Farmland values in south west UK reach new high

Photo credit: Simon Lieschke

The RICS survey for the first half of 2013 shows that values jumped to £7,250 per acre in the first six months of 2013. The figure, a record high for the area, is hot on the heels of the national average of £7,441 per acre – and is expected to climb even higher.

Indeed, 50 per cent more surveyors reported growing demand than falling demand between January and June 2013, with good, well located blocks of land the priority.

Demand is mostly from farmers, rather than investors, one agent told This Is Cornwall, citing the sale of one 215-acre dairy farm in Callington, which attracted wide interest before going to a farmer from Worcestershire.

As farmland values continue to rise across the country, it proves an increasingly lucrative asset for alternative investors. Indeed, values have more than trebled since 2004.

Sue Steer, RICS spokesperson, told TheMoveChannel.com: “The growth in farmland prices in recent times has been nothing short of staggering.”

Other alternative investment news this week:

Art investment booms in Brazil and Nigeria

Art investment is booming in both Brazil and Nigeria.

In Latin America, Brazil’s art market is undergoing “a transformation”, one photographer, who moved back to the country because his art sold more there, told NPR.

"Money makes art grow,” he said. Indeed, Brazil’s economy has soared in recent years, driving a rise in interest in art, particularly among the younger population, while more people are taking it seriously.

“Art has become a preoccupation, a point of interest, and for some of them, an investment,” the organiser of one art fair told the publication.

A similar movement has occurred in Nigeria, where there previously no domestic art market. Since 2008, though, 775 million naira of art has sold auctions, according to IOL.co.za, as wealthy citizens and an expanding middle class turn towards the asset as a reliable place to put their cash.

“People are now using art as an alternative to other asset classes. We think this is a wise thing to do,” commented the chief executive of Nigeria’s stock exchange, who owns a small portion of the exchange’s art portfolio. “We certainly expect that our own collection at the exchange will increase in value.”