No matter whether they arrived from the area, had never been to his part of the country before, or traveled from another country to learn from him, Craig Lemoine wants them to remember one thing: Don’t forget about the potential of American farmland as they lay out a financial planning future.
Dr. Lemoine is Director of the Financial Planning Program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He serves as an Associate Clinical Professor and teaches courses in risk management, retirement, and financial planning.
U of I history: Here is the history of when the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign became the official name.
“We want to help the world around us,” Lemoine told American Farmland Owner about his professional personal mission.
Dr. Craig Lemoine bio:
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Associate Clinical Professor
Executive Director of the Academy for Home Equity in Financial Planning
Vice-Chairman of the Master Registered Financial Consultant Board
Financial planning developer at The American College
Founding Partner of Lone Star Financial Education
“We find the best in financial advisors and the best in insurance agents to be the best in registered representatives,” Lemoine said about his teaching philosophy. “I think we get better outcomes all around and make the world a little better for it.”
Lemoine believes that more financial planners see the value of owning farmland as part of an investment portfolio, especially as investors’ interest has grown in recent years.
Investors make up a sizable shares of new farmland purchases, according to Halderman Real Estate Services in Wabash, Indiana. The firm’s president, Howard Halderman, said that 40% of sales involve investors.
Sentimentality is involved is some of those purchases, Halderman said. 38% of investors wanted to own farmland because of their upbringing on a farm, he said.
That means 62% of investors who worked with Halderman’s firm did not grow up on a farm, showing the appeal that farmland has as an asset class.
Lemoine evaluates the escalating interest by investors from two significant shocks to the overall economy: 2008’s Great Recession and 2020’s global COVID-19 pandemic.
“REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) had become more popular from 1999 to 2008,” Lemoire said.
But then the Great Recession hit. That financial blow made people rethink what financial commitments made sense and what resources they had available to invest.
“It shook up a lot of ideas about home ownership.”
COVID then radically rattled foundations even more a dozen years later. Consumers, investors, and producers dramatically changed their thinking and behavior about most everything.
Large sectors of the economy essentially shut down as elected officials guided by advice from health experts pushed for a pause for the sake of safety amid the uncertainty of the virus.
Billions of dollars in federal aid filled personal and business bank accounts. As the pause released, it unleashed an unprecedented surge in spending and investing.
Lemoire said of the country’s emergence from the depths of the pandemic, “We have very low interest rates. We start to kind of see financial planning go…’O.K.. well, there’s a lot more money now than there was in wealth management.’”
Farmland investing then became more mainstream. It wasn’t as highly specialized for high dollar investors or century farm heirs.
“Land & Everything Else” is one way that Lemoine tries to help current and future financial planners understand farmland investing. The podcast explores various aspects of farmland investing.
Here are some examples:
Water as Wealth with Brett Bovee (Bovee is Principal at Westwater Research)
Land as an Asset Class with Dr. Bruce Sherrick (Sherrick is a colleague at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
RELATED: Sherrick just joined the Board of Directors at Farmland Partners, Inc. Read the news from StreetInsider here.
Building a Career in the Alternative Space with Mackenzie Granby (Granby is Senior Advisory Associate at Vivaldi Capital Management)
