AcreTrader Blog

Historically, farmland has been a stable investment with attractive long-term returns. Despite the stability, investors must think about protection during weak farm economies. Thankfully, many of the risks can be resolved for investors with the right structures.

Almost 40% of U.S. farmland is rented or leased, but investors likely own less than 5% of all of this land due to historical frictions and headaches of investing in farmland. AcreTrader provides investors a way to access this historically safe investment through buying shares of farmland.

AcreTrader helps eliminate the frictions and difficulties traditionally associated with farmland investing. Though private equity farm funds, farmland REITs, and buying land directly all provide access, these investment methods insert risks into buying otherwise safe investment land.

We explain our view of the relative risks of farmland investing on the AcreTrader platform. We also show how the risk of some equity crowdfunding and real estate crowdfunding would score in our risk system.

Online Real Estate Crowdfunding can be dangerous for investors, and we think that debt, cyclicality and other unknown investment risks could lead to large potential investment losses. We think investing in farmland is a much safer alternative.

Investing in farmland without debt is a safer investment than investing in leveraged real estate. Small down payments on commercial real estate investing increase risk. Buying a farm without debt is a lower risk investment.