2015 land prices in Northern Ireland: Market eased slightly

With the major decline in farm incomes as shown in the official Government figures, it may be surprising that land prices haven’t fallen further.

Our land price survey for 2015 shows that the average price for land across Northern Ireland is £9,086 per acre, a reduction of £170 per acre, or 1.8%, on the 2014 figure. The survey covered 8,454 acres, which was up by over 2,000 acres on the previous year.

Farming in decline

At the start of 2015, milk prices were typically 22p/litre, fat cattle prices were at 360p/kg and fat lambs were 400p/kg. While the fat lamb price at the start of 2016 is currently at the same level, there was a long spell during summer 2015 covering the period of peak marketings when the price was only 300p/kg.

In the milk sector during 2015, the fall in prices was relentless and prices are currently at 17.5p a litre. The picture is no better for fat cattle, with prices falling during the year to the current level of 310p/kg.

Official figures

In the official Government figures, the total value of gross output for agriculture in 2015 decreased by 9% to £1.74bn. This was driven by a 13% decline in the value of output from the livestock sector as a whole. While the dairy sector remained the largest contributor to the total value of gross output, dairy output in 2015 fell by 27%.

Overall, farm incomes for the agriculture sector measured as total income from farming (TIFF) fell by 41% in 2015 (or 42% in real terms) to £183m from £312m in 2014. TIFF is the return on the farmer’s labour, management input and the capital invested for all farms across the sector.

The dire state of the industry is confirmed by farm income figures based on farm accounts collected by government as part of the NI Farm Business Survey. The survey is a representative sample of farms with more than 0.5 standard labour units.

Farm business income measured across all farm types will fall from an average £24,942 in 2014/’15 to £13,451 in 2015/’16, a decrease of £11,491 or 46% per farm and is due to lower product prices and lower subsidy receipts in the 2015/’16 year.

Farm business income is falling for all individual farm types, hence no farm type escapes the downturn. And the sharpest reductions are in the dairy and pig sectors.

Land price trends

Our survey for 2015 embraced 268 farms and parcels of land with a total of 8,454 acres and covered more sales and more acres compared to 2014.

The average price was £9,086, which was down by £170 or 1.8% compared to 2014. The result reinstates the downward trend in land prices seen in our surveys since 2010 – see Table 1.

For the purpose of illustration, when translated into euro using a rate of €1 equals 78p, the average price in 2015 was the equivalent of €11,649/acre.

This is a reduction of €859/acre on the euro figure for 2014, but a big part of the drop is due to changes in the exchange rate.

Private sales

In NI, almost all sales are by private treaty through auctioneers and estate agents. A sale by public auction is a rarity. Many sales are for small acreages, in some cases down to a single field. Farms can get broken up, with sellers offering their property in lots and aiming to maximize the value as smaller acreages can be easier to sell.

Buyers, especially farmers, can cope more easily with the finance required for a smaller acreage. Estate agents say that most of the land they sell is bought by farmers but there is strong competition from those with a business or other off-farm income.

The average size of lots in the survey was 32 acres, with the median size at 23 acres. There were 228 lots from three to 60 acres; 27 lots from 60 to 90 acres; and 13 lots above 90 acres.

A whole farm

One good example of a sizeable farm worked until recently by its owner was in north Co Down. The property was 112 acres of good dry land in one block on an elevated site and had been well farmed over the years. There was a comfortable farmhouse with an annex, and full planning permission had been obtained for a second bungalow on an elevated site with panoramic coastal views. In the yard, there was a milking parlour and a modern silo and cubicle house together with a range of older, more traditional farm buildings. The property was sold for in excess of £1.35m or over £12,000/acre.

Another good example was a 74.5-acre farm in mid-Co Down. The land was in very good order in good-sized fields. The property included a modern bungalow and there was full planning permission for a second dwelling. In the yard, the setup was for sheep and horses. This property sold for £1m or £13,400/acre.

Auction sales

Land for sale by auction was quite rare during 2015. In the open bidding process, auction sales should indicate land values accurately. In east Co Antrim, two pieces were sold by public auction in autumn 2015. The first lot was 15.3 acres of good land without house or yard. Spirited bidding took the price to £115,000, which was accepted by the vendor, which works out at just over £7,500 per acre. A second lot of 8.5 acres was heavier, wetter land and this was reflected in the price, with the £48,000 hammer price the equivalent of £5,600 per acre.

Hill land

There is still a good market for hill land. Our survey covered 678 acres and showed an average price of £2,684/acre. This was slightly higher than our average for 2014, which was £2,434/acre. There are big differences in the quality of lots, ranging from very poor hill land selling for around £2,000 per acre to much more productive land making up to £5,000 per acre. This hill land was kept separate from our main land survey.

Lending institutions

The banks and other lending institutions play a key part in the land price market. Overall, they are very much open to lending, provided the farmer can show clearly the ability to repay the loan. A security, most often the deeds to the property, can be lodged with the bank, and while of importance, it is secondary to the ability to repay and to the borrower showing clear evidence that the debt can be serviced.

Clear evidence with facts and figures must be provided by the farmer. The farmer must provide clear information on projected income taking account of gross margins of the enterprise, the Single Farm Payment and any other income that comes into the farm. From this is deducted fixed costs, any paid labour and drawings that are made back to a personal account. The surplus left over is available to cover the proposed debt and its repayment.

The banks are cautious on interest rates, both actual and potential. To cover potential rises in interest rates, although that scenario looks unlikely at present, the bank will assess the borrowing proposal at both current rates and at higher rates, say with an extra 3 percentage points.

So a quote could be at bank base rate, which is 3.5% at present, plus 3%. An analysis would then be carried out for interest at 6.5% and the farmer must show an ability to repay if rates did move up to that level.

As loans for land purchase are usually for a term of 15 to 20 years, this test with higher interest rates is a prudent assessment on the borrowing to reduce the risk to repayment ability should interest rates rise at some point in the future.

There is the option in many instances of having the first 12 to 18 months of the loan with interest payments only, with capital repayments to commence only after that period.

In general, the banks are active across all sectors of farming, although cautious on renewable energy investments in the current climate. However, given the current state of agriculture, there is much more emphasis on switching to interest-only and increasing overdrafts in light of poor prices. For land purchases involving new lending, the bank must be satisfied that the farmer doesn’t need funding to support his ongoing trading. If he does need support for the ongoing business (by an extension to overdraft limits or by changing to interest only repayments), then new loans for a land purchase will be very difficult if not impossible to obtain.

Farm incomes have been hit by overproduction, currency, cheap grain, and the Russian ban, but the view of the banks is that these adverse factors won’t last indefinitely. The weaker sterling, seen in recent weeks, will help lamb prices immediately and over time will help make pork, beef and dairy product more competitive, but much depends on how long sterling remains weak.

The banks do have major concerns on the state of the milk sector. They are looking for signs that milk production will start to ease worldwide to provide a better balance in the market. They do want to support farmers but the issue is for how long will the depression last. Most farmers will survive but will take some time to recover. However, there will be the few who won’t trade their way out of the losses which they are incurring at present.

The bank’s view is that the current low prices will pass as markets correct, markets re-open, and currency moves in the farmer’s favour. As lenders, they didn’t over-extend when farm prices were higher than the normal average and they don’t get too concerned when prices dip below the average. They take the long-term view of the industry.

Perhaps the cloud that hangs over the dairy sector at present will lead to the development of new measures which could reduce exposure to the worst excesses of the market. There must be a case for exploring price contracts, futures selling of milk, futures buying of feed, and risk insurance cover as a means of protecting famers.

Estate agents

Opinions on the state of the land market will vary depending on which part of the country they operate in. However, in Co Down one auctioneer remains very upbeat about the land market in his locality. He has seen a steady market, with strong prices and good land making £12,000 or more per acre. The driving forces are a small supply of land and buyers with business or other off-farm incomes who can afford a good price. In his locality, there is little evidence of sales arising from any financial difficulties on farm; in most cases sales are as a result of retirement or are the from the estates of deceased owners. For the buyers, land purchase is seen as a good investment and provides a shelter from inheritance taxes. For the future, supply of land remains limited and this auctioneer foresees little sign of any weakening in prices but equally little evidence of any price rise.

Our survey tracks farms and portions of land offered for sale by auctioneers and estate agents in Northern Ireland. Information is taken from newspaper adverts and from agents’ websites.

Auctioneers and estate agents have well-developed websites and use these as a convenient and cost-effective way of making property details available to prospective purchasers. Their websites are linked to industry-wide sites such as Property News.

In our survey, we log the sale details when it reaches the sale agreed or sold status. Most sale-agreed properties do complete and the property changes hands, although the process can take some time.

The types of properties in our survey varies and includes:

We excluded the following:

Currency conversion

Sterling prices have been converted at the rate of Sterling £0.78 equals one euro for illustrative purposes (this is different from 2014 when the rate used was Sterling £0.74 equalled one euro). The average prices quoted are weighted averages, that is the total value of the farms sold divided by the number of acres sold.

Derry/Londonderry

In Co Derry, the main range of prices was from £7,000/acre to £10,000/acre. The average in the county was £8,535 (€10,943) for 1,196 acres sold. More land was sold compared to the previous year and the average price was down by £244/acre.

The largest farm sold was a former dairy farm going in lots and making an average of just over £9,000/acre.

The best price per acre was £14,528 in the southeast of the county, paid for a 35-acre parcel of good land with a good bungalow and yard.

Good flat land in the north of the county made over £9,000/acre for a 66-acre block. Other land in the area made from £6,700/acre to £8,930/acre.

In the east of the county, the market was active, with prices ranging from £6,200/acre to £7,300/acre for blocks of land from 40 to 60 acres, mostly for land only.

The best price in the west of the county was where £10,900 was paid for a small 11-acre block of good land.

Antrim

Co Antrim has an active land market and we logged 62 farms and pieces of land selling with 2,304 acres making on average £8,457 (€10,842) an acre.

The acreage sold was up compared to 2014 but the average price was down by £612/acre.

The biggest sale was in the south of the county, with a 145-acre former dairy farm with a good house and yard selling for just over £10,300/acre.

Other land in the south of the county made from £7,400/acre to £9,950/acre for blocks of around 50 acres.

In the southeast of the county, a 15-acre block made £7,400 per acre.

The best price was for a 26-acre holding that sold for just over £16,000/acre in the southwest of the county. The buyer got good land and an excellent house, garden and yard. Further north in the county, land sold well. Prices ranged from £8,750/acre to £10,960/acre for medium-sized blocks of up to 36 acres.

The best hill land sold in mid and south Antrim, which made £5,000 per acre.

Down

Co Down has a substantial number of land transactions and we logged 88 sales with a total area of 2,285 acres. The average price paid was £10,498/acre (€13,459/acre). The average was up by a substantial £838 on the average price for 2014.

At the top end of the market, there were 23 sales above £12,000/acre for good farms and blocks of land.

The best price was almost £19,000/acre for a 44-acre block in the east of the county. The property was within commuting distance of Belfast, which added to its value.

The next-best was £17,045/acre for a 44.3-acre block in the southeast of the county. The price was for land only, of very good quality and well fenced with new field gates and mains water to all the fields.

Other land in the middle of the county was sold at prices ranging from £8,500/acre to £11,500/acre.

In the south of the county, there was a very active market and some very good prices were obtained. Most were small blocks, up to 25 acres and prices ranged from £9,000/acre to just over £14,000/acre.

Sales of land in north Down and the Ards peninsula were limited and blocks sold from £10,000/acre to £11,300/acre.

Armagh

In Co Armagh we logged 23 lots covering 522 acres. Prices averaged £10,007/acre (€12,829/acre). The average price for 2015 was down by £793 on the average for the previous year.

The best prices were in the middle of the county, where £13,100/acre and £14,100/acre was paid for 29 acres and 8.5 acres respectively. Another block of 30 acres made £12,500/acre.

In the east of the county a farm with over 60 acres made £8,500 per acre for moderate quality land and a yard.

The biggest farm was in the north of the county with 76 acres selling for just over £10,500/acre.

Tyrone

In Co Tyrone our survey covered 38 lots with a total of 1,168 acres.

The average price paid was £8,418/acre (€10,793/acre). However, the average price was down by £1,112 on the 2014 average price.

The best price was paid for a small lot, 18 acres which made just under £13,000/acre. The land was of good quality and included a bungalow and yard.

In the east of the county, there were sales in the range of £9,000/acre to £11,000/acre.

In mid-Tyrone, there was a range of prices from £7,200/acre to £10,500/acre.

Hill land sold well and a 14-acre block sold for £5,000/acre in the south of the county.

Fermanagh

In Co Fermanagh there were 27 sales surveyed comprising 980 acres and the average price was £8,253/acre (€10,580/acre). The average price was up by £759 on the previous year and indicates that prices in Fermanagh are getting closer to the average for all of NI.

The biggest sale was just over 100 acres and it made £10,500/acre. The property included good-quality land and was adjacent to a lake.

The top price was just over £11,500/acre for good land with a very modern farmhouse included.

In the south of the county, 24 acres sold for just under £7,000/acre.

To the west of the county, land sold in the range £7,200/acre to £8,400/acre for land in reasonable heart and suitable for grazing.

Acreages of hill land sold for just over £2,100/acre.

A comprehensive breakdown of agricultural land prices in each county and is available exclusively inside the Irish Farmers Journal newspaper from Thursday 10 March 2016, as well as online for digital paid subscribers at www.farmersjournal.ie. Don't miss this FREE 72-page guide to agricultural land prices across Ireland!