What Is My Illinois Farm Actually Worth in 2025 — and How Do You Find Out
Farmland values in Illinois are holding strong but the number that matters isn't the statewide average. It's the number specific to your ground.
What the Statewide Numbers Tell You and What They Don't
Illinois farmland prices in 2025 are averaging around $9,000 per acre statewide, with quality central Illinois ground trading significantly higher depending on soil productivity and location. High productivity ground in premium counties has traded well above those averages at auction.
Those numbers are useful context. They're not useful for understanding what your specific farm is worth.
The statewide average includes everything from top-ground Champaign County farmland with productivity indexes above 130 to lower-quality southern Illinois ground with significant non-tillable acreage. Averaging those together produces a number that is meaningfully accurate for neither.
What determines the value of your specific farm is a shorter list of factors. The soil productivity index. The percentage of tillable acres. The location relative to markets and infrastructure. The current lease arrangement. And the local demand from farmers and investors who want to own ground in your specific area.
The Soil Productivity Index — The Most Important Number You May Not Know
If you own farmland in Illinois and you don't know your soil productivity index you are missing the most important data point in understanding what your ground is worth.
The productivity index — commonly called the PI — is a numerical rating of soil quality that runs from roughly 50 at the low end to 145 or higher for the best ground in the state. It measures the inherent ability of the soil to produce corn and soybeans under normal management conditions.
The PI directly correlates to farmland value. Land in central Illinois trading at auction is frequently priced per PI point — meaning the market is literally paying a specific dollar amount for each point of soil quality. When you know your PI and you know what the market is paying per PI point in your county, you have a meaningful estimate of your farm's value.
It's on the soil survey maps through the USDA Web Soil Survey tool — publicly available and free to access. Knowing your PI before you talk to anyone about selling is the difference between walking into that conversation informed and walking in blind.
Why Your County Matters More Than the State Average
Farmland markets in Illinois are intensely local. What ground is trading for in Champaign County is not what comparable ground is trading for in Cass County or Menard County or Mason County — even if the productivity indexes are similar.
Local buyer pools drive local prices. In counties with strong farmer demand and limited supply, competition at auction pushes prices above what statewide data would predict. In counties with softer local demand or more supply coming to market, prices may trade at or below statewide averages regardless of soil quality.
The only way to understand what your ground is worth in your county is to look at actual comparable sales in that county — recent transactions, same general soil quality, similar acreage, recent timeframe. A conversation with someone who is actively transacting farmland in your specific county will give you a more accurate number than any statewide average.
The Lease Arrangement Affects Your Sale Price
The terms of your current lease arrangement affect what your farm sells for.
Ground selling with immediate possession — meaning the buyer gets full control at closing for the upcoming crop season — typically commands a premium over ground selling subject to an existing lease. Buyers who want to farm the ground themselves or place their own tenant will pay more for the ability to do that immediately.
Ground selling with a tenant in place at below-market cash rent is essentially selling a reduced-income asset. That discount shows up in the offer.
Understanding your lease terms — when it renews, what the cash rent is relative to market rate, whether you can give notice before listing — is part of preparing for a sale correctly.
Is Now a Good Time to Sell Illinois Farmland
Demand for quality ground in central Illinois remains strong. The buyer pool — active farmers expanding operations, local investors, outside capital — has not evaporated despite commodity price softness and interest rate pressure. Well-located ground with strong soils continues to attract competitive bidding at auction.
At the same time cash rents have been trending down from their 2022-2024 highs and commodity prices are softer. That pressure is real and it affects both investor calculations and farmer willingness to stretch at auction.
What that means practically is that the market in 2025 rewards quality ground in good locations with strong marketing. Average ground in softer markets is seeing less competition than it did two years ago.
The question isn't whether the market is good or bad. The question is what your specific ground is, where it sits in the quality spectrum for your county, and whether the current demand environment rewards selling now or waiting. That's a conversation worth having with someone who actually knows your ground and your county.
Jared Williams is the Managing Broker of Archer Realty. He serves on the Menard County Board of Review and is a landowner and farmer operating across central Illinois. He works with farmland owners on valuations, lease reviews, and agricultural land transactions. Start the conversation at archerrealty.net.
