Iowa Farmland Moves Up 13%

The Chicago Fed reports that farmland values rose 10% in the Seventh Federal Reserve District, which covers all of Iowa, the southern two-thirds of Wisconsin, the northern half of Illinois, the northern two-thirds of Indiana and the southern three-fourths of Michigan. The biggest year-over-year increase was registered in Iowa, where values were up 13% versus 2009, due in part to the limited supply of top-tier property and strong demand for American crops.

For Sale: Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams for $5.4 Million

By all accounts, it’s the typical sort of listing you see advertised in The Land Report:

FOR SALE. 193-acre corn farm for sale in eastern Iowa for $5.4 million. Owned and farmed by same family for over a century. Includes two-bedroom house, barn built in the mid-1800s, and baseball diamond built by Universal Studios.

OK, maybe the Lansing family’s farm is not so ordinary. Twenty years ago it got a serious upgrade courtesy of Kevin Costner, Ray Liotta, James Earl Jones, and a blockbuster movie called Field of Dreams.

“If you build it, they will come.” – The Voice, Field of Dreams

Located outside Dyersville, much of the land in the listing has been in the Lansing family for over a century, but for Don and Becky Lansing it’s time to retire. As Becky Lansing told the Associated Press, “We really would just love to become spectators. We want to sit in the bleachers. We want to look forward to all that the Field of Dreams will become in the future.”

Asking price on the 193 acres is $5.4 million, including a total of seven structures and two websites. Additional acreage is available. Ken Sanders is representing the Lansings. Further information is available HERE.

Top Ethanol Producer Files For Bankruptcy

One of the leading stories of 2008 has been skyrocketing commodity prices and the corresponding surge in land values throughout the Midwest, Great Plains, Southwest, and other mineral-rich areas of the country. Although the bubble has by no means burst, there are definitely signs of a slowdown, particularly given the recent bankruptcy filing by one of the nation’s largest ethanol producers, VeraSun Energy Corp. Read more