Farm property attracting urban buyers
Nearly half the people buying farms in the countryside are not farmers, according to the latest rural land survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Particularly in the spring and summer months RICS members are reporting a trend for urbanites to up-sticks and take on small or medium-sized holdings in for purely residential purposes.
The farmland does not go to waste however, according to the RICS: it is often offered to a neighbouring farmer to manage for grazing or crop production.
Between April and June this year, 44% of purchasers of rural property were ‘non-farmers’, with the figure rising to 56% in the South East. But the interest from outside the industry has not driven up prices, with the average over the last 12 months remaining almost static at £7,484 per hectare.
However, RICS rural spokesperson, Julian Sayers, noted that land and property prices in the country had fared far better than could have been expected a few years ago.
“The collapse in the rural market, predicted in the wake of foot and mouth and uncertainty over the CAP [Common Agricultural Policy] mid-term review, has not happened.”
“Such predictions failed to take account of the potential of other rural purchasers to bolster activity, such as residential buyers.”
However, critics such as the Small and Family Farm Alliance have suggested that the influx of new buyers into the countryside has artificially inflated prices, making it difficult for farmers to secure new land.
And that could, in the alliance’s view, have a severe impact on rural communities and the landscape itself.
