What's driving a surge in rural real estate sales

WITH the Federal election out of the way, Toowoomba real estate agents Trevor Leishman and Errol Luck are seeing a resurgence in buyer interest.

110 McNally Rd, Greenmount, was recently sold. Picture: Contributed

WITH the Federal election out of the way, Toowoomba real estate agents Trevor Leishman and Errol Luck are seeing a resurgence in buyer interest in rural and lifestyle property sales.

The Elders Toowoomba agents have handled eight contracts in the last three weeks, two of which have settled, and Mr Leishman said a lot of that was because of buyer interest from out west. 

"Because of the rain that happened earlier in the year and all that flooding that came down through the channel country, it gave a lot of people a lot of feed out there and gave them the opportunity to put their places on the market," he said.

"Then those people are coming to Toowoomba to retire.

"The other thing that's happening out in the west is that because the gas and mining sector has kicked in again, a lot of big resource companies are buying rural holdings to put their mining opportunities together.

"Then (the sellers) are coming down here as well looking for agricultural properties to either retire to now or land bank for the future." 

Mr Leishman pointed to a "beautiful property" they'd sold at Quinalow as an example. It was put up for expressions of interest, and of 28 inspections they had 23 offers.

"It just went mad. A third of them were buyers from the west. All they were wanting it for was to land bank," he said. 

"Then you've got the other people that we've sold recently - the majority of them are local people and they're just looking for opportunities to buy good parcels of land here to go and build their dream home or to expand their rural property portfolio.

"The main catalyst behind it is Toowoomba. The city is just getting stronger and stronger and these people just want to be a part of the community."

The city's educational offerings were another pull factor, he said. 

Mr Leishman said the other source of investment in rural properties in the region was the corporate sector.

"So we're working on a couple of projects now where there's some very big corporates who are looking to get in here if they can. Big corporate companies like superannuation companies that want to invest in the ag sector in Australia," he said. 

With the election out of the way, it's given the market more confidence, Mr Leishman said.

"There was a build-up before the election where people were a bit unsure of what to do and what the future looked like," he said.

"Once the election was over that gave them clear air to invest, to go forward and invest into the ag sector, which they did.

"It's very evident just of late in the last month. We just did those contracts and we've still got four buyers we're trying to fit up." 

Originally published as What's driving a surge in rural real estate sales