YEONGDONG — At the auction court of the Yeongdong Branch of Cheongju District Court in North Chungcheong Province on the 20th, the minimum bid price for a 1,107-square-meter rice paddy in Gongsu-ri, Maegok-myeon, Yeongdong County had fallen to 7.4 million won ($5,100). No buyer came forward. The paddy had already failed to sell seven times. Even with the price down to 21% of its appraised value, there were no bidders, and the eighth auction collapsed as well.
About 20 people filled the courtroom, but there was little competition. The scene resembled a wait for buyers to appear rather than an auction. Of 34 lots of paddies, fields and orchards offered that day, only four drew any bidders, and three of those had a single bidder. The contrast was stark with a nearby apartment in Okcheon County that attracted 12 bidders. One field in Eochon-ri, Maegok-myeon, Yeongdong County finally found a highest bidder at 22% of its appraised value after seven failed rounds.
Local residents at the court lamented that land had become "dirt cheap." One resident surnamed A said there is no one in the countryside willing to farm even if the land is handed over for free, adding that holding on to it is pointless because it will not sell anyway. Another Yeongdong resident in their 70s said that acquiring land diligently had been a joy in their youth but has now become a burden, and that people who used to buy farmland in advance while planning to return to farming after retirement have become hard to find.
The farmland auction market is losing its basic function as a marketplace, not merely slipping in price. Buying interest has disappeared to the point that no bidders emerge even after repeated failures push the minimum price down to about 20% of the appraised value. With a government-wide farmland audit now layered onto an already depressed market, concerns are mounting that regulatory burdens and policy uncertainty could further dampen transactions.
An analysis of nationwide court farmland auctions, commissioned by The Seoul Economic Daily from auction data firm GGi Auction, showed that of 7,395 paddies, fields and orchards sold from the start of this year through the 19th of this month, 5,008, or 67.7%, went for 50% or less of their appraised value. The share of sales at half price or below rose from 42.5% in 2024 to 58.1% last year, and climbed another 9.6 percentage points this year — a 25.2 percentage point increase in two years.
More farmland is being sent to auction, but lots keep failing to sell. Farmland auctions nationwide totaled 41,941 cases this year, up 52.7% from 27,466 in the same period of 2024. The sales rate — the share of lots put up for bidding that actually sold — fell from 22.9% in 2024 to 19.5% last year and 17.6% this year. The average number of bidders this year was just 1.78.
The slump deepened after the audit began. From May 18 through the 19th of this month, the sales rate was 16.4%, below both the 19.1% recorded before the audit and the 19.3% in the same period last year. Concerns are growing that confusion surrounding the audit could become an additional drag on an already frozen market. Kim Hong-sang, chairman of the Agricultural Policy Research Center, warned that a farmland audit conducted without clear social consensus or direction, on top of the structural decline of rural communities, could create greater market instability.
A further problem is that the weak farmland auction market could weigh on debt recovery by financial institutions. When farmland pledged as collateral repeatedly fails to sell, disposal is delayed, and even when a sale finally goes through, recovered amounts are more likely to fall short of expectations. A prolonged slump could translate into loss risk for lenders.
Funding for farm households is also at risk. Farmland serves both as a means of production and as a key asset for raising living expenses and farming funds. If falling farmland prices reduce collateral value, loan access tightens, making it harder to buy farm machinery or invest in facilities. That in turn can erode the capacity to purchase farmland, feeding a vicious cycle that deepens the downturn.
Experts say the audit in particular could further freeze farmland buying sentiment that is already structurally weak. Fears that regulatory burdens may grow after acquisition, and that prices could fall further as a result, can suppress demand. Lim Jung-bin, a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development at Seoul National University, said prospective buyers now worry about being branded illegal speculators or becoming targets of regulation, and that the transaction market has cooled further since the audit began.
Some argue government policy should shift away from cracking down on speculation and toward smoothly supplying farmland to actual cultivators. Kim said accurate data must be built first if farmland is to be preserved for future generations and used efficiently, and that the government should strictly manage some speculative acquisitions while clearly laying out medium- and long-term principles. Lim likewise called for a cross-ministry package covering inheritance and transfer taxation to preserve and make use of prime farmland, saying speculative demand should be curbed while conditions are created for new farmers, including young ones, to secure land at reasonable prices.
