HORSHAM real estate agent John Neville and colleagues have a lot of competition listing farms for sale in the Wimmera as neighbours often sell directly to each other “through the fence”.
“A lot of the (property) deals straight through the fence have occurred,” John said.
Most rural real estate agents face this dilemma in the Wimmera’s fertile black soil cropping districts in north western Victoria.
What also further complicates local farm sales is there are a number of established farming families that pass on their properties to future generations.
“A lot of (property) deals straight through the fence have occurred.”
John said this leads to big properties being tightly held and not being put up for sale.
“The parcels of land we are getting are under 1000 acres (404ha),” John said.
An indication on how tightly held is cropping land John said for about 80 per cent of their listings the eventual buyer lives within about 20 kilometres.
Since 2014 John and his colleague, Geoff Coustley, at Elders in Horsham have seen sharp spikes in the value of some Wimmera cropping country.
Some farm land has risen from $4942 a hectare ($2000 an acre) five years ago to around and sometimes over $9884 ($4000 an acre) now.
Many local farmers want land to graze as well as grow cereal crops to capitalise on the recent increase in demand for sheep and wool products.
“Right now people are looking for reasonable cropping country they can use for lamb and sheep grazing,” John said.
“We have had inquiry for property south of Horsham for people who want to diversify for lamb and sheep grazing trying to get more of their cropping country into production.”
Sharp spikes in some cropping country from $4942 a hectare ($2000 an acre) to sometimes now over $9884 ($4000 an acre) have occurred since 2014
Fertile Wimmera black soil land is regarded premium cropping land and regularly attracts $7413 a hectare ($3000 per acre) John said.
Their agency has consistently achieved $3000 per acre for farm land they list west of Horsham near Vectis towards and around Mount Arapiles and Natimuk.
Values for cropping land are also higher across the Wimmera River flood plains south of the Wimmera Highway towards Noradjuha according to John.
Other valuable cropping country is located in the 457mm-483mm (18 to 19 inch) average annual rainfall areas including around Kalkee about 15km north of Horsham.
Another segment of their rural property sales market is people looking for small farms to buy or lifestyle properties. See Going Up The Country.
“We get the lifestyle interest off the internet,” John said.
“This is usually from people looking around the Grampians National Park. They are generally from outside the Horsham area.”
