Strong market for farm sales

Nationally, there were 455 farm sales to the end of January compared with 486 in the final quarter of 2014.

A surprisingly strong market for farm sales in Northland with continuity coming from first farm purchases is highlighted in a Real Estate Institute of New Zealand report on rural land sales for the three months ending January 31.

Twenty-five farms were sold in the region during the three months, compared with 27 in the final quarter last year, reflecting a national trend for lower sales as summer holidays replaced buoyant spring sales activity. Nationally, there were 455 farm sales to the end of January compared with 486 in the final quarter of 2014.

Northland also fared well with lifestyle block sales, with it and Nelson the only regions to record sales increases in the three months to January 31 compared with the final quarter last year. Northland sales figures rose from 153 in the 2014 quarter to 157 by the end of January, while lifestyle sales throughout the country dropped from 1769 to 1623 over the same period.

Northland lifestyle blocks sold in January had a median sales price of $340,000. The median lifestyle sales price nationally in the same period was $529,000, topped by Auckland on $965,000 followed by Canterbury on $607,500.

Six of the 25 Northland farms sold in the three months to January 31 were dairy units, 11 were grazing blocks, two were finishing farms, five were horticulture properties and one was an arable farm.

The median size of the Northland dairy farms sold was 157 hectares and their median sales price was $20,336 a hectare -- similar to the median for the final quarter in 2014.

However, the Real Estate Institute notes that included in the national tally of 101 dairy farm sales to January 31 were 15 farms with a median sale value of $32,501 a hectare. The median size of these dairy units was 139ha and they ranged from 52ha in the Waikato to 262ha in Northland.

The median production per hectare across all dairy farms sold in January was 1097kgMS, the third highest on record.

The two Northland finishing farms sold in January averaged 331ha and had a median sales price of $27,763 a hectare. It and the region's December finishing farm median sales price of $30,400 a hectare far surpassed median Northland dairy farm sales prices over the same period. The 60 finishing farms with a average size of 58ha which sold nationally in the three months to January 31 had a median sales price of $23,506 a hectare.

The 11 grazing farms sold in Northland to January 31 had a median size of 39ha and sale price of $11,460 a hectare, down slightly on the $12,833 a hectare median for grazing properties in the region sold in December. The median sales price per hectare for the 201 grazing farms sold nationally in the three months to January was $15,640, compared to $16,167 for the 219 grazing properties sold around the country in the final quarter last year.

The five Northland horticulture blocks sold in the three months to January 31 averaged 5ha and had a median sales price of $124,011 a hectare, compared with a $132,474/hectare median for the 36 properties sold nationally in the same period.