Surface Rights: $10,000/Acre .....

... but not in the Bakken. This is a story about agricultural land going for $10,000/acre in eastern North Dakota:

In what could be a state record for the per-acre value of farmland, an 80-acre parcel in North Dakota’s Walsh County sold for $800,000, or a whopping $10,000 per acre, at public auction Thursday in Grand Forks, N.D.

About 50 people, both bidders and onlookers, attended the auction, which included the sale of farmland in North Dakota’s Pembina County and Minnesota’s Kittson County. Those parcels brought prices ranging from $2,125 per acre to $5,850 per acre. But the 80-acre parcel in Walsh County was the auction sale’s crown jewel.

80 acres. Almost a million bucks. I hope they close this deal before the end of the year to avoid higher taxes in 2013. 

Buyer unidentified.