Year to date pastoral land sales in the Northern Territory in 2015 have already almost reached the entire value of sales achieved in 2014, according to national property valuation firm Herron Todd White.

In the latest HTW monthly property review, Darwin based valuer Frank Peacocke notes that two pastoral land sales in the NT in July brought the calendar year total to date to almost $65 million (which is the value for land sales alone, excluding livestock, plant and equipment).

Underscoring the resurgent nature of the NT property market, this is how the $65m in eight sales for 2015 to date compares to the full previous five years:

• 2014, $66.8M, nine sales;
• 2013, $56.8M, five sales;
• 2012, $24.5M, two sales;
• 2011, $14.6M, four sales (note, live export suspension mid 2011);
• 2010, $12.9M, three sales (GFC, 350 kg live export weight restrictions introduced).

“It’s been a big turnaround in total sales compared to the previous five years and we’ve still got five and a half months of 2015 to go!,” Mr Peacocke said.

He predicts that before the year is out there is a real possibility of another $90 million to $100 million changing hands just in the Northern Territory in pastoral land sales.

“If the eight other cattle stations that are currently being marketed actually sell (and note, this includes the Kidman group’s Helen Springs aggregation) then the total potential pastoral sales, based on this valuer’s current market value estimate, should go close to that figure,” Mr Peacocke said.

He added that HTW’s calculations exclude the reported sale price of Legune Station in the northern VRD, which was under contract for a figure that would add several tens of millions of dollars to the accumulation above. However, because Legune is being purchased for a proposed transformation into a giant aquaculture farm, not for cattle production and the deal is reportedly awaiting approval for non pastoral use (among other things), it has not been included in the current calculations.

Sales activity was a little quieter in the Kimberley region of Western Australia where just one of 105 pastoral leases in the region had sold each year for the past five years.

This brought combined pastoral sales to $20.6 million (real estate only) over the period.

Since the time of the HTW report Kimberley station Fossil Downs has sold to Gina Rinehart for a reported $30 million and Napier Downs has sold to Kerry Stoke in a deal believed to be worth between $23m and $30m.

The report noted that the reduction in live export permits issued by Indonesia for the third quarter was the first serious blow to growing confidence levels in the northern beef industry for some time.

However that was set against other positives including strong demand for live export cattle from other markets, the signing of a new live export protocol to China, the demand from AA Co’s new northern abattoir, and the focus on northern development contained in the Federal Government’s white papers for northern Australia and agricultural competitiveness.

View the full Herron Todd White report for August 2015 here

Click here to access Beef Central’s new Property section, including searchable tabulated information on recently completed sales and recent listings.