Increasingly, information on rural land is needed by land owners, realtors, investors, appraisers, government officials, and researchers to make effective economic and policy decisions involving land. One source of information that could meet this demand is local real property tax records. These records continuously provide parcel data relating to value, use, ownership, location, size, and taxes. These records also provide data on transfers of rural land, such as sales price, previous ownership, date of transfer, and type of transfer. Transfer data, in particular, may be useful at meeting data needs because sales prices are generated strictly from market interaction and because rural transfers represent only two to four percent of all rural parcels, thus providing a small, efficient sample to rely upon. Transfer data have often been used in land market analyses, particularly for local land markets. However, questions have arisen as to the representativeness of parcels sold of all parcels. The purpose of this study is to determine whether transfers of rural land are representative of all rural land parcels in terms of value and several value-producing characteristics. To accomplish this, an economic model is developed to explain the variations in the assessed per acre value of rural land in three Virginia counties. This model is then transformed into a statistical model that examines a data set composed of all rural land parcels and a data set composed of bona fide transfers occurring in 1983. The regression results of the two data sets are statistically compared. In addition, comparisons of the two data sets are also made on the basis of mean assessed land value per acre, per acre assessed land value distribution, and parcel size distribution. The results of these comparisons indicate that bona fide transfers of rural land are not representative of all rural parcels in terms of value and value-producing characteristics. / M.S.

Master of Science

The purpose of this study was two-fold: first, to determine the reliability of the reconnaissance method of land classification as indicated by various farm management, home economic, and other economic factors; second, to determine the economic conditions existing on each class of land, attempting to measure the relative importance of the major factors affecting farm financial successful on land of different classes. / Master of Science