DEMAND FOR LAND

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25346, 20 November 1947, Page 10

DEMAND FOR LAND

PROBLEMS FACING SELLERS REINVESTMENT OF CAPITAL There is still a big and unsatisfied demand for land in Canterbury. In a seller’s market, many farmers who are growing old and who are anxious to retire hesitate about putting their properties on the market, because of the difficulty in securing a house in town, and a profitable investment for the capital locked up in the farm. This opinion was expressed to “The Press” by the representatives of stock and station firms handling land sales in the province. A typical case quoted was that of an elderly farmer, with no sons, who has had many approaches made to him to sell his well-found farm. “Much as I would like to retire, I feel it would be folly for me. to do so,” he said. “The sale of my farm would net me, say £13,000. Well, you find me a home in Christchurch and then find me some investment for £lO,OOO which will yield me more than £3OO a year. As it is, my farm provides me with a comfortable home and an income of about £lOOO a year.” Transactions Held Up Another deterrent to farms coming on the market is. it is said, a prejudice by many farmers against the land sales committee. In pointing this out, agents say that their own personal experience of the land sales committee is that they are very fair and just and in quite a few cases sales of farms are approved at the prices asked by vendors. Complaint was made in several quarters of long delay in getting a deal completed. In some instances months have elapsed after a man has agreed to buy a property before the deal is ratified. This trouble, it is said, is caused by the Crown, which not infrequently, after /an agreement for sale and purchase has gone to the committee, endeavours to find a returned serviceman as a buyer.

Because of increasing costs and the shortage of experienced m’usterers and other necessary labour, straight-out tussock blocks and back-country holdings are generally not sought to-day. Dairy farms capable of carrying 30 to 40 cows are quickly snapped up when they come on the market, and the same applied to mixed farming properties ranging from 150 acres to 400 acres, and holdings of 1000 acres to 1500 acres of tussock hills with enough ploughable flat to fatten surplus stock. High Cost of Stock A slackening-off in the present widespread demand for land was predicted by one authority, on the score of the phenomenally high price of sheep and the mounting cost of farm implements. Apart from the very, heavy outlay of capital, some prospective buyers, mindful of what had happened more than once in the pastoral industry of the Dominion, were, he said, hesitant about stocking up at present prices. Some indication of present-day land values may be gathered from the following list of recent sales, selected at random from the books of a local firm: —over 150 acres of heavy grazing Peninsula country, about £55 an acre; about 400 acres of medium sheep and grazing country in the Hororata district, between £6 and £7 an acre; over 200 acres in the Leeston district, fattening and cropping land, between £2O and £25 an acre; just under 300 acres, Ellesmere district, a first-class mixed farm—under £4O an acre; over 800 acres light plains country—sheep farm—just under £4 an acre; nearly 250 acres cropping and fattening country in the Methven district, just under £2O an acre; 1000 acres, North Canterbury. first-class tussock country, a very well-found farm, just under £lO an acre; 5000 acres North Canterbury, mostly tussock country, but including an area of fattening country, over £5 10s an acre.