175 arable acres for sale near Mullinahone in Co Tipperary
South Tipperary has seen some of the strongest sales in the country already this year, as well as late last year.
In June, a 91-acre holding in prime Golden Vale dairying country near Cahir sold for a price of over €23,000 per acre.
A South Tipperary farm very much worth keeping an eye on over the coming weeks and months is a 175-acre holding for sale close to the village of Mullinahone.
The farm is located in the townland of Ballyvarra, approximately 2km from Mullinahone village, 13km from Fethard, 26km from Kilkenny City and 30km from Clonmel.
It makes for an extremely rare package to have such an amount of acres for sale in one lot, with no indication from the owners or the auctioneers that it will be offered in lots.
The layout of the farm doesn’t particularly lend itself to sub-division in a sale.
According to selling agent David Shee of Carrick-on-Suir based Shee & Hawe Auctioneers, this property represents a golden opportunity to purchase a large and self-sustaining unit in a sought-after part of Ireland.
“It’s very good agricultural land,” says David, who describes the land as fertile, level and easy to manage.
“It’s all good and there’s no waste. There isn’t any forestry or anything like that, it’s all arable land.”
The land is mostly in grass, with 104 acres in permanent pasture, 34 acres in grass (year one of a reseed), a further 10 acres in grass (year two), 15 acres in environmental management of fallow land,and 9.7 acres in wild bird cover.
The farm comes with a good collection of farm buildings that are centrally located.
These include two slatted units, one four-span double unit, a five-span slatted unit with one span uncovered, two four-span hay barns, and a lean-to. There are both indoor and outdoor cattle handling facilities, and one of the more interesting buildings is a two-storey building currently being used as an agricultural store and offices. This latter building could conceivably be converted by the next owner into a house, subject to planning approval.
With such a large farming unit, that’s an option that some interested parties could very well be considering.
In any case, the selling agents point out, one of the members of the family has a four-bedroom house for sale alongside the farm, which could be sold with the farm if the right client was interested.
“In the immediate area where the farm is located, there’s a mixture of tillage and dairying,” says David.
“There have been enquiries from a lot of places. However, it’s a big block of land, and it’s hard to get such a large piece of land for sale, so we’ve had calls from all over the country about it. With all the sheds on it too, it’s a ready-to-go entity, and that doesn’t come up every day of the week.”
Given the rarity of the package on sale, and the location of the farm in such a strong agricultural heartland, one can see this farm reaching a very impressive figure. This expectation is tempered somewhat by the current mood of reticence in farming that replaced the rising effervescence of recent months.
It also doesn’t have much road frontage to speak of, even though there is direct access from the public road, as well as an additional entrance through a right-of-way road.
There is a water supply with an additional bored well if needs be. There are also entitlements on part of the land, further details can be obtained from the agents.
The agents are working on a price expectation of €11,000 per acre. “We feel that it’s a very good farm but we would think that that is a reasonable expectation,” says David.
