Interstate buyer snaps up NSW farm for more than $32 million

A NSW family have ended 123 years of ownership selling their tightly held 3427ha property for a record price in the district.

An interstate buyer has paid a district record price to acquire a longstanding and tightly held mixed farming property located in the NSW Northern Tablelands.

The McIntosh family have ended 123 years of ownership selling their 3427ha Clarevaulx Station, situated 10km north of Glen Innes and 64km from Inverell, after it was initially passed in through auction.

Listed for sale in November last year, Clarevaulx Station was auctioned on December 15 where it was passed in for $31 million.

The property has reportedly been sold for $32.775 million in a deal with a Queensland farming family who has expanded its holdings in northern NSW.

The deal is worth the equivalent of $9237 a hectare bare, a figure understood to be a record for the Glen Innes region.

Clarevaulx Station has been owned by the McIntosh family for more than 120 years.

Ray White Rural agent Geoff Hayes handled the sale and said the historic property attracted interest from a wide range of buyers, despite a subdued sentiment in the market.

“We attracted interest from North Queensland all the way through and down to Victoria’s Western District,” he said.

“The Clarevaulx Station is the largest basalt property in the district as well as its grazing capacity.”

Clarevaulx Station was originally established by Captain Phillip Ditmas, and is now spread across 99 freehold titles, comprising 1550ha of open grazing land the property has run 24,000 dry sheep equivalents, while there is also 1000ha of premium deep basalt and alluvial cultivation and 1000ha of gently undulating cultivation, suited to fodder cropping or further development.

A 1860s four-bedroom homestead with some original features, also stands on the property alongside three machinery sheds, a workshop, 600t of grain storage, a six-stand shearing shed, two sheep yards and two cattle yards.

Clarevaulx Station is regarded as one of the largest basalt soil properties in the Glen Innes district.

Elsewhere in the NSW northern tablelands, Jackson Agriculture, a northern NSW beef producer founded by John Jackson, sold its 1504ha New England holding, Lakeside, after a deal was struck post-auction.

Offered for sale via an online auction in April, the property was initially passed in for $28.1 million before being sold to a northern NSW grazier who paid a price greater than the $28.1 million bid Lakeside was passed in for.