Appetite for agricultural land showing no signs of abating
Herd of Friesian cattle grazing beneath the Galtee mountains, Glen of Aherlow, Tipperary, Ireland.
Appetite for Agriculture Land Shows Little Sign of Abating Interest rates, wars and climate policy have all had their say on the matter but Irish agricultural land prices continue to increase and demand has almost never been stronger.
“‘Hot’ is the word I’d use to describe the agricultural land market at the moment,” says Mike Brady of agricultural advisors The Brady Group.
“I’ve never seen demand like it. Everything we’ve had has been sold and for above the guide price… There are currently four ten-million-euro farms for sale in Ireland right now… I would argue that there has never been a time in Ireland up to now where that has been the case.”
Land prices have been touching those from the height of the Celtic Tiger era in the last year. A farm in Glanmire sold recently, for example, with a price in the region of €33,000 per acre. Even when one subtracts the values of the house in that examples, the price per acre is still around €25,000 – which is about 85% of the values being achieved with regularity at the height of the madness of the boom.
“From our point of view, agricultural land values have been performing very strongly,” says Andy Donoghue of Clonakilty-based auctioneers Hodnett Forde Property Services. “It’s a continuation of what we’ve seen over the last couple of years, whereby demand is continually growing for all types of land but in particular, for good quality grassland that’s in a turnkey set-up where farmers can go in and become productive straight away.”
In Kerry, Éamonn McQuinn of Tralee-based McQuinn Consulting is also seeing that demand for quality land is one of the defining characteristics of the market as things stand.
“There’s prime demand for good-quality ground,” says Éamonn. “Quality is king and farmers want to go into a place with as little maintenance work as possible to be done.”
He adds that the wet weather in July helped to put into perspective the importance of quality well drained pastures.
“Good quality dry land pays off in the long run and they’re willing to pay well above the county average if they can get the right farm.”
In Limerick, Tom Crosse of GVM Auctioneers says that there have not been as many transactions this year as there were in 2022 – a year when good milk prices drove strong sales.
“The market is holding up, although we’re not seeing any significant price increases,” says Tom. “We’re seeing good land fetching up to €15,000 per acre and there are cases of exceptional prices such as €20,000 or even €23,000 per acre… there’s also an increasing number of people who are seeing land as a safe place to park money, essentially.”
Among the noteworthy sales from the last year, a 42-acre holding close to Adare fetched just shy of €1,000,000 (€24,000/acre), 22 acres at Lisamuck, Croagh made €360,000 (€16,000/acre) and a 40-acre farm at Lisnagry fetched €550,000 (€13,750/acre).
