Dairy farm average of $3.4m 'a good result'

Real estate agents say about 40 dairy farms were sold in the three months to July.

The farms had an average size of 147ha, producing 904kg of milk solids per hectare.

For the same period last year 89 dairy farms sold and in 2007 there were 100 sales over that three months.

The median price in the 2009 June quarter was $3.43 million, compared with $4.2 million in 2008.

Nationally, the average price was equivalent to $41/kg of milksolids or $35,000 per hectare and was a "good result", Real Estate Institute rural spokesman Peter McDonald said.

"It's good to see the season finish on a consistent note," McDonald said.

He said that "disappointingly" there was reduced turnover of properties across the rural sector, with 229 sales for the current period compared with 601 in the three months to July 2008.

All districts had a drop in the number of sales except for Northland, where sales rose from 31 to 33, but the median price slipped to $660,000 from $1.66 million in July 2008.

McDonald said sales were "buoyant" in Canterbury, with 35 farms sold in the three months to July 2009, but they were down from 118 in the same period last year, and the median price for the quarter dropped from $1.55 million to $1.3 million.

Thirty properties sold in Waikato (76 in 2008) and in Southland sales slumped from 94 in July last year to 17 last month.

Nationally, the median sales price for all farm types dropped from $1.8 million in July last year to $1.2 million.

McDonald said median prices rose in eight out of 14 regions, if the three months to June 2009 was compared with the three months to July 2009. In Taranaki, this comparison rose from $528,500 to $813,500.

Wellington recorded three farm sales for July 2009, but its median price soared from $1.1 million in 2008 (when nine farms sold) to $3.1 million. Nelson, where four properties sold, had a median of $1.1 million, compared with a median of $1.7 million for 23 farms at the same time last year.

The rural lifestyle market held firm with the median price in the three months to July 2009 at $420,000 compared with $421,250 in the three months to June 2008.

- NZPA