OVERSEAS buyers are dominating interest in the sales of Sunraysia farms, according to the agent who recently sealed a $9 million deal for a Red Cliffs table grape property acquired by a Chinese business.
Tony Roccisano, the director of Professionals Mildura Real Estate, said Chinese and Indian interests were now the most common prospective buyers of such properties and that local property owners were increasingly aware of the opportunity to sell their land for significant profit.
The 54ha Red Cliffs site, which includes a large home, shedding and plant, and vines planted across three parcels of land, was sold to a China-based private company and it is understood the purchase was made as a tie-in with its existing export links.
According to the Foreign Affairs and Trade Department, Chinese interests are the fourth biggest foreign investors in freehold Australian farming land, after the Netherlands, the United States and the United Kingdom.
The 830,000ha of Australian farming land owned freehold by the Chinese in DFAT’s most recent figures (June, 2021), was roughly half that owned by the Dutch. At that time, India was not in the top-10 foreign-ownership nations.
Mr Roccisano said his company was managing most of the similar farmland sales in this region and that smaller properties were often being consolidated into larger operations.
“At the moment it seems to be that the only buyers are international buyers,” he said, adding that most interest came from China and India.
While some overseas buyers were looking to operate farming properties, some were purchasing them as investments that could be leased out to local operators.
“We call them hedge funds,” Mr Roccisano said.
The Red Cliffs property, however, had been purchased specifically to grow and market grapes directly into China, which buys almost half of Australia’s table grape crop.
Mr Roccisano said there was “more than usual” farming property on the market.
“It’s economies of scale. The smaller farmers are getting out and the bigger farms are eating them up,” he said.
Although foreign investors owned a relatively small amount of Australian farming land “these people seem to have the money”.
“So it is a way for local owners to get out of their properties,” Mr Roccisano said.
