Westmeath farm land holds value

It appears that farmland in Westmeath is recession proof: it has held its value while prices around the country dropped by average of 17 per cent. According to the findings of a survey just published by Knight Frank auctioneers.The entire Midlands area has been cushioned from the price falls which have severely affected land value in Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow in last 12 months.These three areas saw a fall of 17.5 per cent, the equivalent of €5,333.This fall in sales has mirrored the overall downturn in the Irish property market and while property in the Midlands has held its value per acre the number of sales of farmlands across the region has more than halved from 50 sales in 2007 to just 24 last year.But the average price paid for farmland in the Midlands in 2008 remained steady at €20,550. The 2007 average price was €20,974 per acre.The reason behind this is that "new money" did not flood Midlands farming communities which meant land prices did not skyrocket as they did elsewhere in the country, said Mullingar auctioneer Aidan Davitt this week.'The land that we sold was usually to people with family ties to Westmeath and so we didn"t get to the point where the newly rich who fancied a farm as a showpiece took over the area and pushed up the prices,' he said.'Farmland also was not being sold off for property deals and so the prices stayed fairly stable,' he said.