SST reports that Bayleys Real Estate are flying two of its principals around Asia trying to hock off Crafar farms.
The sale of these farms is hanging over the rural market and depressing values. There are real issues of sovereignty involved. We are losing our ability to influence our future one farm at a time – with some of the prospective buyers being of dubious character.
I’ve advocated before for Landcorp to be the vehicle for an orderly sale. They have the management skills to sort the farms out, get the stock up to scratch, fix up the worst of the environment messes and to get workers with decent training onto the farms.
I’m not advocating any long term holding of the land. Landcorp – part of the old Lands and Survey – has expertise as a farm developer. That expertise should be used. And then over the next few years the farms should be sold in a way that gets some more Kiwis onto the land.
Agreed,
You’ve been reinstated as your ban is up. But I note you now call youself Chris73, instead of Mark. Presumably the same person? Clare
Strangly enough i kind of agree, though i’d suggest landcorp buy and manage the farms
training facility for farm managers, workers, work for dole etc etc
I wish we could have a protest march on the issue of property sales to overseas nationals. The march on Saturday was great, but the sale of the Crafar farms overseas is in my eyes a bigger issue.
We can’t buy land in China- even the Chinese can only lease land from the government. Why we have no controls on the sale of national assets like farmland is a mystery to me. I am not surprised Asian investors are all over this opportunity. They must think we are incredibly stupid to be putting our country up for sale.
Please Labour- fight to retain farmland in NZ ownership. For the future generations of this country.
A position of retaining productive assets in this country’s ownership, and then using them to their added-value best to make NZ a rich country – sounds like a good comprehensive platform.
I find National strangely silent on this matter!
Hmmmm, I wonder if they do not know how to reconcile this situation with their free market – “virtually any foreign investment is good foreign investment (even if it rips away productive assets from NZ ownership)” – doctrine.
Would their farming constituency have a particular point of view on this? (What would that be?) I wonder if many would be interested in entertaining foreign cash offers for their land.
Mr Mallard, I’m afraid you are talking a load of malarkey. The presence of the Crafar farms on the market is not depressing prices. I didn’t hear you talking this nonsense when Carter Hoilt put a large parcel of top quality units onto the market simultaneously. They were snapped up.
More likely taht the possibility of tax changes to capital gains might be doing causing people to hold off.
These farms will sell when the vendors find buyers who are prepared to pay a fair price for them. In my experience dealing with some of these Crayfar farms they are far from the pick of the market (in fact some of them are absolute crocks) and if they are not selling then it is because they are over priced.
Fonterra’s announcement this week of a 40c increase in the dairy pay out and, more particularly, their expectation of a similar or higher price next season will immediately stimulate demand for dairy farms.
God knows what ’special skills in salesmanship’ you think Landcorp might have. I’d like you to list them.
Maybe you should talk to a couple of farmers or those involved in rural real estate, contemplate why the agents are going offshore and read a bit about Landcorp Adolf and then you are less likely to look such a Dick.
As one with a historical involvement in Real Estate (successful for me) I would venture a few comments.
1 selling a whole, is very limiting as the pool of buyers is very small. (and there is no conectivity of these properties apart from a commonality of past use), rather than selling parcels.
2 Failure to achieve a sale nearly always comes because the price is too high or the agent is crap and too often both are present.
3 there is reasonable uncertainty in the dairy market vis a vis the general economic outlook.
4 For a successful sale for a vendor the 4 “p”s are needed. Presentation, price, profitability and practibility. (PH)ertility to make a tidy 5 is also desirable and from my admittedly scant knowledge of these properties very little of these basics are present.
Bayley’s RE are a ‘big’ player and a good marketing outcome will be low on the horizon as to what is good for the country and they will just be satisfied with a result. As at this time in the Real Estate cycle achieving a result that does anything other than mitigate the horrendous exposure the lenders face. I see merit in your suggestion Mr Mallard as the final price will most likely be seen as a very good opportunity for a purchaser so as I see it, Land corp could bring some order to this debacle. A good idea for consideration.
Are you suggesting the Government now enters Real Estate?
Been there since C19th – buy and sell farms every year. Landcorp’s core function is rural property development.
Adolf my understanding is the receivers have spent alot of money upgrading the farms, that surely makes them more marketable than as a a “crock”? Are you involved in the buying and selling of land? Not being facetious, just from your comment about your “experience dealing with some of these crafar farms”
Crrrraferrrr
Oh – come on Trev – get real.
For most of the first 50 years of last century the UK ran NZ. They controlled our wool and they controlled our meat. these two were bout 80% of the economy. The meat area was controlled by Bothwicks and Vesty – two old english families. They owned the Bothwick slaughter houses (about 6 or 8 of them) and vesty’s owned about 6 also. Then there was the CWS group – they owned a couple as well. These companies ran their NZ operations at a minimal profit and traded all their exports thru the Caribbean – where tax was about zero. The meat was then taken onto the Uk where it was all sold thru high street chains of shops (ie: before supermarkets ) and in the UK they made hardly any profit also.
This lot paid hardly any tax to either NZ or the UK.
Then from about the 1970’s The US took over. The age of UK dominance was coming to an end ( All the UK owned meat companies are now gone)and we started to see things like Coke and McDonalds. These two were followed by all sorts of US investments – sucking profits out of NZ. Telecom is mostly US owned. Theres KFC, starbucks, the packaging industry is mostly US owned, etc. The second half of the 20th century has been the US era. But they are now on the wane. They are no longer able to export very much at all. Their auto industry is on its last legs, Obesity will see the end of the fast food guys (they cant sell good food. Good food – prepared in the UK or US way doesn’t have a lot of salt or sugar – and we all just LOVE the effect of these two – even though we dont know it. Generally we are too lazy to cook Mediterranean or asian – so as some law suites come along (as we have come to expect in the US) we will see the demise of the ‘fat’ sellers. By about 2020 the US will be selling up overseas investments and/or closing them down.
They will be (I repeat -’Will Be’) replaced by the chinese. The chinese government has so much money it doesnt know what to do with it. They are giving it too successful companies (success = job creating) to start new enterprises. We can wail and moan and spit the dummy – but get used to it – the chinese are coming with their money, and no one else actually has much so as to compete with them. And the chinese are much smarter than the UK or the US. For example who would believe that for many years (well before the UK left Hong Kong) that the mainland chinese Govt (ie: those commies!) own lots of top Hong Kong businesses – like the Mercedes agency . From these sorts of enterprises they know who all the monied people are in Hong Kong, they know how they do deals, they know how to do a deal with them. The Poms simply thought they were superior beings (the truth was they had the market)and the yanks – crude buggers they are – simply had money, but the chinese have brains.
Maybe someone should interest our Fund to finance this – leaving Landcorp to continue work to prepare the farms to market – in return for a management fee. Any profit in the buying and selling of the land going to the Fund.
Barry- no doubt the Chinese are the smartest guys in the room. Thats why we need rules. We don’t sell our land to them. We may not own much else anymore- but we can and should stop the land from being sold from underneath us. We are not obligated to sell our land to them or anyone. We need someone in power to stand up and say no.
I’ve been looking for a press release from Labour on this issue but nothing. Why not?
Parcels of NZ land should not be sold offshore. Countries such as Japan, Raratonga, China (and others) know the value of retaining land ownership and it would not be possible for us, as New Zealanders, to buy land in these countries. The banks may be desperate for their money but lets not forget that the choice to bankroll the enterprise was their choice alone so surely accountability and loss must come back to them. Once the land is sold and the Chinese have a very strong foothold in the dairy industry watch out ………………………..