Welcome to the Irish Farmers Journal Agricultural Land Price Report for 2023, the 17th such report. Prices dropped by 3% last year following a 3% rise in 2022, so, after seven years of growth, land prices have plateaued.
However, demand continued to be very strong in 2023 for farmland, for both purchase and leasing, particularly the better land and the prime properties.
If global economic and geopolitical factors affected the market last year, they were a relatively small. Instead, bad weather, high costs, low prices and lower profits hit farmers’ purchasing power and confidence.
Calculations on repayment capacity were tougher.
Dairy farmers continued to buy, and were motivated to stay ahead of nitrates changes.
Marquee estates
Business and international buyers paid high prices for the small number of marquee estates and properties that came on sale.
More normal weather and a recovery in milk prices would boost the market in 2024. We can expect demand from the business-type buyer to be strong again this year. But concerns remain – these include high costs for all farmers and tight margins for tillage and drystock
farmers.
The Irish Farmers Journal Agricultural Land Price Report aims to capture the majority of land sales in the Republic and Northern Ireland and is the most comprehensive analysis of the land market.
Details are collected on private treaty as well as public auction sales with the data treated in complete confidence. We aim to show the movements and changes in supply, demand and prices for farmland, from one year to the next.
I would like to thank auctioneers and their busy staff for taking the time to provide data and help. This year we piloted a new system under which auctioneers and their staff could directly input their own results to our database. Thank you to those who did so.
I would also like to thank my colleagues: Ciara Leahy, editor of Irish County Living, for her support; Jack Kennedy, editor Irish Farmers Journal; and Peter McCann for his expert analysis of the Northern Ireland land market.
Thanks to Andy Doyle, Eanna MacGiolla Phadraig, Joe Lenehan, Elaine Hogan and Grace Hanna for data gathering and calculations. Also, a big thanks to all on the production and advertising sides of the Irish Farmers Journal.
The Irish Farmers Journal Agricultural Land Price Report 2023 is based on the value and volumes of farms and land put on the market by private treaty, public auction and tender in that year.
Details of properties advertised for sale in newspapers and online are recorded.
For 2023, we expanded our search of online listings and this brought in additional areas of land for sale. We contacted selling agents and sought information on each property they handled. For 2023 we introduced a new system under which auctioneers could directly input their own results on to our database. We will expand that system to include more agents in 2024.
The information we seek on each property includes:
Size (in acres).Address.Method of sale.For a public auction, we recorded if the farm sold under the hammer or was withdrawn at auction and subsequently sold.Guide price.Occupation of the buyer. We subdivided buyers into beef, sheep, dairy, business, tillage, mixed, other and international.Selling price.Criteria
Only land that could be described as arable or usable for silage or grazing was used to calculate county averages. Only sales concluded during the year were used.
Parcels under 10ac were excluded, unless part of a larger holding. Farms that contained a section of forestry were included. The value of a house is excluded if it is a very significant proportion of the overall sale price.
Zoning
A number of land parcels near towns and villages with and without zoning offered for sale as agricultural land were included.
The average price figure for each county doesn’t differentiate between good and marginal-type land.
Average price is substantially influenced by the quality, location, access and size of the land parcels. It is affected by the purchasing power of neighbouring and local farmers. Consequently, prices in any county fluctuate from year to year.
This report gives a picture of average land values in each county for the year and allows comparison with the previous 12 months.
When referring to Ulster, we used counties Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal.
The NI figures are from a survey of auctioneers and estate agents.
The primary county and national price used is the average of averages. This is the sum of the average price per acre for each farm sold, divided by the number of farms.
We also calculate weighted average. It is the sum of the full values of all farms sold, divided by total acres. Thus a 200ac farm that makes €1.4m (€7,000/ac) will have a stronger weighting on this average than a 20ac farm that makes €240,000 (€12,000/ac), because more acres sold at the lower price.
Welcome to the Irish Farmers Journal Agricultural Land Price Report for 2023, the 17th such report. Prices dropped by 3% last year following a 3% rise in 2022, so, after seven years of growth, land prices have plateaued.
However, demand continued to be very strong in 2023 for farmland, for both purchase and leasing, particularly the better land and the prime properties.
If global economic and geopolitical factors affected the market last year, they were a relatively small. Instead, bad weather, high costs, low prices and lower profits hit farmers’ purchasing power and confidence.
Calculations on repayment capacity were tougher.
Dairy farmers continued to buy, and were motivated to stay ahead of nitrates changes.
Marquee estates
Business and international buyers paid high prices for the small number of marquee estates and properties that came on sale.
More normal weather and a recovery in milk prices would boost the market in 2024. We can expect demand from the business-type buyer to be strong again this year. But concerns remain – these include high costs for all farmers and tight margins for tillage and drystock
farmers.
The Irish Farmers Journal Agricultural Land Price Report aims to capture the majority of land sales in the Republic and Northern Ireland and is the most comprehensive analysis of the land market.
Details are collected on private treaty as well as public auction sales with the data treated in complete confidence. We aim to show the movements and changes in supply, demand and prices for farmland, from one year to the next.
I would like to thank auctioneers and their busy staff for taking the time to provide data and help. This year we piloted a new system under which auctioneers and their staff could directly input their own results to our database. Thank you to those who did so.
I would also like to thank my colleagues: Ciara Leahy, editor of Irish County Living, for her support; Jack Kennedy, editor Irish Farmers Journal; and Peter McCann for his expert analysis of the Northern Ireland land market.
Thanks to Andy Doyle, Eanna MacGiolla Phadraig, Joe Lenehan, Elaine Hogan and Grace Hanna for data gathering and calculations. Also, a big thanks to all on the production and advertising sides of the Irish Farmers Journal.
The Irish Farmers Journal Agricultural Land Price Report 2023 is based on the value and volumes of farms and land put on the market by private treaty, public auction and tender in that year.
Details of properties advertised for sale in newspapers and online are recorded.
For 2023, we expanded our search of online listings and this brought in additional areas of land for sale. We contacted selling agents and sought information on each property they handled. For 2023 we introduced a new system under which auctioneers could directly input their own results on to our database. We will expand that system to include more agents in 2024.
The information we seek on each property includes:
Size (in acres).Address.Method of sale.For a public auction, we recorded if the farm sold under the hammer or was withdrawn at auction and subsequently sold.Guide price.Occupation of the buyer. We subdivided buyers into beef, sheep, dairy, business, tillage, mixed, other and international.Selling price.Criteria
Only land that could be described as arable or usable for silage or grazing was used to calculate county averages. Only sales concluded during the year were used.
Parcels under 10ac were excluded, unless part of a larger holding. Farms that contained a section of forestry were included. The value of a house is excluded if it is a very significant proportion of the overall sale price.
Zoning
A number of land parcels near towns and villages with and without zoning offered for sale as agricultural land were included.
The average price figure for each county doesn’t differentiate between good and marginal-type land.
Average price is substantially influenced by the quality, location, access and size of the land parcels. It is affected by the purchasing power of neighbouring and local farmers. Consequently, prices in any county fluctuate from year to year.
This report gives a picture of average land values in each county for the year and allows comparison with the previous 12 months.
When referring to Ulster, we used counties Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal.
The NI figures are from a survey of auctioneers and estate agents.
The primary county and national price used is the average of averages. This is the sum of the average price per acre for each farm sold, divided by the number of farms.
We also calculate weighted average. It is the sum of the full values of all farms sold, divided by total acres. Thus a 200ac farm that makes €1.4m (€7,000/ac) will have a stronger weighting on this average than a 20ac farm that makes €240,000 (€12,000/ac), because more acres sold at the lower price.
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