FALLS CITY- Nine original bidders have driven an initial price of $1000 an acre for a Falls City farmland to prices no one expected.

The UNL 2022 Nebraska Farm Real Estate Report’s average of $6,070 per acre for all farmland in the southeast region.

The months-long auction has continued to grow, and Auctioneer Jason Smith of DreamDirt didn’t know what to think.

“It’s close to Falls City. It’s on a hard-surface road. But other than that, it’s fairly unremarkable. A lot of people call me and joke and say there must be gold buried out there.”

Once the bidding had surpassed $17,000, only two bidders remained of the original nine. Those two bidders drove the price all the way to $27,400, which could be a record sale for Nebraska farmland. The previous high price was $17,800, which has been seen only once.

Jim Jansen, an agriculture economist extension educator at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who helps compile the farmland real estate report, knew of farmland that sold for higher, but it was bought by developers for uses that didn’t include farming.

Gubernatorial candidate Charles Herbster even had his eye on the land saying, "It’s right on the highway, it’s a very good farm. It’s a beautiful farm that lays totally flat."

He was one of the final two bidders but stopped at $27,000 leaving the last bidder with a $3.2 million dollar bill.

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