August 2020
No Summer Slowdown Here: After Big Land Auction, Steffes’ Week Features 17 Auctions, with More Land, Equipment and Other Items
In the past, late summer was considered a slow period for agriculture-related auctions. But among the unexpected twists in this year’s market, we’re immersed in one of our busiest periods.
The Steffes Auction team has 17 auctions during the week of Aug. 10-16, and that’s coming off a week that included successful auctions of land, machinery and even oil equipment. We’re consistently finding a strong market for most types of assets.
While we’ve been talking more about machinery lately, last week’s live auction of 270 acres (mostly cropland but with some trees) exceeded all expectations. The event attracted 22 bidders, whose active bidding resulted in strong sale prices.
“Never mind low commodity prices or the pandemic, there seems to be a strong demand for farmland, and the supply has been limited. That makes this a very good time for landowners to consider an auction,” said Max Steffes.
Given the limited supply of land, bidders are expected to show an interest in the timed online auction of 1,117 acres in Renville and Ward counties, in North Dakota. “This will be one of the bigger land auctions in awhile, so it will tell us a lot about the underlying strength of the market,” said Max.
On the equipment front, the week got off to a fast start with the closing of a multi-party farm equipment auction with various locations in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. A second multi-party farm equipment auction was set to close Wednesday.
Finishing off the week will be the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum auction with a wide variety of racing memorabilia.
Looking ahead, there’s no break in sight. “As we begin to move toward the fall and, we still see a lot of interest among sellers and bidders alike,” said Max.
