The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: onesmallstep on February 13, 2015, 06:22:57 am
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A farmer friend of mine asked me for some advice the other day and I could do with some help to know what to say to him,. He has a field well away from the rest of his farm, of about 15 acres, which he has been trying to sell for a while. He has come up with the plan to fence the field into 5 x 3 acre plots to sell as "non-residential smallholdings". He plans to put a shipping container with power and water on each plot and asked me if "my lot" (I guess he means small holders and not rugby players!) would be interested? Any thoughts? I'm sure he could sell the odd one but not sure if he would be able to sell them all?
Pete
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Where about is the land?
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Always plenty people looking for a bit of land on here, but I suppose it all depends on price and location. He could advertise and see how much interest there is.
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If a plot of land is not selling it is usually down to lack of advertising or an urealistic price.
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Depends where it is - non-residential can have real security issues. Hell, how can he not sell 15 acres?
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If he were to break them up & make it into 4 plots of that size he'd probably appeal more to the horsey community by just selling them as paddocks, as I don't know about other people but:
1.) I like to keep my stock close to home for various reasons.
2.) I think if I had neighbours who had land bordering mine with shipping containers, I'd think them unsightly, plus in all reality their completely unsuitable for keeping livestock in or things in away from the house.
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The quality of the land will affect its popularity as smallholdings. If it's suitable I would have thought the 15 acres would have been snapped up as is, if the price is fair.
Is the ground sloping too much for machinery?
Is it acid or wet, good soil or poor?
Is it miles from human habitation?
Is it pasture or arable land, well maintained or derelict?
Is it infested with noxious weeds such as thistle and ragwort?
Is there any chance of the buyer ever being able to get a house built on it?
Planning permission might be needed for change of use, and even for shipping containers.
I really don't see that dividing the ground up into smaller paddocks or holdings is going to make it more sellable, unless the answers to the points above are all positive. It does sound as if he may be over pricing the place for what it is. If not then it would have been bought quickly to add to someone's existing farm, a neighbour perhaps.
I don't think you can (or should) give him business advice unless you are familiar with the field and all the circumstances.
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I'm with FW 100%
Tell him you'd hate to lead him up the garden path and see him get hurt financially .
Local planning and a local land agent is perhaps the safest way to go as they should know the nitty gritty needed .
A couple of hundred invested in their knowledge should be worth thousands at the end of the day .