Investment buyer market returns

South-west agent Stags has confirmed the resurgence of the investment buyer in the farmland market.

“While farmers are still the main buyers, non-farming money is again seriously interested in both farms and land,” said Stags’ Alex Rew.

Despite economic frailty and restricted funding opportunities, there was an underlying confidence in the future of farming and land values, but confidence varied, he said.

New to the market is a 44.5ha (110-acre) stock and arable unit near Launceston, Cornwall. Beardon Barton has five Grade 2 listed holiday cottages, a 16th century farmhouse, mobile home, range of outbuildings, fishing lakes and a guide price of £1.405m for the whole, although it has also been lotted.

With a £1.15m guide price, Little Knowle at Pywothy near Holsworthy has 49ha (121 acres) and a six-bedroom Devon longhouse, while Bushton Farm, West Buckland, is £1.4m. The very private farmstead sits centrally in a ring fence and has a four-bedroom main house and a four-bedroom cottage as well as planning permission for three holiday let conversions.

Stags has sold a mixture of farm and land types to a wide range of buyers so far this year. Thorne Farm, with 50ha (124 acres) at Stoodleigh near Tiverton, recently went under the hammer for £900,000 to a farmer, while Whiteley Farm at Lifton, with almost 35ha (88 acres), sold in three lots for a total of £805,000. (Stags 01392 680 059)