As land prices continue to fall, land agents are working overtime to set up services for helping a farm owner assess his assets, and to decide whether or not to sell up before things get worse.
Bidwells, in Cambridge, have produced a checklist with which a farmer can tot up his own score before enlisting outside help. Farm size, location, land quality, improvement possibilities, financial situation, and amenity value are all allotted points. If the total score adds up to less than 40 points, it would be wise to sell now, say the firm.
Bidwells are likely to charge between 0.15% and 0.25% of the value of the farm if their advice is sought.
Hamptons & Sons prefer a flat fee for anyone taking advantage of their new Agricultural and Land Resources Department, depending on the distance involved from their London and Cheltenham offices. Within 50 miles of either, a fee of £250 is charged. It rises to £300 within 100 miles, and £350 within 150 miles, excluding VAT.
Savills have set up an agricultural research department in their Cambridge office, to monitor national and international factors affecting the industry and to provide business outlooks.
And chartered surveyors Daniel Smith in London have teamed up with accountants Saffrey Champness to help overseas investors. For a single fee, they offer advice on suitable forms of ownership, tax, income potential and legal issues. An annual fee would be charged for management during ownership.
All these are welcome and useful services for the industry. But a cynic might well suggest that they could also help to swell agents’ books.
They come at a time when there is far less property on the market than expected, and London firms are claiming millions of pounds’ worth of retained buyer clients for amenity farms within reach of the capital. When they appear, these properties are selling fast at prices varying from £1,500 per acre to £8,000 per acre, depending on size.
Purely commercial units depend on neighbour interest, but Bidwells’ sale of 438 acres of good arable land in Suffolk indicates that there are still successful producers keen to expand. Hawstead Hall Farm went to a local farmer for about £1,500 per acre, without a house.
Worry about the future of leasing milk quota has kept quota prices steady, at between 25p and 30p per litre. So quality dairy farms with adequate quota are readily attracting over £2,000 per acre, with close to £3,000 being achieved in some cases.
But there is a large pool of purely commercial bare land and less favoured farms, where values are expected to continue to fall for at least three years, and for which buyers are more difficult to come by.
