Thinking About Selling Your Contract Hog Barn? Start Here

Selling a contract swine barn is not like selling a farm. Most of what a buyer is purchasing is not the steel and the concrete. It is the contract, and the relationship behind it. That changes what you need to have ready, and it changes how early you need to start.

Rod Leman handles swine real estate for Growthland. He spent more than 30 years in pork production before moving into brokerage and appraisal work, and selling contract hog barns is most of what he does. He put together a short three-part series on where to begin, and we have collected all of it here.

Part 1: Why owners decide it is time

Retirement and the equity tied up in the barn. A next generation with no interest in swine contracting. Tired of chores, or unable to find and keep good labor. And the one Rod says he sees most often, an integrator asking for major site improvements to retain the contract when the owner is not up for that capital outlay.

His point in this one is worth hearing: the process feels daunting mostly because owners have spent a lifetime acquiring assets, not selling them.

Part 2: Start with your integrator contract

Before anything else, pull out the contract and understand your rights. Rod walks through what to look for: the expiration date and its terms, whether you have to give notice to exit and in what window, whether the integrator can assign the contract to a new owner, and what they would want in order to extend with that buyer.

It matters because most of the value in these barns sits in the contract and the integrator relationship, not the building. A buyer is underwriting that contract.

Part 3: Get your documents together

Nutrient management plans, recorded manure easements, real estate abstracts, and any written agreements including labor. Rod flags two things that routinely slow a closing. Manure and cost sharing arrangements are usually verbal, so get them written and signed. And if the ground under the barn has never been surveyed off the larger parcel, do that before a sale is on the table.

The thread running through all three

Think like a buyer. Ask what you would need in order to close this deal if you were the one buying it, then go assemble exactly that. A clean deal is worth more and it closes faster.

Talk to us before you are ready to sell

The most useful conversations happen a year or two ahead of a sale, not a month before. If any of this sounds like your situation, it is worth a call even if you are nowhere near a decision.

Growthland fields the most experienced swine team in the industry, and contract swine barns are a specialty. Our swine division covers swine real estate, barn management, appraisals, and complex workout situations across Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, and Minnesota. If Rod is not the right fit, someone on the team will be. You can meet Growthland’s swine team here.