merino
Member
- Location
- The North East
Do you mean the actual nuts and bolts of it?
My family sold a farm a little while ago.
It's a process.
If you'll forgive me I'm about to rant insanely.
You obviously start by deciding to sell up.
That's probably the difficult bit for a lot of people.
It's important to then understand it's not a process you can command to finish. We decided to sell in early 2016, we got paid in late 2018.
It goes in stages after that.
You're going to have to have the talk with what I believe are called stakeholders, I wouldn't presume to know who yours are but family and bank were our two big ones.
Then you're going to have to think about how you present your product to market, unless you're fully tenanted I guess.
Then the process will be described in your tenancy agreement.
I spent a full summer sorting drainage and finishing installing water troughs, we also kept spreading lime and doing reseeds throughout the process.
Did it help? Probably not, but it was something to say to the various customers.
I wouldn't presume to know what your farm needs doesn't or otherwise but a right good tidy up is a good place to start.
It took us a full year to go from decision to ad in the paper.
Which brings me to the next bit, the difference between the land agents hoping to sell the place was thirty to fifty percent in terms of what they reckoned to be achievable price wise. We went with the one who reckoned he could get the most money, and he did. Shop around, it's definitely not all about fees.
There were fees and costs before the sale too, nothing outrageous but photography advertising etc.
Then there's the period of time it's on the market.
@czechmate is unfortunately correct in the fact that selling a farm can be depressing work.
There's a good amount of taking young people who are progressing in the industry around on pleasant summer afternoon and hopefully you'll do more of that than I did.
You'll get quite a few reputable professionals and they're good to deal with too.
Then there's quite long periods of not much happening, I found that quite stressful, but you'll not worry about that when you're done.
Some people hate the people 'just popping in' for a look, I didn't mind, got to get the place sold, but I did have the guy who said he'd pay half of listed price on the day of my aunts funeral.
He was fundamentally alright though.
Then there's the problem.
Making an honest living in agriculture is hard.
The industry as a whole runs older.
The upshot of that a strong possibility you will run into at least one angry old man whose never done a days honest work in his life berating anything he can think of, trying every trick he can think of to steal from you.
Good legal representation helped a lot there.
I didn't really expect to have someone screaming at me in my yard when I started out selling. I digress, a good land agent will prevent things getting totally out of hand, it's not all salmon trousers and whisky for lunch.
You'll have to have your day at the mart with your stock. That was an alright day, mart was good to me about it.
Felt like I sold them for nothing though, but you're quite likely to not do terribly well on some aspect of the sale, you'll do well on other parts.
I did have someone screaming at me about that too.
What else, the work load of keeping stock and selling a farm was high.
Beyond that?
You'll be talking to your legal representative quite a bit throughout no matter what you've got.
Make sure you've got a good one it saves money in the long run.
Some members of your local agricultural community will treat you like selling up is a contagious disease.
I did let one guy have some things at a discount, he sold them immediately, but he did get a house out of it and it's difficult to begrudge him that.
One guy from my young farmers tried to get my tractor for fifty percent off.
Some people stopped talking to me the day of the sale and totally blanked me in public and private going forward.
Eventually though it did all come to an end and I do not regret selling up for one second.
My family sold a farm a little while ago.
It's a process.
If you'll forgive me I'm about to rant insanely.
You obviously start by deciding to sell up.
That's probably the difficult bit for a lot of people.
It's important to then understand it's not a process you can command to finish. We decided to sell in early 2016, we got paid in late 2018.
It goes in stages after that.
You're going to have to have the talk with what I believe are called stakeholders, I wouldn't presume to know who yours are but family and bank were our two big ones.
Then you're going to have to think about how you present your product to market, unless you're fully tenanted I guess.
Then the process will be described in your tenancy agreement.
I spent a full summer sorting drainage and finishing installing water troughs, we also kept spreading lime and doing reseeds throughout the process.
Did it help? Probably not, but it was something to say to the various customers.
I wouldn't presume to know what your farm needs doesn't or otherwise but a right good tidy up is a good place to start.
It took us a full year to go from decision to ad in the paper.
Which brings me to the next bit, the difference between the land agents hoping to sell the place was thirty to fifty percent in terms of what they reckoned to be achievable price wise. We went with the one who reckoned he could get the most money, and he did. Shop around, it's definitely not all about fees.
There were fees and costs before the sale too, nothing outrageous but photography advertising etc.
Then there's the period of time it's on the market.
@czechmate is unfortunately correct in the fact that selling a farm can be depressing work.
There's a good amount of taking young people who are progressing in the industry around on pleasant summer afternoon and hopefully you'll do more of that than I did.
You'll get quite a few reputable professionals and they're good to deal with too.
Then there's quite long periods of not much happening, I found that quite stressful, but you'll not worry about that when you're done.
Some people hate the people 'just popping in' for a look, I didn't mind, got to get the place sold, but I did have the guy who said he'd pay half of listed price on the day of my aunts funeral.
He was fundamentally alright though.
Then there's the problem.
Making an honest living in agriculture is hard.
The industry as a whole runs older.
The upshot of that a strong possibility you will run into at least one angry old man whose never done a days honest work in his life berating anything he can think of, trying every trick he can think of to steal from you.
Good legal representation helped a lot there.
I didn't really expect to have someone screaming at me in my yard when I started out selling. I digress, a good land agent will prevent things getting totally out of hand, it's not all salmon trousers and whisky for lunch.
You'll have to have your day at the mart with your stock. That was an alright day, mart was good to me about it.
Felt like I sold them for nothing though, but you're quite likely to not do terribly well on some aspect of the sale, you'll do well on other parts.
I did have someone screaming at me about that too.
What else, the work load of keeping stock and selling a farm was high.
Beyond that?
You'll be talking to your legal representative quite a bit throughout no matter what you've got.
Make sure you've got a good one it saves money in the long run.
Some members of your local agricultural community will treat you like selling up is a contagious disease.
I did let one guy have some things at a discount, he sold them immediately, but he did get a house out of it and it's difficult to begrudge him that.
One guy from my young farmers tried to get my tractor for fifty percent off.
Some people stopped talking to me the day of the sale and totally blanked me in public and private going forward.
Eventually though it did all come to an end and I do not regret selling up for one second.
.....mine was gifted/inherited so i kinda feel a moral obligation to keep it going
