Reading Time: 9 minutes On most farms, it’s among the big decisions of an entire lifetime. Do you buy that farm down the road and take on all that risk? Or do you watch someone else farm it and mutter, every time you drive, “That could have been mine”? Either way, it’s harder than anyone outside of agriculture might […] Read more
Making a smarter deal for farmland
If farmers are so sharp at land buying, who do so many pay too much?
The ever-changing landscape of farmland rentals
The risks are growing. So is the pressure to lease more land. What does a smart rental strategy look like as we head into 2020?
Reading Time: 8 minutes There’s a small panic in the air, the muted response you might expect from farmers who hold their cards close and practise a stoic realism that helps them navigate the risks they can’t control: weather, grain prices, the impact that a single Chinese tech executive might have on an important market. Most of these are […] Read more
Flood warning
Will Canada’s land market drown in a torrent of new listings as more farmers get to retirement age? The truth is… nobody knows
Reading Time: 9 minutes We’ve all heard the predictions. They say that with so many of our farmers reaching their 60s and 70s all at the same time, we’re soon going to see the biggest rush of land onto the market that this country has ever witnessed. Will it happen? Will the land market get flooded sometime in the […] Read more
B.C. Greens seek limits on foreign ownership of farmland
Reading Time: 2 minutes The party holding the balance of power in British Columbia’s legislature wants to curb foreign ownership of farmland in the province’s Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR). Green Party leader Andrew Weaver on Thursday introduced the Property Law Amendment Act as a private member’s bill, which he said “would prohibit foreign entities from purchasing ALR land over […] Read more
The business of owning farmland
Farmers are land investors too, but are we any good at it?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Of course, farmers integrate their real estate into their production business, with land and buildings used for the growing of crops and production of livestock. Importantly, too, the asset value is used as collateral to secure financing. As well, farm real estate is often the main retirement fund. There is no question, too, that farmland […] Read more
Is it time to sell your land?
Have prices peaked, or will you regret taking the price you can get in 2015?
Reading Time: 3 minutes With the heat leaking out of ag real estate markets north and south of the border, you can almost see landowners starting to ease back in their armchairs, settling in for a good, long wait. As an investment strategy, in fact, that might be a wise choice. All eyes are on the market, wondering if […] Read more
Has the price of farmland flatlined?
It may seem like the life has gone out of land markets, but don’t call the morgue just yet
Reading Time: 6 minutes If you get most farmers and landowners to talk about it candidly, most will admit to being a bit awestruck by just how far and how fast land prices have risen. Simon Ellis, a young fourth-generation farmer from near Wawanesa, Man., says he and his neighbours have watched over the past decade as land prices […] Read more
The land question
Can you build a sustainable farm on rented land?
Reading Time: 6 minutes It’s hard to acquire new dirt. Even if you can convince yourself that today’s spiking land prices are still affordable, competition from other farmers, developers and investors adds up to a red-hot real estate market. And retiring farmers aren’t necessarily selling their acres either, which leaves many young farmers counting themselves very, very lucky if […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
