Moore may have set record with auction sale
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By BETH ZUMWALT
Submitted photo
Winchester native Darrell Moore was behind the microphone recently when an auction of Morgan County land brought what is believed to be a record-breaking price of $16,900 per acre.The previous record was $16,000.
Moore, who auctioneers for Worrell Land Services, said he was not surprised by the price.
“We had calculated and researched the possible bids,” Moore said. “This land was near Franklin, near the new windmill farms. We thought somewhere between $16,000-$17,000.
Moore said the property has wind mills on it and cables buried beneath it, both which will bring in additional income, although most of the land will be used for farming.
“There was 116.39 acres, all tillable and unimproved,” Moore said. “It had an extremely strong class A soil with a productivity index of 142.6 and was level. There is a railroad track on the souther portion of the property and three underground cables in the northern section.”
Moore, who has been auctioneering since graduating from Missouri Auction School in 1980.
“I had my first opportunity to sell at public auction at the Pike County Sale barn selling hay, straw, firewood and fence post,” Moore said. “A few weeks later a gentleman and fellow auctioneer by the name of Bob Evans from Pittsfield ask if I would be interested in helping him on a personal property auction in Pittsfield, and that was the start of my auctioneer career 41 years ago.”
Farmland hasn’t always sold in five digit prices.
“When I first started, good farmland was in the $3,500 to $4,000 per acre range, and recreational land was selling in the $300.00 to $500.00 per acre range, my have things changed,” Moore said. “But there was also a time, a lot of people can remember, in the very early 1980s where some land was selling in the $4,000 an acre . But then, that was shortly lived due to the market crash, and some of that same ground resold in the mid 1980s for $1,800.00 to $2,000.00 per acre.”
Moore said he didn’t want to speculate on the future costs of farm ground in the area.
“Future land values to me are always unknown, they seem to change almost on a daily or weekly basis,” Moore said. “So many things to take into effect when it comes to land values,like grain prices, interest rates, agriculture input costs, machinery and equipment cost, just to name a few.”
