Property Report: Best January sales in a decade for rural market

PGG Wrightson's General Manager for Livestock and Rural Real Estate, Peter Newbold. Photo / Supplied

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Jamie Mackay from The Country spoke recently with Peter Newbold, General Manager of PGG Wrightson Real Estate.

Newbold told Mackay that January was the best January they have had in ten years.

It was an incredible month of sales across most property types, except lifestyle, which was only slightly behind due to a low number of listings available.

Mackay noted that kiwifruit was "going nuts" and that he was aghast a few years ago when the cost got to $1million per canopy hectare.

Newbold said that to get a good gold kiwifruit property nowadays you were looking at somewhere between $1.7 and $2million per hectare.

However, this reflected the excellent returns that people were getting from these properties and showed that there was a surety that payments could be managed if the market went up or down a little.

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Sheep and beef farms are still going well even though returns are lower than dairy.

Sales have been solid and there has been a lot of interest, with properties being listed earlier in the year than normal.

Newbold said this could be because there had been a lot of rainfall and farms were looking good because of it.

There is also demand from young farmers coming down from the North Island and looking to get more farm for their money further South.

Mackay asked why there had been a reluctance to buy dairy properties in spite of there being good returns.

Newbold thought that may be due to the sentiment out there around environmental and compliance challenges in the industry. It could also be due to the high cost of these farms, he said.

As for rural lifestyle properties, the demand was still there but there was a shortage of listings, Newbold said.