September vs. August: why deals rose 16.2% while the price slipped

September at a glance

In September 2026 the agricultural land market bounced back from August's slump: the number of purchase and sale deals rose 16.2% — from 8,358 to 9,712 — and the total area sold rose 15.1% (from 16,429 to 18,913 ha). Yet the price per hectare moved the other way: UAH 59,343 versus UAH 60,377 in August, or -1.7%. Turnover came back; the price did not. Here is why.

The August figures here differ slightly from those in our previous piece (8,255 deals and UAH 60,430): deals reach the register with a delay, and more than a hundred additional records were added for August over the month. All comparisons below use the updated August.

Here are September's three key indicators next to August's:

Average price in Ukraine, LandData Explorer composite methodology on purchase and sale deals; the dollar figure uses the official NBU exchange rate at the end of the respective month.

The numbers point in different directions: both the deal count and the area rose by roughly a sixth, while the price fell 1.7%. In dollars the decline is slightly deeper — -2.4% — because the hryvnia weakened a little over the month: the official NBU rate at month-end rose from 44.55 to 44.86 UAH per dollar.

A real recovery or just a rebound?

To judge how large September's gain is, look at the monthly number of deals since the start of the year:

After the March peak of 12,169 deals, the market slowed gradually: -6.6% in April, -3.0% in May, -5.7% in June, -3.6% in July — monthly swings of a few percent. August broke out of that pattern (-16.5% versus July), and September became the first monthly gain since March. Notably, September won back about 82% of August's drop: 9,712 deals against 10,014 in July — only 3.0% fewer. But the market is still far from its March peak: it remains 20.2% below it.

The comparison with the same month last year is also interesting. In September 2025 there were 10,492 deals at UAH 50,815 per hectare. So this September trails it in deal count (-7.4%), but the price has risen 16.8% over the year. Against that backdrop, the monthly 1.7% decline looks like a correction within annual growth rather than a break in the trend.

Why didn't the price follow the volume?

It would be logical to expect that when deals rise by a sixth, the price at least holds. To see why it did not, two effects have to be separated: "where" land was bought and "at what price". If we take August prices in each region and plug in September's distribution of deals across regions (changing only the geography of deals, not the prices), the national average would have fallen by only 0.3%. Instead, actual prices inside the regions themselves fell by a further 0.8% over the same month. Together that gives about 1.1% by the regional calculation; on the full LandData Explorer methodology the national decline is 1.7%, and the gap between the two figures is just a matter of weighting.

This is a fundamental difference from August. Back then the shift in deal structure pushed the average price up while real price cuts in the regions pulled it down, so the two effects almost exactly cancelled out. In September there was nothing to cancel: the geography of deals barely changed, and the price decline is mostly genuine cheapening of land in specific regions rather than a statistical trick of proportions.

How it looks by region

This is best seen at the level of individual regions. Below are eight regions that illustrate September's picture most clearly, with the change in the number of deals shown next to the price:

The most telling group is the regions where the price fell noticeably: Poltava (-10.5%, from UAH 89,710 to UAH 80,328), Lviv (-9.2%), Volyn (-9.8%), Rivne (-7.5%) and Vinnytsia (-6.3%). Together these five regions account for almost a third of all September deals (30%), so they set the overall direction. Notably, Poltava's price fell the most among the large markets while its deal count rose 8%: sellers seem to have given ground on price to close deals. In Volyn and Rivne, deals rose 42% and 47% respectively — the most among the regions listed — and also against a falling price.

The opposite pole is Khmelnytskyi (+11.8%) and Chernihiv (+14.3%), where land became more expensive by double-digit percentages while the number of deals also rose (+15% and +13%). Kyiv region took the middle ground: the price rose 3.3% and deals rose 22%. Together with Zakarpattia and Cherkasy, where prices also moved up, the "growth" regions supplied over a fifth of September's deals (22%) — not enough to offset the cheapening in the "third of the market".

What this means for market participants

For landowners in regions where the price fell over the month — Poltava, Lviv, Volyn, Rivne, Vinnytsia — the national 1.7% says little: in their regions the decline was several times deeper, and that is what should guide the valuation of a plot. For buyers there the situation is the mirror image: entry has become noticeably cheaper, and deal activity suggests the market has already heard that signal.

In Khmelnytskyi, Chernihiv and Cherkasy the picture is the opposite. For sellers this is a good moment: prices rose 10–14% and demand did not disappear. For buyers entry is costlier, and it is worth considering whether that price calls for extra negotiation or a look at neighbouring regions.

The main takeaway from September is that a recovery in turnover is not a recovery in prices. If the number of deals holds at September's level in October, it will confirm that August's pause was a one-off. The price, judging by September, is now shaped not by the overall mood of the market but by local conditions: in some regions it is correcting downward, in others it keeps rising, and the national figure says almost nothing about what land costs exactly where you are interested in it.