Farmers bid up to €29,000/ac for 24 acres of tillage ground close to Cork Airport recently, but failed to buy the land.

The lands at Fivemilebridge, close to Ballinhassig and Cork Airport, attracted two strong farmer bidders, according to Eamonn O’Brien of CCM Property Network in Mitchelstown.

One of the farmers was still in the fray at €700,000 but the holding was eventually bought by a sports club for €735,000. The property was sold by private treaty.

The sale price equates to €30,630/ac, which O’Brien said went “away beyond expectations”.

Sold as farmland

Despite the buyers not being involved in agriculture, O’Brien pointed out that the property was sold as farmland.

“It’s a sweet piece of tillage ground, and the highest price I’ve ever gotten for farmland,” O’Brien.

He said the €29,000/ac bid by the local farmers showed the hunger that exists for good quality land.

“I put the signage up and by the time I got back to the office in Mitchelstown, I was getting calls about the place,” he said.

The farm was sold by a local man who has relocated and is farming in Waterford, O’Brien added.

The same auctioneer also handled the recent sale of a 70ac non-residential farm at Killeagh in east Cork.

The auctioneer was looking for €13,000-14,000/ac for the farm, which was scheduled to go to auction.

However, the sale “caught fire” in the run-up to the auction, O’Brien said, and the property was eventually sold for around €17,000/ac.

The holding was bought by a local man who has farming interests.