Fay Ranches’ 3rd Update on Covid-19 and How it Has Affected the Land Market

Coast To Coast Properties to Escape | Social Distance | Fay Ranches from Fay Ranches on Vimeo.

I hope you are all doing well and are safely sheltering in a pleasant locale. I am sitting on the porch of our home on the ranch we have owned with partners for the past 25 years in Madison County, Montana. There is not another human within a mile of me and my wife and kids and, other than curbside pickup at the local small-town Montana grocery store, we have had very little human interaction for the past month. I feel my family is about as safe as they can be, and as a father, that is my ultimate goal.

As you can see from the stats below, the increased interest in land over the past couple months has continued to grow. Everyone I talk to, from school teacher friends to clients, is pretty convinced that it’s not a question of “if” but “when” the next pandemic will hit, and they are all thinking about where they will be when it does.  They all seem to be considering land as the ideal place to shelter during the next crisis.

We recently completed a comparison of Fay Ranches’ 1^st quarter measurables from 2019 to the first quarter of 2020. The first quarter of the year for much of our marketplace is winter, so we historically do not show a lot of land during this time of year. However, while practicing safe social distancing, we have shown land to a number of land investors over the past few weeks. The southeast has been particularly busy. The investors who are making the effort and taking the risk of looking at land over the past several weeks seem to be serious buyers who are motivated to make purchases for their families. We have clients from coast to coast driving hundreds of miles to view property, engaging in virtual tours, and some even making offers sight unseen.

The following are sales and marketing statistics comparing the 1^st quarter of 2019 to the 1^st quarter of 2020 that reinforce the evidence of this trend.

1. The dollar volume of Fay Ranches’ closed transactions is up 34% and the number of transactions we have closed is up 18%.
2. The dollar volume of transactions Fay Ranches has under an executed purchase and sale contract and scheduled to close is up 8%.
3. The dollar volume of available land listings offered by Fay Ranches at the end of 1^st quarter 2019 compared to the end of 1^st quarter 2020 is up 36%.
4. Our social media measurables are up 35%.
5. Our website traffic is up 41%, contributing to the volume of brochure download increase.

Although Fay Ranches continues to grow and our staff is constantly looking for new ways to be effective with our marketing, these figures reinforce the anecdotal information the agents at Fay are hearing from their clients: the marketplace is looking at land with increased vigor. I believe that it is due to the realization that sheltering on your land is the safest place for your family during a crisis. We continue to take precautions to keep our staff and clients safe as we show properties. If you are ready to sell or look at properties or have questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.