A PREMIUM farm in the Upper Great Southern has been purchased by a local farming family.
Cloverbrook, at Wandering was only on the market for a few weeks before it was snapped up by the family for $15.4 million.
With the property measuring 2626 hectares, the sale price equates to $5864 per hectare or $7436 per arable hectare.
Ray White Rural WA director Hugh Ness was the selling agent on behalf of vendor, the Cranston family and said the sale price "set a new benchmark for arable land values in the region".
"There haven't been a lot of sales in the Upper Great Southern region in recent times and there certainly hasn't been anything of this size for many years," Mr Ness said.
"The sale price reflects that it was a very good farm, was very well run and also the current market trends."
One of the key features of the property was that it had been owned by the same family for more than 80 years.
"This gives an idea that the farm itself had been early selected so it was some of the pick of the Wandering country," Mr Ness said.
"It's very old, early established farmland and was very well operated.
"That length of ownership from one family is fairly unique in WA."
Mr Ness said the market was generally in favour of sellers as there have been very few properties for sale.
"The Upper Great Southern region (the Williams, Darkan, West Arthur, Boddington, Wandering shires) has been very tightly held for a number of years and the sales that have taken place have generally been smaller properties," he said.
"There's a lot of demand to get into those areas because of the reliability and the location."
With this sale setting "a new benchmark", Mr Ness said land values looked very strong.
"I don't see land values going down," he said.
"One of the basics of economics is supply and demand within reason - when there is more demand than supply, it has an effect on prices.
"There is very little for sale, agriculture is very solid and steady and has been for some years, so it's an attractive asset for banks to hold mortgages on; interest rates are low and commodity prices aren't too bad.
"The industry is not necessarily attached to what's happening in the cities etc, it's driven by weather conditions, commodity prices and interest rates."
In this sense, Mr Ness said the industry was not likely to be influenced by the local effects of COVID-19, but could be further along the export supply chain in distributing products to certain markets.