"Tommy" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 4 Oct 2007 14:19:58 +0100, Oz wrote:

buddenbrooks writes

Well I guess if you spend your life at sea you have not noticed the
number
of farms Going derilict followed by a housing development. I cycle around
the somerset countryside and the number of farms that have "ceased
trading"
is depressingly high. Perhaps the farmers selling up have done well from
the
sale of the land for building , I would not know.

From my experience farmers rarely get planning for houses.
Usually the farm gets sold at agric value.

You obviously don't get anywhere near farm sales. Farm sales have seen
a bigger growth than house sales. Even at auction many are going at 5x
the estimates and more.

Land News
Farmland prices hit record levels
Lawson Fairbank, 15th April 2007

English farmland has increased 14 per cent over the past year to an
average of £3,353 in the first quarter of this year, latest figures
from Strutt and Parker's Farmland Database have revealed.

The firm expects the farmland market to outstrip the residential
market in 2007. Compared to the north-south divide of the residential
market, farmland prices vary by just £150 or so per acre above and
below the £3,353 average.

A limited supply of farmland has helped push prices up with only 8,400
acres of new land coming to market in the past year - the lowest
amount since 2001.

"There is a massive shortage but huge demand," says Mark McAndrew,
head of estates and farm agency at Strutt and Parker.

"In each of our five selling regions, no more than 3,000 acres came to
market during the first quarter of 2007. That could represent only two
or three sales. It means that purchasers need to be either very
patient or very flexible about where they want to buy.

"Today's buoyant market is linked more to the strength of the UK
economy than to the state of farming or quality of land. There has
never been so much money in the farmland market, from farmers, but
also from investors and lifestyle buyers.

"In addition to UK wealth, we have seen an influx of European
investors, particularly from Denmark and Ireland, where prices are
substantially higher than in England.

Of course farmland prices are going up.

They're going to build several million houses in the next couple of decades.

There are fortunes to be made, but not by any farmers...

The land is being bought up by big investment companies and the two big
Duchies...

--
William Black


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.