The farms are in the Pukehina area, east of the main kiwifruit zone at Te Puke in Bay of Plenty.
It is fringe kiwifruit land away from the main post-harvest infrastructure and indications are the buyers are already in the industry with the knowledge to make the bare-land investment, Real Estate Institute rural spokesman Brian Peacocke said.
“It is mixed-contour with some flat land and then hilly country likely to stay in livestock.”
Bay of Plenty was a busy region for rural real estate activity in the September quarter.
Dairy farm turnover is low but prices are strong for the good farms, which are selling, the institute’s latest rural report says.
The median price for dairy farms has increased about 23% over the year to the end of September and the institute’s dairy farm index is nearly 21% stronger than a year earlier. The index adjusts for differences in farm size and location and is regarded as the best guide to values, though both measures are uniformly strong.
For the three months to the end of September the median sale price was $38,102/ha, up from $29,470/ha in August and from $30,876/ha in September last year. As part of the strong annual gain, the dairy farm index rose 10.3% from August to September.
Peacocke said the trend for good dairy farms to sell well but second and third-tier properties to struggle to find buyers is continuing.
In the wider market new listings are coming on stream now for the spring sales season and early indications are that good-quality farms are getting a bit of interest.
“There’s quite a few coming out and it’s quite widespread.”
In the year to the end of September 1361 farms were sold around the country, a 6.7% fall on a year earlier. The number of dairy sales fell 37%, finishing farms were down 7.8% and arable farms by 4.4%. An exception was a 3.2% lift in grazing farm sales.
The overall median price was $25,754/ha, just up from the $25,447/ha a year earlier.
For finishing farms the median price for the September period was $33,643/ha, up from $31,660/ha in August and from $32,412 in September last year, for a year-on-year gain of 3.8%.
Though there were more sales of grazing blocks the median price fell 7.1% over the year to $11,090/ha from $11,936/ha for the September period a year earlier. The latest period was also down from $11,337/ha in the August quarter.
Buoyant activity was recorded in the horticulture sector with the median price up 10.1% year-on-year, to $212,985/ha from $193,517/ha.
Regionally, Bay of Plenty had 16 more sales over the September three-month period than a year earlier with Otago being next with nine extra transactions. At the other end of the charts Southland had 16 fewer sales and Auckland had seven fewer.
Bay of Plenty/Rotorua had good activity at good prices in both the finishing and horticulture units.
There were no dairy farm sales reported in Waikato nor in the western North Island or central South Island.
The latter area had good activity in finishing farm sales as did the northern North Island and in Marlborough and Nelson but the eastern North Island had just light sales activity.
The institute’s report said there was a bright patch of sales at good prices of smaller finishing units and Otago had a strong run of grazing unit sales in the Dunedin to Clutha zone.
Overall, grazing farms made up 35% of all sales over the September quarter followed by finishing farms at 27%, horticulture blocks at 17% and arable blocks 8%.
