'Reasonable' farm sale

John Scott's Gordonton dairy farm has sold at auction for more than $4 million, reflecting an expected 20 per cent decline in farm prices.

Mr Scott, whose family farmed the 77-hectare Sainsbury Rd property – capable of producing 81,500k of milksolids – since 1932, accepted the price at the Century 21 auction on Thursday., The price was $500,000 more than the farm's Quotable Value New Zealand valuation but half a million less than Mr Scott expected. "It was a reasonable price, although I was hoping we would get up to about $4.5 million," he said.

Buyer Barry Geange, owns the neighbouring dairy farm and a dairy farm near Featherston, in the Wairarapa. "I was hoping to get it for about $3.8m but I did think, a couple of days before it went to auction, that it could be worth about $4.15m," Mr Geange said. His son Kevin, from the Wairarapa, will manage the farm.

Meanwhile, Brook Dale, a beef fattening unit in the heart of the Waikato's dairy country near Te Awamutu, failed to sell by public tender on November 5 after the death of farmer Edmund Fitzpatrick.

It would have sold for about $5.2m during the boom but real estate agent Brian Peacocke, of Pastoral Realty, had expected the price to be at least 20 per cent down on that figure.

Bayleys Real Estate is auctioning Greenpark Farm, a 129ha dairy unit near Morrinsville that produced 231,000 kg of milksolids last season, on Thursday. CHRIS GARDNER