Farm sales surge 50.3 per cent year-on-year

Farm sales have been good in the three months ending May 2012. Photo / NZH

An excellent summer season for the rural sector has contributed towards strong farm sales this year, according to figures released today by the Real Estate Institute of NZ.

As the country heads into winter, REINZ data showed 103 more farms were sold in the three months ended May 2012 than in the same period last year. That represents a 28.3 per cent increase.

On a yearly basis, there were 1398 farm sales in the year to May 2012, a 50.3 per cent increase from the year to May 2011.

Overall, there were 467 farm sales in the three months to end of May 2012, compared with 443 farm sales in the three months to April 2012.

"The current sales volumes reflect a solid tone as the market enters into the traditionally slower winter period," said REINZ Rural Market spokesman Brian Peacocke.

"With a very good season across the country morale in the rural sector is positive, although caution is evident due to the recent falls in product prices."

In the three months to May, the median price per hectare for all farms sold was $17,031, a 0.9 per cent decrease on the $17,199 recorded for same period last year. It is also a drop of 8.5 per cent on the $18,617 recorded for the three months to April 2012.

Gisborne and Hawkes Bay were the only regions not to record increases in sales volumes for the three months ended May, compared to the three months ended May 2011.

Bay of Plenty recorded the largest increase in sales, with 19 more, followed by Canterbury with 18 more.

- HERALD ONLINE