There has been a significant drop in the number of farms being sold and the selling prices being achieved.
According to the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand, 329 farms throughout the country were sold in the three months to the end of February, down 11.1% compared to the same period 12 months earlier.
Of the farms sold in the three months to the end of February, the median price per hectare was $20,569, down 8.4% from the same period a year earlier.
In the 12 months to the end of February, 1253 farms of all types were sold, 14.8% fewer than in the previous 12 months.
The biggest annual decline was in dairy farm sales -37.0%, followed by finishing farms -27.9%, grazing farms -10.0% and arable farms -9.9%.
The REINZ All Farms Price Index, which adjusts for differences in the size, type and location of farms sold, was down 13.7% in the 12 months to February compared to the previous 12 months.
The REINZ Diary Farm Price Index, which adjusts for differences in dairy farm size and location, was down 9.7% in the 12 months to the end of February compared to the previous 12 months.
The bright spot in the rural property sector appears to be lifestyle blocks.
There were 1769 lifestyle property sales in the three months to the end of February which was up 20.5% compared to the same period a year earlier.
The median price of all lifestyle properties sold throughout the country in the three months to the end of February was $710,000, up $20,000 (+2.9%) compared to a year earlier.
Here is more detail of the monthly farm sales activity.
And this chart tracks monthly farm sales by type. Add each three month set to match the data in this article above.
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4 Comments
Farm prices through the roof after we get through the Pandemic, people will realise the importance of food security.
NoVictim - With the disconnect between city and country - most consumers take it for granted there will be food on the supermarket shelves when they go shopping. Most don't care where it came from or how it got there.
The only thing supporting farm prices up here is forestry and the farms are disappearing into pine trees - 300, 500, 800ha at a time. Having seen the proposed freshwater legislation and its huge financial impact on me we may be next.
I’m hoping the Freshwater policy will be discarded, in the current Covid climate it makes little sense to burden business with a ridiculous one size fit all policy.
Especially when City Councils can pollute to a much higher level than any rural waterway with impunity.
Waterways within the Taranaki region almost without exception have been improving year on year for the past decade, with no recognition from the Urban dwellers as to the work and money put in to do this.
C'mon Rabo, we knew you can managed your loan better than the rest of those OZ bunch! that gambling all their eggs into property ponzi scheme. Yours different, soon you shall reap the benefit of trusting cooperative kinda produce, to consume.. by all those ponzi brick+land banking - show them to either choose a proper food? or try to chew some of those brick or land soil. This year courtesy of the bug, should be reversal gradually from last year towards the real economic productivity, not those unknown phantom numbers/imaginary GDP strength by selling lands & importing low wages/low skilled migrants.
The previous 9years under blue prophet, we've all been ushered to China by sir JK for RE GDP production numbers .. now? in this Covid19 era, anyone know where about is he? or even open up his bwanker mouth again? eg. requesting a tax payers bail out, we knew someone already ask on behalf of ANZ.. hmnn.
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