The rural property market started the year with farm sales numbers at similar levels to a year ago but lifestyle property sales well down.
According to the Real Estate Institute of NZ, 489 farming properties were sold in the three months to the end of January this year, down just 3.2% compared to a year earlier.
Dairy farm sales have been particularly strong over the last 12 months with 1710 selling in the year to January, up 79% compared to the previous 12 months.
Overall prices remain firm, with the REINZ All Farm Price Index, which adjusts for differences in the mix of farms sold by size, type and location, up by 22.3% in January 2022 compared to January 2021.
Compared to December 2021 the Index was up 2.1%.
The REINZ Dairy Farm Price Index, which adjusts for differences in the mix of sales by farm size and location, was up 9.7% at the end of January compared to a year earlier.
However the market for lifestyle properties was a lot less solid, with sales volumes well down.
According to the REINZ 1938 lifestyle blocks were sold in the three months to the end of January this year, down 29% compared to a year earlier and the slowdown in sales appears to be getting worse.
"When sales volumes are compared on a month-by-month basis, the figures for January 2022 reflect a massive reduction of 47.5% compared to sales for December 2021," REINZ Rural Spokesman Brian Peacocke said.
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17 Comments
I have a theory, that the recent price mania was in a large part driven by the lockdown, as much as the available credit.
People that are stuck at home naturally will want to improve, get more space, upgrade etc. Hence the surge in lifestyle sales, though it plays out with City dwellers also.
Opening up borders and removing stay at home orders may end up having a deflationary impact on volumes /sales etc. Just as much as any fiscal change.
Boredom factor……
if you are after a boat, camper, lifestyle block wait 12 months!!!
Are lifestyle block values falling? Are volumes down due to fewer being placed on the market? It is hard to draw conclusions from the information in the article. With the move to working from home, I would have expected more demand for rural property?
With my clients it’s clearly not the case, desirable area in NZ…people want are very limited listings..always have been in this sector of the market.
Yes it's not great journalism to posit lifestyle properties are in the doldrums, state sales are down but not comment on overall availability. It's only relevant if the number of lifestyle properties coming on the market are flat or increasing.
There's always a natural churn in Life Sentence Blocks, 3 to 5 years, as owners get tired of paddocks that are too big to mow, too small to plow; sheep that are always looking for new and messy ways to die; gear that needs regular expensive maintenance yet is essentially at the toy end of the machinery spectrum; and chickens that are constantly at the mercy of feral cats, falcons, dogs and vermin. All the things that the sales guff, unaccountably, fails to mention.
But the views.....
Not a "Life sentence block" when it gets rezoned from rural to residential by the city council, as happened to a friend of mine. He is laughing now. We run sheep on our LSB and its pretty easy care, they are the lawnmowers as long as they have access to water trough and you have yards to give them the occasional worm treatment. Administer it yourself and it is cheaper than owning a cat or dog. Clearly you have had bad experiences and want to vent
Not an LSB owner. Assumptions awry there.
You pretty much summed up my experience. All my chickens killed by the next door neighbour's dog.
The basket of eggs was empty after that :)
Buy a shotgun
They obviously didn't set it up right as a tax minimisation structure/investment.
LSB owner to IRD auditor: "Welcome to my lifestyle block ahem farm". You would want to be very careful if registering for gst and buying zero-rated...
Those that could didn't have to deal with the IRD auditor. They had "good" accountants prepare the numbers and legal arguments on their behalf.
Meh
Close to Auckland with Equestrian Arena .... not so easy to buy, peoples lives move on.....
Lifestyle blocks
"Buy a farm, with good views of sea. Sub-divide, do some earthworks and enjoy the fruits of your project."
Chickens, beef and sheep...nah.
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