For decades, everybody looked at a piece of land before they bought it.
Farmers wanted to see the terrain and the bluffs of trees, understand how the field would drain and maybe even touch the soil.
Today, more buyers are purchasing farmland based on the images from a screen.
“Certainly, the world has changed when people will (purchase land) by watching a video … without actually walking on the land,” said Roy Carter, chief executive officer of CLHbid.com, an online tender platform to market and sell farm and ranch land in Western Canada.
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Carter, a lawyer in Grande Prairie, Alta., started CLHbid.com about four years ago. The website features detailed information about parcels of farmland for sale and videos, shot with a drone, showing the field from multiple angles.
When buyers use CLHbid.com to purchase land, they bid by clicking a mouse or tapping on their smartphone.
“I think gone are the days (of) bidding shoulder to shoulder in the farmyard,” he said. “I think you’ll see that COVID will speed up a transition that was in the works.”
Buyers and sellers have become more comfortable with online transactions for farmland, partly because public auctions are public.
“People like to do business in privacy and we get really good feedback, where our buyers are buying the privacy of their own home,” Carter said. “They (buyers) want to bid in confidence. They want (assurances) that their name doesn’t get out if they don’t get it.”
Others in the auction trade are witnessing the same trend.
Buyers are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on farm equipment or millions on land, while sitting at their kitchen tables.
“On-site participation has been declining, not just recently, but over the past 10 to 15 years,” said Jordan Clarke, sales director for Ritchie Brothers in Rouleau Sask. “When I first got into this business 13 years ago, a big auction would have 800 or 900 people on site. We just don’t see that anymore. Two hundred people on site is about average now. We still have as many or more bidders, but they’re nearly all online.”
All farmland and equipment auctions are solely online, right now, because of COVID-19 restrictions on public gatherings. Public auctions may resume when restrictions are eased, or maybe not.
“The farm auctions across Western Canada… have all went online with electronic tender,” Carter said. “I think that trend… will be here to stay, once people get accustomed to it.”
For a seller of farmland, public auctions sometimes generate a higher return because emotions take over. Two or three buyers might compete for a parcel of land and will pay a premium, to prevent a fellow farmer from getting it.
Online auctions, where someone bids while sitting on their couch, can’t duplicate the atmosphere of a public auction. But online auctions do generate excitement, Carter said.
Recently, CLHbid.com sold a quarter section of land in British Columbia. When the auction was over, the buyer called Carter.
“He said he had hunted all his life and shot a bunch of trophy big game, but it had never got his heart beating as hard as it was bidding on our platform.”
