Clarity on Brexit required to enable greater flexibility for land sale decisions
A KILDARE-BASED auctioneer who serves much of Co. Wicklow has stressed the importance of clarity on the Brexit issue to the market.
Clive Kavanagh, director of Jordan Auctioneers & Chartered Surveyors, who has been involved in the sale of agricultural land and country properties for the last 16 years, said: ‘Nothing curtails business in general more than uncertainty and unfortunately Brexit brings all that’.
‘It is difficult to determine how the market will perform but clarity on the major issue will provide a clearer pathway for people to make some decisions. It is without doubt one of the biggest impacts to hang over the market for some time as predictions on future viability of farming enterprises will come to the fore now more than ever before with possible WTO tariffs likely to impact the agricultural sector more than any other,’ Mr Kavanagh said.
He said that confidence within an industry is an important factor in lands sales and prices but this is less so in Ireland than other European Countries.
‘In Ireland there are many other emotive and additional factors that affect the price of land and serve to keep it at a relatively high base value. One of these is obviously the limited supply of agricultural land traded on a yearly basis (0.5% of total land area). An interesting statistic is that the average field in Ireland gets sold once every 400 years outside of a family compared to once every 70 years in France,’ he said. Mr Kavanagh said that while prices may be volatile there will still be trade. ‘Farmers remain hugely ambitious, prepared to work whatever hours needed to make ventures viable but informed and sensible decision making is still a key ingredient for success, now more than ever as we enter choppy waters.’