Land prices 'reach record levels'

Rural land prices reached the highest levels on record in the first half of 2007, boosted by a variety of interest at home and abroad as well as greater confidence in the sector, it has been revealed.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) has found that prices rose by 22.6 per cent in the first six months of the year, compared with 18.1 per cent in the second half of 2006.

Residential demand is being boosted by Londoners equipped with large City bonuses, while farmers themselves are increasingly looking to purchase more land as they become convinced of the sector's profitability, Rics added.

"[Farmers] are competing with investors, foreign farmers and lifestyle buyers for properties," Rics spokesperson Sue Steer advised.

"The market is being fuelled by city buyers trying to make the most of low farmland prices, and large bonuses are entrenching these 'move to the country' trends. Farmers from Denmark and Ireland are also becoming more visible as they buy up competitively priced land in the UK," Ms Steer added.

Earlier this month an article in the Farmers' Guardian noted that the average acreage of farmland sales in England was still just 24 hectares.


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