A close friend and client of mine ask me the other day… ‘How Far Have Land Prices Dropped?’ Well, that’s sort of a loaded question. You heard of the old adage location, location, location…well that applies here as well. What I can tell you, there are trends and the counties or areas where the prices went the highest had the furthest to fall. In other words, the bigger the bubble, the bigger the pop. The huge bubbles where primarily caused by speculation in the market and those counties where the development was occurring experienced the largest % drops. Prices went up because developers were buying property and causing increases in sale prices as seen in the Harris County numbers. Harris County is a bedroom community for Columbus, Georgia. Meriwether and Talbot County sales were primarily made up of recreational and timberland sales. Now let’s look at some specifics. I primarily work in the west central Georgia area so I picked some counties that I work in, Harris, Meriwether and Talbot as my sample. Following is a chart showing prices for 2007, 2010 and the percent drop in prices.
| County | 2007 $/Acre | 2010 $/Acre | % Difference |
| Harris | $8925 | $4800 | 46 |
| Meriwether | $4635 | $2900 | 37 |
| Talbot | $2750 | $2200 | 20 |
These are my best estimate of average county prices. These prices were calculated using information gathered from courthouse, appraisers etc. Individual sales data can vary widely.
You heard the saying ‘the bigger they are, the harder they fall’, well that is exactly what happened. Hopefully we have found the bottom, and now we can start moving some real property at fair prices!!
For Information on Buying or Selling Land contact G. Kent Morris, ALC, RF at (706) 457-0090
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