Push on to sell Hart's Tokoroa farms

A national sales drive has started in a bid to sell the 29 dairy farms, which have been on the market for about 18 months.

A national marketing campaign has started to help multibillionaire Graeme Hart achieve his goal of netting $224.5 million from a mid-North Island farm selloff.

His Carter Holt Harvey is selling 29 farms on land around Tokoroa once used for forestry but now converted into dairy farms.

Carter Holt Harvey spokeswoman Emily Coffey said the farms had been on the market for almost two years without selling.

So a national marketing campaign had been started to try to lure buyers.

"These assets have been on the market for 18 months, so there's nothing new," she said "It's just that we've reinvigorated the marketing campaign by appointing Bayleys and PGG Wrightson."

"Previously, we were doing it ourselves because we have a property division." Ms Coffey would not drawn on how Mr Hart would spend the expected windfall.

"That's up to Graeme Hart to decide, isn't it?" she said.

The agents say the deal is New Zealand's largest corporate farm sale.

The farms are from 281ha to 726ha and asking prices are $5.1 million to $10.4 million. The farms are supporting about 20,000 cows.

Latest Real Estate Institute farm sales showed the average size of the dairy farms sold was 105ha.

The price per hectare for those farms was around $35,000.

The biggest number of farm sales was recorded in Canterbury (28) and Waikato (24) during November.

The national median price of dairy farms sold was $3.2 million.