interest.co.nz now has the most comprehensive regional listings of working farms on the market

Cool....

The thing is though, I eat little meat for health reasons as much as CO2 etc...so while this looks a good idea, 1/2 the reason im almost vegitarian isnt met by this....

Anyway steak and free range eggs for tea! (Saturday night is sin night) 

:D

regards

Probably not Andrewj - you would be expected to pay top dollar - wealth transfer mechanisms abound for the savvy, well connected elites - I guess our banks are well pleased to see this type of farm property revaluation adding security to their loans, made in all cases with foreign lender's and depositor's money. Not sure this is the most productive use of my savings - but hey what do I know? Read more

Shell out $265,000 and collect more than $10 million. It's one of several nice little high-country earners.

That's the mark-up that one South Island runholder couple made from subdividing some of their land freeholded through the tenure review process.

Lincoln University academic and tenure-review expert Dr Ann Brower has for several years been following the money trail from the Crown's coffers to the bank accounts of high-country farmers.

Now, newly released details of some of the deals have allowed her to calculate the profits made from subdividing previously publicly owned land in some of the South Island's most pristine locations.

Federated Farmers is taking issue with Brower's findings, saying any subsequent multimillion-dollar gains from subdivision do not expose flaws in the tenure review process.

Instead it says they are merely a consequence of district council plans allowing subdivision to take place.

Alpha Burn Station on the southern shores of Lake Wanaka and on the road to the Treble Cone skifield is one of more than 100 high-country farms that have been through tenure review in the past 20 years.

Brower says that in 2002, the Crown sold 3365 of the 4579-hectare station to leaseholders Don and Vicki McRae for $267,500, the equivalent of $79.50 per ha.

The Crown then bought pastoral leasehold rights for grazing and conservation of the remaining 1214ha - higher-altitude land - for $202,500, or $166.83 per ha.

She says the McRaes then subdivided the newly freeholded land and sold just 193ha of it to Damper Bay Estates in October 2006 for $10.1 million, according to Quotable Value data.

"That's 658 times what they paid. Translated into urban terms, this is like selling a section for $100,000 then seeing it sold on for $65.8m four years later."

Brower said the 658 times multiplier was, however, "quite reasonable" compared with some other deals.

Less than half of the leasehold land the Crown had sold for $6.9m had since sold for $135.7m.

"These subdividers have on-sold land for a price per hectare ranging from 1.8 to 27,096 times the price they paid. The median multiplier was 992.

"Alpha Burn is just one, picturesque, example of what's been happening for 20 years the entire length of the Southern Alps."