2022.
I can't explain it, other thanthere's just strong hands out
(07:49):
here, strong equity positionsout here in rural, and there's
some that's not the the theheavy cash renters, those
farmers who cash rent a lot ofland, I would say those are the
ones that have not.
SPEAKER_01 (08:04):
It's a challenge, it's a challenge out there.
All right, we got yourinformation up here.
This is the end of September.
We're gonna have another landtalker coming out in a week.
We had skipped a month, but itsounds like we picked a good
month to skip.
How do people get a hold of you?
SPEAKER_00 (08:17):
Yeah, so you can go to our website,
w.ioappraisal.com, and pick upthe get subscribe to the
newsletter.
Land Hero is a as a softwarethat you can access my sale
database.
If you're uh a buyer and lookingto buy land and you need uh fast
market data, land hero is youranswer.
(08:40):
So I love it.
So that that's that's how youcan get a hold of me.
SPEAKER_01 (08:44):
All right, sounds good.
Well, this time you're Safi withthe Eggable Podcast, Mr.
Jim.
And then you have a podcastyourself that can catch out on
uh YouTube, right?
SPEAKER_00 (08:52):
Yeah, Land Talker TV.
I interview people TV.
I like the way that sounds.
Yeah, yeah.
So I've got uh severalinterviews on there.
I'm getting ready, I'm lining upsome more interviews and uh get
those posted.
SPEAKER_01 (09:06):
Excellent.
All right.
We will catch you in anotherweek.
We'll be right back.
Don't change that channel, butsend people this video.
I think they'll like it withthat.
It's been a short August inreview, land acres, acres
auction.
We're down, but don't worry,September will be one to
remember, and it sounds likeOctober is gonna be even better.
Keep an eye out for those trumpbucks.
(09:28):
I'll catch you next week, Mr.
Jim.
Thank you, Tommy.
Well, how are we doing, everyone?
Tom Grassofi Ag Bull Podcast, AgBull Trading.
We got the uh land talker onhere today, and we haven't met
with the Land Talker for a fewmonths.
Summertime's probably quiet forland prices, and we know
commodity prices have been goingsideways, but let's see what uh
the one and only the landtalker.
How are you doing, Jim?
Good, Tommy.
(00:33):
How are you doing today?
I'm doing well.
Well, I skipped you last monthand not on purpose.
I was just a little busy, butwe'll get back on track.
There's nobody in the businessdoing a finer job than what
you're doing with this here,Land Talker Monthly.
And I think people can uhsubscribe to it for free,
correct?
SPEAKER_00 (00:49):
Absolutely.
That's a free subscription.
I keep track of all the landauctions in Iowa, and all you
have to do is go to our websitewww.ioappraisal.com and sign up
for that.
It's a monthly newsletter thatis free subscription.
It goes out first business dayof the month via email.
So well, people like free stuff.
(01:11):
Yeah, it you know, I just putthe whatever happened as far as
land auctions go in that in atable, and then whatever uh I
pick up the narrative I put inthere is you know what I pick up
talking to auctioneersconfirming those results.
SPEAKER_01 (01:27):
Well, we uh first page is a little bit about the
weather.
We had some drought, I think wegot out of that.
We did see the Mississippi Riveruh lower, but this is the August
land talker.
We're coming into the end ofSeptember.
What's changed much betweenAugust and September, my friend?
SPEAKER_00 (01:42):
Well, right now, the difference between August and
September is the volume of acresgoing to auction is is starting
to increase.
We're getting into sellingseason.
August, you know, for if there'san off-season for land auctions,
it's it's from you know Apriltill August.
And so now we're starting toramp up those volume of
auctions.
I mean, as as you see in thenewsletter there, I think it was
(02:05):
like 6,700 acres went to auctionin August.
Well, in September, there's13,000 acres, a little over
13,000 acres going to be.
Yeah, so you know, we're testingthe market.
Uh, okay, it says 6874 acresgoing to auction in August.
So that's not really not enoughto test the market.
(02:26):
But what now we're getting up to13,000 over 13,000 acres.
That's testing the market,Tommy.
And I'm telling you what, justtheir first week of September,
we had one farm sold in MitchellCounty, Iowa, right along the
Iowa, Minnesota border, northcentral Iowa,$24,400 an acre on
80 acres.
SPEAKER_01 (02:48):
Is that right?
Oh, there we go.
I got it a little bigger in thescreen.
And uh, let's go through thesehere.
I want to start in the beginningbecause I didn't I didn't have
it on the screen real nice, butI'm getting it pretty.
Okay, we got our drop map,that's what people can see.
We got the land talker monthly,acres auctioned in Iowa.
These are the August month.
You were saying that it's down,it was way down, but coming in
(03:10):
September, we pop up from six,seven thousand.
Okay, you got your land hero,that's the the digit software of
all this stuff going on.
Now we get to the good stuffbecause this is kind of like the
best of August, the endSeptember, but uh come October
1st or 2nd, you'll release thisagain and we'll we'll jump back
on here.
Yep, yep.
The question everyone wants toask is with corn markets down,
(03:33):
are people still buying land?
And I think the answer is yes,isn't it?
SPEAKER_00 (03:36):
Absolutely are the market is incredibly stable.
You know, as I measured myauction data, you know, we're
down a little bit, but not verymuch.
I mean, we're talking like onepercent from the from January up
till now.
So I consider that a stablemarket.
SPEAKER_01 (03:54):
I can't I call that a win when you look at how much
commodity prices are down andhow high expenses are uh versus
that.
A few episodes ago you had toldme that you were a little
surprised how much land wascoming to auction from well,
obviously there's a naturalprogression of people dying, but
you also said divorce, and thatthat kind of caught us off
guard.
(04:15):
You said, you know, there's beena lot of people getting
divorced, and that land'sgetting auctioned off.
SPEAKER_00 (04:20):
Yeah, there's there was it seemed like there was an
uptick in divorce cases.
I don't know why, but uh, butlike right now.
SPEAKER_01 (04:31):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (04:32):
Well, one thing that I'm hearing a lot about in the
news media now is you know,there's some financial stress
out here.
Absolutely.
And so there's some of thoseauctions where that there was
some being auctioned because offinancial stress.
But one thing I want to pointout, there's not enough acres
that's hitting the marketbecause of that to you know
(04:56):
flood the market with acres.
We're still you know runningpretty low on acres going to
auction.
So the market's eating thoseacres up, and you know, that
that's not a problem right now.
Now it could be going in thefuture, but right now the
market's just you know whatlittle bit there is coming to
(05:16):
the market because of financialstress, uh, it's just getting
ate up by other farmers.
SPEAKER_01 (05:22):
And there are the haves and have nots right now in
agriculture, Jim.
I mean, there's people who havethe money and the people who
don't, and you're seeing alittle bit of everything, right?
SPEAKER_00 (05:33):
Absolutely.
That's that's how I would callthis.
There's haves and have nots.
You know, 84% of the farmland inIowa carries no debt.
Those are the haves.
SPEAKER_01 (05:42):
Amazing statistic.
Just amazing statistic, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (05:45):
That's that's under that the land is
undercapitalized in Iowa, andI'm sure it's that in other
states around Iowa too.
Yeah, that's interesting.
But you know, with that strongequity positions, it's gonna
take something to you know to toreally affect the market.
Yeah, not saying it couldn'thappen, but you know, in the
(06:07):
80s, you know, there's peoplecarrying a lot more debt than
they are now.
Yeah, it's different.
It's different.
SPEAKER_01 (06:12):
Hey, I'm sure you heard the news.
You heard about the Trump bucks,right?
SPEAKER_00 (06:15):
Yeah, I did.
I did the first thing I thoughtis like, oh, we're gonna have
another run-up in land prices.
SPEAKER_01 (06:21):
Ah, the old Trump bucks, ring the bell, ring the
bell.
I love that graphic there.
The old Trump bucks.
You also probably heard thatthey might be we might be
closing down Washington, D.C.,right?
I hadn't heard that yet.
Tell me about it.
Well, we may have a shutdown.
And uh apparently, yeah, yeah,you know, we spend too much
money, but we're gonna give awaymore money.
We helped Argentina this week.
(06:42):
That was weird in itself.
Not that we shouldn't helppeople, but uh we really did the
Argentine farmers a big favor.
But uh it is what it is, youknow.
America's uh a fun andinteresting place with that.
If they give away Trump bucks,that probably just floats more
money.
Sometimes they say when theygive away money like that, the
money gets put in the wronghands.
Like, sure, the farmer gets it,but they immediately pay off
(07:04):
debt, do this, do that.
Like it just flows, right?
Ag retail says, Oh, they justgot a payment, we don't need to
lower prices.
SPEAKER_00 (07:11):
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
As a matter of fact, I was gonnatell you, yes, sir, I've gotten
a little uh uh cash rent data,and there's no change from last
year.
Uh haven't no change from lastyear.
SPEAKER_01 (07:22):
Some of that'll catch people surprised, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:25):
Yeah, yeah.
And now how do how do I explainthat?
Because expenses, you know,fertilizer prices are said to be
going up, you know, because oftariffs or what have you.
I can't explain it.
You know, corn prices have beenessentially cut in half, or
almost cut in half from the peakin 2022.
I can't explain it, other thanthere's just strong hands out
(07:49):
here, strong equity positionsout here in rural, and there's
some that's not the the theheavy cash renters, those
farmers who cash rent a lot ofland, I would say those are the
ones that have not.
SPEAKER_01 (08:04):
It's a challenge, it's a challenge out there.
All right, we got yourinformation up here.
This is the end of September.
We're gonna have another landtalker coming out in a week.
We had skipped a month, but itsounds like we picked a good
month to skip.
How do people get a hold of you?
SPEAKER_00 (08:17):
Yeah, so you can go to our website,
w.ioappraisal.com, and pick upthe get subscribe to the
newsletter.
Land Hero is a as a softwarethat you can access my sale
database.
If you're uh a buyer and lookingto buy land and you need uh fast
market data, land hero is youranswer.
(08:40):
So I love it.
So that that's that's how youcan get a hold of me.
SPEAKER_01 (08:44):
All right, sounds good.
Well, this time you're Safi withthe Eggable Podcast, Mr.
Jim.
And then you have a podcastyourself that can catch out on
uh YouTube, right?
SPEAKER_00 (08:52):
Yeah, Land Talker TV.
I interview people TV.
I like the way that sounds.
Yeah, yeah.
So I've got uh severalinterviews on there.
I'm getting ready, I'm lining upsome more interviews and uh get
those posted.
SPEAKER_01 (09:06):
Excellent.
All right.
We will catch you in anotherweek.
We'll be right back.
Don't change that channel, butsend people this video.
I think they'll like it withthat.
It's been a short August inreview, land acres, acres
auction.
We're down, but don't worry,September will be one to
remember, and it sounds likeOctober is gonna be even better.
Keep an eye out for those trumpbucks.
(09:28):
I'll catch you next week, Mr.
Jim.
Thank you, Tommy.
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