Farm Market

Date : 02 January 2009

In the last 12 months, the price of agricultural land in Ireland, fell by an average of 16.8%.

Dublin/Wicklow/Kildare averaged €25,210 per acre, down from the previous years average of €30,543, which is an overall reduction of 17.5%.
The rest of the country averaged €17,081 per acre, which was an overall drop of 16.1%.

However, the volume of reported land sales, fell by 42%, from 9,933 acres, to 5,743 acres. In addition, the average plot size decreased from 64.5 acres to 52.2 acres.

The vast majority of sales were achieved in the first 9 months of the year, prior to the credit crunch in the autumn.

In our opinion, 2009 is likely to see a further erosion of agricultural land values. The market has been over priced over the last 5 years, by farmers and land owners who were replacing land as a result of development sales.