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We are in the planning stages of thinking about selling our farm. Does anyone know how we go about getting a valuation on it? I approached our mortgage holder (FCC) who said that they do not offer appraisals. All they could give me was a very rough estimation on what the land itself may be worth. I know a realtor would be able to put a value on it, but then they might be bugging us every 5 minutes to list it with them. Right now, we are just needing to know the value for budgeting finances, we are probably a year or two away from actually being ready to put it up for sale. Our tax assessments are no help, as we have done some renovations to the house and built an addition as well as improved the land with fences, reseeding etc, which are not yet reflected in the tax assessment.

It will depend in you want to pay or not. If you want a free one, your best bet is a realtor. Yes, they will potentially bug you (although my experience has been most are pretty good about leaving you alone after contact once or twice), but that's the price of "free". If you're looking at selling relatively soon (in a year or two), it might give you a chance to meet a few prospective realtors to use in the future. Consider it a multi-layer fact-finding mission!  
 
Otherwise, I would try searching for a property appraiser in your area (if you google it, they will come up, there's a few in Brandon), or contact your bank/credit union or a mortgage broker and see who they use, as they would contract appraisals for financing purposes. For a city property, it's typically around $400-500, so it might be more for a large property like a farm.  
 
Hopefully that's helpful!  
 
edit to add: By broker I mean someone who helps you arrange mortgages, like Centum or whatever. I know you already asked FCC, which is really just a flow-through entity anyway, so I'm not surprised that they don't offer those services. Usually lenders will contract a local appraiser upon the initial credit application.  
 
Edited by Abbysmum, 2020-07-16 11:20:08

Jordan Appraisals in Minnedosa 204-724-4044

There are qualified appraisers that could do a proper appraisal. I would imagine some might specialize in farm properties. I bet your bank could give you some names of who they use.

Call assessment services. They will tell you what your property is worth compared to other properties like it. They use previous property sales to figure out how much your property is worth. They will also look at your assessment again to see if its up to date and add the changes to get a new value. They will even come to your property to add all the correct measurements (covid might affect this). This might not be exactly what youd sell it for as some sell a little higher or lower but it should be close.