December 2024

We hope this letter finds you well and having had a fantastic 2024! As we approach the end of 2024, first and foremost, we at Kilkenny Group would like to take a moment and reach out to our clients, friends and business partners and give our sincere thanks for your loyalty, business and partnerships over the past year – thank you all! We also would like to let you know that Dick Ahrens, a member of Kilkenny Group for the past five years, retired at the beginning of this past September. We thank Dick for his dedication and the vast knowledge he provided to our clients – we will certainly miss his expertise! We are also excited to welcome Samantha Vazzano to the Kilkenny Group. Sam brings a vast amount of knowledge and experience of agricultural and residential properties to our team and will be a valued team member!!

 In what has been a bit of a challenging year for many segments of the real estate market, we are proud to let you know that our transaction count remained equal to 2023, even considering a slight downward trend in the real estate market. Our sales in 2024 consisted of residential, commercial, industrial and of course agricultural properties.

 We continued to see sales of agricultural properties remain robust in northern Illinois & southern Wisconsin in 2024. Land inventory, particularly for Class A farms, has remained low in 2024 and we expect that to continue into 2025. Investors continue to diversify their portfolios in an effort to counteract inflation. We also see institutional buyers very active in the market, which has contributed to low inventory of Class A farmland available for sale. Agricultural land prices remain strong in our marketplace despite a softening of land values being recorded in other parts of the US.

 It is also important to note the changes in commodity prices in the past year. Cash prices for corn and soybean prices have decreased to $3.86/bu and $9.40/bu respectively as of this writing from levels of $4.75/bu for corn and $13.65/bu for soybeans in October of 2023.  As was the case a year ago, the decrease in commodity prices has not directly impacted land values in our market area – as of yet. Yields remain strong and the investor market is very active, which one reason for this may be the increased productivity yields and the underlying cash liquidity of investors and farmers, which is resulting in land prices continuing to hold strong.

 One noticeable change from 2023 has been generational sales of farms in our market area. Recent surveys conducted by numerous agricultural publications have found that the highest percentage of recent land sales in Illinois & Wisconsin have been estate sales. This data coincides with what we at Kilkenny Group are seeing in the market. As the ownership of agricultural land transfers to the next generation, many of these recipients of the farm have alternate investment strategies and are divesting their land holdings. We expect this trend to continue as there are fewer “family farms” and greater numbers of “investment farms” who operate on a business model of large acreage.

 If you have been considering selling your farmland for any number of reasons, we would welcome the opportunity to discuss your land investment strategy with you. With 60+ years of combined farmland real estate experience, Natalie Torres, Samantha Vazzano and I would like to provide you with our expertise in marketing your land – be it a 20 acre farmette or a 400 acre, 4th generation family farm, we would welcome the opportunity to provide you with our marketing experience. This experience includes tax deferred exchanges as a way to defer capital gains tax liabilities, generational transfers of land and advice on how best to market the property and at the most opportune time.

 If you’re a non-farmer, landowner and are seeking consulting services regarding leases, strategies with disposition of buildings on farms, soil analysis, zoning, highest and best use in the future, and opportunities associated with solar development, we would be happy to have a conversation with you.

 We would be pleased to discuss the value of your farm with you and the various marketing options available to you at any time.

Best,

Clancy Green, Natalie Torres, & Sam Vazzano