Property Trax: Price for southwest Wisconsin rural land continues moderate rise - 77Square.com

After bottoming out in December, prices for rural land in southwest Wisconsin are on an upswing, as reduced inventory helps raise prices.

Much like the residential market is seeing, six of seven southwest Wisconsin counties posted a moderate increase in average price paid per acre from the first to the second quarter of this year.

And overall, the region is up 20 percent from December's low point.

"Land market indicators predict that prices will continue their moderate climb this year," said Jay Frazier, a Muscoda-based agent who works with rural properties as a specialist for First Weber Group. "The excess inventory of 2012 is gone and now lower inventory is helping to drive the improved market upward."

Frazier's blog, Southwest Wisconsin Real Estate, tracks sales and other developments in Grant, Richland, Crawford, Lafayette, Sauk, Vernon and Iowa counties, using MLS and WiREx data.

A recent post there showed an average price per acre of $3,093 in the second quarter of this year for rural land, compared with $2,844 for the first quarter, for an 8.8 percent increase.

There were 39 rural-property transactions in the region posted from April-May, compared with 25 from January-March, and more than twice as much land changed hands -- from 1,521 acres in the first quarter to 3,772.7 acres in the second, sales records showed.

Four types of land were sold: woods, tillable, pasture and wetland, with wooded land seeing the biggest chunk of sales, at 2,217.9 acres.

Also, while sales were up compared to the first quarter of this year, they clearly were down on a year-over-year basis. First-quarter transactions were down 50 percent from the first quarter of 2012, Frazier noted, with a 49 percent drop in sales volume for the region in the second quarter, compared to the same period of last year.

Based on all those factors, Frazier described the rural land market recovery in southwest Wisconsin as being "on fairly firm ground."

However, as Frazier notes in his blog, buyers and sellers should be warned that average prices are only a "general guideline." Individual property sales, of course, can and do vary.

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Source: southwest - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNFk2X1254o7Vw5IA5xel7f0pP22nQ&url=http://host.madison.com/wsj/business/real-estate/property-trax-price-for-southwest-wisconsin-rural-land-continues-moderate/article_67ef5f74-f63b-11e2-b71f-001a4bcf887a.html