Illinois Collar County Farmers Take Advantage of Housing Bust

Chicago Tribune (h/t the sister):

Brothers Bob and Ed Baltz are two who have capitalized on the dramatic turn of events. More than five years ago, they had all the hard-charging, prominent local and national builders, including Neumann Homes, Del Webb, Centex Homes and Pasquinelli Homes, knocking on the doors of their family farm.
"We had everybody coming in and making offers," Ed Baltz said.
The last offer they received, in 2008, never closed, because of the housing industry's crash, but a developer wanted to purchase 600 of their acres in Will County for $72,000 an acre, or more than $43 million.
The two had already sold slightly more than 300 acres outside Chicago, at an average of $25,000 per acre.
They took those proceeds and bought 4,000 acres, in 17 downstate counties, that they rented to other farmers. That left them 1,800 acres to farm corn and soybeans in Chicago's exurbs, including fewer than 1,000 acres they owned.
That's when fate smiled on them.
During the past year, corn prices have doubled on increased demand for use as livestock feed and biofuels, and soybean prices have risen by more than 50 percent.
As those prices rose, the Baltz brothers began selling their fertile land downstate that they paid $2,500 to $4,000 an acre for and which is valued at as much as $8,000 an acre. During the past 12 months alone they've sold more 2,000 acres. Now they are more active farmers in their own backyards.
During the past three months, they've purchased from lenders almost 1,000 acres of farmland in Will and Kendall counties that were once scheduled for homes, paying a fraction of what developers paid years ago.
"A lot of (banks) just want it off their books," Ed Baltz said. "We got a little more power because we got the cash to spend."

Well that seems to have worked out well for them.  Just imagine where they would be at if that $43 million sale would have gone through.