Farmers Beginning to Purchase Properties in Town

Article by: Hari Yellina

Following a boom in revenues, many of Australia’s primary producers have taken the opportunity to expand their incomes by investing in commercial real estate, according to real estate agency Ray White. Australian agriculture production is expected to reach $73.5 billion in 2021, according to Ray White chief economist Nerida Conisbee. “Most commodity types witnessed rises, driven not only by rising worldwide demand, but also by supply chain disruptions pushing up costs, and COVID-19 infection concerns overseas that tended to be considerably worse than in Australia,” Ms Conisbee said. “Given the record prices for crops and cattle, there has been a continual stream of country purchasers,” Mr Russell added.

Farmers are rejoicing at the end of the drought by investing in income-generating properties. Success requires diversification; there will almost certainly be another drought, flood, or wildfire. After being presented by Ray White Commercial Townsville director Troy Townsend, a property at 259-261 Charters Towers Road, Mysterton, sold for $5.25 million with a 6.5 percent return to primary producers from Northern NSW. “A well-known local family developed the former Royal Oak Hotel site,” Mr Russell said. The modern complex has an 84-meter frontage on a major arterial route, 62 on-site parking spaces, and a nine-year contract with one of Queensland’s most successful car wash enterprises. Quality stock is becoming more difficult to come by, and low interest rates have pushed yields to new lows.

Moreover, in recent weeks, more than $60 million in farmland has changed hands as Australian farmers expand, snatching up some of the country’s most iconic pastoral holdings and rural estates at a time when prices are skyrocketing. Chris Stoney, a sheep and cattle farmer near Deniliquin in the NSW Riverina, paid $9.35 million for the 3341-hectare mixed farming property Yaloke, greatly above forecasts of more than $8.5 million and ending over 100 years of ownership by region pioneers the Wragge family. Mr Stoney, whose Minto Pastoral Company in Mansfield runs livestock across 73,000 hectares of pastoral and heavy rainfall area in NSW and Victoria, said he was only able to buy Yaloke because of the equity he had built up in his own properties. “The market is very, very good. Our own properties have increased in value which has given us enough equity to buy again,” he told The Australian Financial Review over the weekend.