Crowdfunding has been used to buy a farm near Casterton in what is believed to be the first time a rural property has been sold through the method.
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Property fund DomaCom, which organised the crowdfunding, believes the sale of “Doyles” at Sandford near Casterton was the start of a trend to get small investors into the agri property market.
It said the sale of the 150-hectare beef property through the ground-breaking deal would give 90 retail investors a stake in a property in Western Districts pastoral land.
The property sold for less than $1 million.
Prior to entering into a contract to purchase the property, the fund was successful in securing a local operator to be the tenant on the property, who will use it to run beef cattle.
DomaCom’s head of property Jason Bennett said “the identification of good operators to work with in the leasing of the property was key to the transaction”.
“We are striving to deliver a packaged opportunity to investors to enable them to invest into the rural sector through our platform,” Mr Bennett said.
DomaCom expected investors would receive an estimated combined income and capital return of 10 per cent a year on their investment, based on historic returns, which was a significant improvement on bank interest.
The investors’ venture into crowdfunding also gave them the opportunity to participate in the current strong capital growth in the rural sector, DomaCom said.
DomaCom chief executive Arthur Naoumidis said it knew from its bid last year for the Kidman cattle properties “that there was a thirst by ‘mum and dad’ investors to acquire agriculture assets, and we have been looking at other properties for quite some time”.
The DomaCom property fund enables investors to select properties they would like to invest in and pledge as much as they would like to invest.
“People are motivated by a desire to keep prime rural land in Australian hands, as well as the opportunity for steady yield and capital gain,” Mr Naoumidis said.
Elders Hamilton agent David Peardon handled the sale and said crowdfunding was an “exciting development”.
“As a country realtor I have been waiting for 20 years for someone to do this,” Mr Peardon said.
