The trend has been most evident in Canterbury and Southland, taking some focus off dairy farming, Real Estate Institute rural spokesman Brian Peacocke said.
Mycoplasma bovis is a strong talking point everywhere but so far has not stopped too many sales.
“But if a property is on the market and identified as infected that would stop the sale stone dead.”
The institute’s all-farm price index has risen by 1.5% in the three months to the end of April and 2% since April last year whereas as the dairy farm index fell 2% in the latest three-month period and is down 5.2% year-on-year.
Taking the dairy prices out of the all farm index signalled a healthy market for sheep and beef properties and for arable farms though sales activity in the latter is typically quite low, Peacocke said.
The index figures adjust for differences in farm size, location and farming type and are considered a more accurate summary of the market over the median price figures.
For all farms the median price per hectare for the April quarter was $27,309ha, compared to $28,368ha at the same time a year earlier.
Canterbury is one of the regions where sales activity in the April period this year was stronger than a year earlier, with solid sales across most categories and especially for finishing and grazing properties.
A larger number of sheep and beef farms coming onto the market at the northern and southern ends of the province indicated a busy spring.
There was increasing concern around M bovis there as there was in Southland.
That was highlighted by zero turnover there on dairy farms, whereas finishing and grazing farms had solid turnover.
Nationally, finishing farms made up 32% of sales in the April quarter, grazing farms 26% and dairy 20%.
The finishing farm number is significant given there is nearly always low availability of good properties in that sector, Peacocke said.
West Coast and Manawatu-Wanganui, mainly in sheep and beef, also had lifts in sales over a year ago but sales in Northland, Waikato and Otago were much lower.
The Healthy Rivers regulatory impact in the Waikato and Waipa river zones is now spilling over to the adjoining catchments.
Sale figures fluctuated for no obvious reason, except for Otago, which was beginning the winter slowdown as strong activity in previous months showed the region is in good heart.
The median price for dairy farms was $36,028ha, up from $33,750 in the March quarter and $35,186 for April last year. That measure shows a stronger return than the more representative dairy farm index reading.
The median sale price for finishing farms was $28,427ha for April, well up from the $25,585ha a year earlier, a 15% gain, but below the March 2018 figure of $30,044.
Grazing properties told the opposite story year-on-year, falling to $10,692ha, the same as March and down from $15,079ha for April last year, a fall of 29%.
Horticulture properties were steady in price with the median figure of $278,258 in the latest period being marginally higher than for March and marginally lower than April last year.
Total farm sales for the year to the end of April were 1468, a 19% fall on the previous year.
Finishing farm sales rose 10.8% but there was a 2.9% fall in dairy, a 37% fall for grazing farms and 39% fewer arable farm sales.
There were 30 more farm sales in the April quarter than for the three months to the end of March.
