Southland Farm Values Reach Record Figures

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28262, 27 April 1957, Page 10

Southland Farm Values Reach Record Figures

(New Zealand Press Association)

INVERCARGILL, April 26. Relaxation of the credit squeeze during the last few months has stimulated a brisk trade in Southland farms, and raised values to a record. Small farmlets handy to Invercargill have sold recently at up to £450 an acre, and agents say that good sheep farms in popular localities are unprocurable at less than £lOO an acre.

The farmlets are in great demand. The main requirement appears to be that they have a good house on them, which is one reason for the high values. Many of the persons buying them have steady jobs, and run a few cows, which their wives help to attend. Typical is one nine-acre farm close to the city, which sold recently for £5500. The return to the purchaser for spare-time work with the nine cows it runs is estimated to be about £5OO a year. Bigger one-man farms, 150 to 200 acres, are also in demand, but the type of buyer is limited. Agents say that most of the farms sold in Southland during the last few months have been!

bought either by established farmers or their sons, or other relatives. The reason is that with values so high, capital of about £lO,OOO is needed by the purchaser of a good 200-acre sheep farm. The agents say there are many young men trying to acquire properties of this kind, but that most of them have capital of from £3OOO to £5OOO and are not meeting with success. Lending institutions are allowing 50 per cent, mortgages on their own valuation figure, and m some cases a little more. Every New Zealander over 21

who is entitled to vote for a member of Parliament and vote “wet” or “dry” in the liquor poll must have his name on the electoral roll by June 30. Those who have notified any changes of address will shortly receive electoral forms on which details of qualifications should be written. Persons enfranchised since the last election will have to apply for their forms. New electoral laws required a general enrolment this year—the first since 1925. This procedure will be adopted every five years as electoral boundaries are changed after a census.