MANY agents report improved farmland real estate sales for 2015, and it was clear that local farmers beat the corporates to a big landholding at Carnamah, WA.
Off the back of a good season, local growers outbid the corporate interests to the 15,500 hectare White Property Group, surprising VNW Independent agent Steve Vaughan who was handling the sale.
"What we thought was going to be a corporate property of 30,000 cropping acres, at this point of time, most of it has gone under offer to local farmers," Mr Vaughan said.
"Local farmers are back in the market in a stronger manner than we have seen for some time.
What we thought was going to be a corporate property of 30,000 cropping acres, at this point of time, most of it has gone under offer to local farmers. Local farmers are back in the market in a stronger manner than we have seen for some time.
- VNW Independent agent Steve Vaughan
"Bruce White will retain the main part of the property which would include 10,000 cropping acres and the rest has gone to local farmers.
"That would be the highlight of the year and the really pleasing part of that is the locals have got back into the market and taken it from the corporates in what we would have considered initially to have been a corporate buy.
"Having said all that we are still working with corporates on some other activity and they will certainly still play a part in this market."
Mr Vaughan said their spring activity was "light-on" due to the spring rains shutting off early which would have stopped people making buying decisions until harvest was finished.
"Everyone has been holding back and I think we will see a surge from here on in,'' Mr Vaughan said.
"From our point of view we have seen a bit of corporate activity but not as much as we have probably seen in the past."
Another highlight of the year was the sale of the 394,000ha Fossil Downs station at Fitzroy Crossing, WA, bought by mining magnate Gina Rinehart for $30 million through Elders.
Elders has also signed up a buyer for the 711,638ha Madura Plains station on the Nullarbor.
The station, with 34,000 sheep, is believed to have been bought by Australian interests.
China's Hailiang Group bought the 391,000ha Madoonia Downs cattle station, south east of Kambalda, for $4.3m. The deal settled in late August.
Elders WA rural sales executive Malcolm French said they had done double the number of deals in 2015 than 2014 but that they had not broken any records for price.
He said many of the deals involved selling titles or portions of farms.
"The key thing in farm dealing and acquisitions at the moment is that everyone has to make it work in regards to the bottom line," Mr French said.
"No one has been silly with prices, values are consolidating.
"There is a lot more interest out there, much more confidence.
"It is all improved from last year."
Mr French said there were still many good farms to come to the market due to farmers retiring.
Landmark Harcourts western region real estate manager Rob Chittick said they had strong sales in the February-March period which continued on into April and May, but spring sales had been slightly subdued after the rain stopped early.
"A lot of sales occur in the spring and lot of settlements occur in the summer but we also do a lot of sales in the summer as well," Mr Chittick said.
"We have a pretty heavy schedule of sales campaigns coming up for the 2016 February-March period.
"Values have held up well and there have been some good encouraging signs in areas that have struggled a bit over the past few years like the eastern Wheatbelt.
"In the Great Southern, the market has been a bit patchy, but the northern Wheatbelt, eastern Wheatbelt and Esperance region have been very good.
"We have some big sales but they are still in the process of being transacted.
"Overall our sales for the 2015 calendar year would be slightly better than 2014."
Mr Chittick said the corporates had been active, mainly looking for and identifying properties they wanted to operate on with the view to tying up a sale in the next six to eight weeks.
"There has been corporate activity on the South Coast, up through the Midlands area and into Geraldton".
VNW Independent director Simon Wilding said there had been a big increase in inquiries for pastoral stations in the few months before Christmas.
Mr Wilding said people were looking at an affordable way to get into the meat industry, mainly the beef sector, although he was working with big groups trying to put a conglomerate of stations together to run 50,000 to 100,000 (meat) sheep.
"We are trying to track down 5000 to 10,000 breeding units if we can get them,'' he said.
"There is good interest coming back for sheep country."
Mr Wilding said while the Murchison and Gascoyne had a good year there was still concern about continuity of seasonal conditions in these areas.
"If Gascoyne and Murchison keep getting seasons like this we will see stations there go quite quickly," he said.
