Nama farm holding excites strong interest

The low-hanging fruit of the boom is slowly, very slowly being disposed of by Nama, and almost a year after being put on the market for sale, land near Blarney, Co Cork is believed to be close to a sale.

The property, some 178 acres at Stoneview, Blarney, Co Cork, and formerly owned by local farmer Sam Vickery, is believed to have been bought back by him.

However, the selling agent Peter O’Flynn of DTZ Sherry FitzGerald was circumspect about the rumoured sale.

“My understanding is it’s not sold, a sale is not completed, but there are agreed terms, and we’re waiting on Nama to come back on that,” he said this week.

Rumours abound that the land parcels accumulated by developers Flemings, Coleman Bros and Bowens for a zoned and approved, new town centre at Stoneview, Blarney would now also be purchased by previous owners in a gentleman’s agreement arrangement that has occurred in other parts of the county too.

One fo the previous owners, Sam Vickery has also been associated with last year’s purchase of development land at Douglas, Cork, owned by Castlelands Construction.

In that instance, however, local farmers who had expected to buy back land sold for development were prohibited from doing so, as the agent’s remit was to sell the property in the entire.

Selling agent, Savills, was involved in the private treaty sale of the land bank, between Douglas and Carrigaline, to Sam Vickery for a reputed €7m — although Mr Vickery or Savills have never confirmed this deal.

It’s believed that Mr Vickery purchased the entire 450 acres from Castlelands Construction and Nama.

In the case of the Stoneview lands, which are close to the home farm of Mr Vickery, DTZ Sherry FitzGerald will only say that the sale has been conducted with the legal representatives of the purchaser, so the identity of the person with whom early terms are agreed, is unconfirmed.

DTZ Sherry FitzGerald described the land as “a high quality land holding with zoning, currently in agricultural use, with long-term development potential”.

They quoted a guide price in the region of € 3m to €4m — giving per acre values of between €16,000 to €22,000 per acre.

Local sources say that the price paid per acre is high by recent values, but still a lot lower that the original values of over €35,000 per acre paid.