But that wasn't out here! <G>. I'll bet $100k an acre would be real
unusual where you are now...
Yeah, even in the large towns at a freeway intersection. Price per acre of
so-so Ozarks' woods is five hundred to a couple thousand per acre.
Location, location, location. Last time I researched, the lowest-priced ag
land was in South Dakota. On the other end of the land price scale is
Manhattan where they talk dollars-per-square-foot:
December 2004
Developers see land prices jump
By Juliette Fairley
Developer Jules Demchick is planning a condo building at 83rd St. and York
Ave. When the Mayflower Hotel and a vacant lot on West 62nd Street and
Central Park West sold for $401 million in May, its price of $650 per
buildable square foot made it the highest such price ever paid in Manhattan
for a future residential development site.
More than style, buzz or even location, land suitable for development is a
prized commodity in New York. As they say, they aren't making any more of
it. Adjusted for inflation, the $24 bargain the Dutch struck for Manhattan
in the early 1600s wouldn't buy a parking place today.
Manhattan land prices continue to rise at an astonishing rate, but
developers say the astronomical prices of completed condo units allow them
to forge ahead and still turn a profit despite the site costs.
In the last 18 months, Manhattan land prices have doubled in some areas,
says Bob Von Ancken, executive managing director of the valuation and
advisory group of Grubb & Ellis.
On the Upper East Side, for example, land prices have jumped from $200 per
square foot to $400 per square foot. From 60th Street to 86th Street,
between First Avenue and Lexington Avenues, developable land is selling in
"the $400 range, where only three years ago, it was in the $100 range. It's
unbelievable," says Von Ancken.