Remember when citrus growers and other agricultural landowners in Florida were selling their land because its value was much higher than that of the crops generated? My, how that trend has reversed.
Heller Bros., a major citrus packer based in Winter Garden, closed this month on 2,342 acres of grove land in Fort Pierce for the bargain price of $7.7 million. That’s roughly $3,300 per acre, or 7.5 cents per square foot. (That’s right, seven and a half cents! I used two calculators just to be sure I’m not wrong.)
Harry Falk, a partner in Heller Bros., told the Orlando Sentinel’s Beth Kassab in this column that they haven’t seen prices this low for centrally located, top-grade land in the past 25 years. Most of that time, developers offered top dollar for those same properties, especially while the state’s housing market was still booming and “you were not really a good shepherd of real estate assets if you continued to grow citrus,” Falk said.
Land brokers believe more acreage originally intended for farming will return to that purpose. Earlier this year, Lakeland-based Coldwell Banker Commercial Saunders Real Estate handled the sale of 1,162 acres in Highlands County, with Heart Groves buying the former dairy farm for $4.2 million—around $3,600 per acre, or 8.3 cents per square foot.
“This is a promising glimpse that the land market is becoming more active,” says Dean Saunders, broker/owner. “There are buyers out there who have been waiting for the right time and now is the time.”
Here’s an idea for enthusiasts of all things organic: Buy up as much dirt as you can afford, zone it agricultural and start growing your own (legal crops, of course). You can give up your day job, provided you still have one in this economy, and live like Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor in “Green Acres.”
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