The Wimmera-Mallee cropping region is just one of two (the other is eastern Western Australia) to hold its spot in Australia’s top five cropping regions for 2022 compared to 2021.
Even more impressive, the Wimmera-Mallee region, which was ranked number five for the 2021 calendar year, has now rocketed up the list to number two in 2022.
The rolling 12-month median price per hectare averaged a quarterly increase of 2 per cent in 2021, but in 2022 the region averaged growth of 7.6 per cent per quarter.
Major rural centres in this region include Kerang, Mildura, Ouyen and Swan Hill and their five-year compound average growth rate has been a whopping 19.7 per cent.
One of the key changes for the region was a greater proportion of sales in the higher-priced Wimmera region in 2022 compared to 2021.
The obvious driver of confidence in the region was high grain prices and exceptional yields.
Elders market insights specialist Matt Ough refreshed his 2021 market assessment with 2022 calendar year data from the Elders Rural Property Update.
He says there was a big shake-up compared to 2021, which makes for interesting reading.
“This exercise isn’t designed to fit a specific investment; it’s purely hypothetical and a means to demonstrate how this data can be used to rank regions across Australia depending on the circumstances of the investor,” Mr Ough says.
“It’s a fun and insightful way to compare different regions across Australia and a chance to learn something about a region you’d never heard of or considered.”
Mr Ough’s selection criteria were regions ranked according to quarterly compound average growth rate for 2022 and predominantly cropping regions in terms of total, farm-related income.
Eastern WA slipped from fourth place in 2021 to fifth on the list in 2022; however, its rolling 12-month median price per hectare averaged a quarterly increase of 5.5 per cent in 2022, up from 3 per cent in 2021, showing strong consistent growth.
The regions to exit the top five in 2022 included Central Western Australia; the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia; and the Central West of New South Wales.
That said, these regions still posted respectable growth figures in 2022, only just missing the top five.
This means we had three new entrants into the top five in 2022 – Riverina Murray NSW, Mid North and Yorke SA and the top spot taken by North West NSW.
South Australia was one of the strongest rural property markets overall in 2022, which has undoubtedly carried over into this countdown.
Strong grain prices and good production levels have played a role in land price appreciation, as has tight supply with the Mid North and Yorke region also featuring on the Elders five most tightly-held regions.
North West NSW is a diverse region which benefits from multi-industry competition for land.
The large increase appears structural in that there was a 7 per cent shift in transaction volume towards parcels smaller than 600ha.
These ‘little’ parcels are priced higher and experienced significant growth in median price per hectare in 2022.
In comparison, larger parcels which generally reside to the west of the region experienced very tight supply, which meant they had a smaller impact on the region’s median price performance in 2022.
