There is no sign of any let up in the ongoing decline of rural property sales.
According to the latest Real Estate Institute of NZ figures sales of both farms and lifestyle blocks declined again in August.
That is hardly anything new.
As the two graphs below show, sales of farms and lifestyle blocks continue to follow seasonal trends but have been in steady decline for at least the last three years.
According to the REINZ, just 175 farms of all types were sold over the three months to the end of August, down from 214 over the three months ended July (-18.2%) and down from 222 (-21%) compared to a three months ended August 2022.
Prices were also softer, with the median price per hectare for all farms sold in the three months to August coming in at $24,920, down 14.8% compared to the three months ended July and down 8.3% compared to the three months ended August last year.
The REINZ All Farms Price Index, which adjusts for differences in the mix of properties sold each month by farm type, size and location, declined by 8.1% over the year to August.
The decline in sales affected most farm types.
Dairy farm sales were down 21% over the three months to August compared to a year earlier while finishing farm sales were down 32% and grazing properties were down 38% over the same period.
Of all the farms types, horticultural properties appear to be faring the best, but even their sales in the three months to August were down 16% compared to a year earlier.
Lifestyle block sales were also pretty grim.
Just 1273 lifestyle block sales sales were recorded in the three months ended August, down 8.1% compared to the three months end July and -16% compared to the same period of last year.
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19 Comments
After the panic buying of Covid to escape the horde of humanity in the cities, fueled by access to 2% debt this was always going to occur.
Yep and the rates and Oheads on these properties ain't cheap. A lot of the are life sentence block not lifestyle block.
The only people I have ever met that say this are city folk or similar who have never set foot on a lifestyle block.
Hmmm, moving electric fencing weekly, fixing gates and troughs damaged by stock, fixing tracks damaged by storms, and spraying gorse that never stops poking its head us and on and on. You can keep it.
Buy one of these then plant and grass the block. Running stock is a nightmare.
Had a Microsoft executive do this as neighbour..spent his weekend on his ride on keeping that 29 ache lawn just so!!😅
Beats a $1m shack on 400sqm section surrounded by often inconsiderate neighbours, stuck in traffic and pollution. You also forgot to add endless hours spent on a veg plot, butchering, preserving, preparing firewood... very few can hack it these days but some of us love it. :) PDK will also tell you it is coming to a town near you soon, peak oil soon.
Yeah I did all that bar the butchering in miniature, loved it so now looking to get a proper block! Prepared for the work and have a plan to downsize when I'm elderly too.
It’s all systems and a practical bent…love it so
much now have teo different finishing blocks. A lot tradies and practical people wish for this. People in the city simply don’t get it. Apartment living yeah… sound up to it 😅
Yeah. Definitely not for anyone who’s afraid of hard work.
A lot of people thought a tree change would be nice, especially since housing was cheaper in the regions and they could work from home. Then they got bored being so far away from town. A friend of mine made that error, she went from an inner city apartment in Melbourne to a house on the outskirts of a Ballarat. Lasted about a year, now she is back in an inner city apartment.
Humans are so much more needy now. I blame the internet era. Everyone needs wall to wall social contact and constant entertainment/distraction. Leave one of these engineered persons with the pace of life humans experienced for a thousand generations and they don't know what to do with themselves, or they experience fear being away from the horde.
Isn't the whole point of a lifestyle block that you keep your city pad and enjoy the best of both worlds?
I'd be interested to see a breakdown showing intergenerational 'shared equity' transfers. Also 'lifestyle blocks' that are really the old farmhouse and a sacrificial hectare split from the larger farm once a new house is built. A good way of getting half a million dollars for a hectare of land otherwise valued at 25k. Makes the finances look awesome when they may not even support a family from their Labour.
The many who fled the infectious human masses for the "good Life" in the country, would have hardly had the experience of nurturing some suburban tomatoes or lettuces to a useful and edible stage!
Let alone: Frequent power cuts, Dealing with own water/waste water, No police anywhere, No medical/dental centers, No medical specialists, No decent supermarkets.......
WTF !! many will say. Supposed to be the "good life" ????
So after a year or two of unwittingly facing a sudden life change to dirty hands and hard graft......."get me outer here!!!"
Expect to see common resales after 1 to 3 years of ownership and eyewatering losses as these properties return to the longterm, much lower average values.
A while back I was chatting about lifestyle blocks within ear-shot of a real estate friend. She came over and said "Who's buying a life style block? They're great! You get the first commission, and then another 2 years later when they sell it!".
I have two young children and daydream about life on a lifestyle block. Then I remember I don’t have time to maintain my small townhouse let alone a large section with animals and the rest.
it’s a nice thought but totally unrealistic for my lifestyle.
Curious what is the actual definition of a lifestyle block?
A 1ha block near town is more like a large section - whereas I always thought of a lifestyle block being 5-10 ha. Over 10ha becomes a farm?
I wonder if there is also a correlation with capital outflows from the country - and if it's tied to the run-up to the election? A certain lack of confidence? I also had a rural real estate salesperson tell me some years ago that the average tenure for a lifestyle block was about 5 years. My grandparents reckoned that their 10 acre strip here took them more work than the 125,000 acre station in New South Wales.
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