After an seven-year lapse, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) returned to recording agricultural land values in 2013.

The organisation had been actively involved in collating national and regional land values throughout the ’90s and into the early 2000s. It became a critical source of information for land price trends over a 16-year period from 1990 to 2005.

The CSO stopped recording land price data in 2005, a time when land prices were reaching peak levels. Back then, an upper threshold of €35,000/ha (€14,100/acre) was imposed, meaning that any land sold above this level was omitted from the CSO analysis as it was deemed non-agricultural. However, a significant amount of agricultural land at the time was fetching €15,000/acre and more, driven by the extensive purchasing power of non-farming buyers. These critical omissions likely skewed the CSO figures and failed to reflect what was really happening on the ground during the boom years.

The CSO recommenced land data recording in 2013, using the exclusions set out in table one. Any agricultural parcel comprising one acre upwards is included in the current round of analysis and there is no upper price threshold. Also, any land holding with a residence or building is excluded from the analysis, which means that the results reflect the true price of bare land in this country.

The CSO use data from the Revenue Commissioner’s Stamp Duty Returns to calculate both the median and mean price of land sold. To determine land type, it also uses data from the Property Registration Authority of Ireland, An Post Geo Directory and the Census of Agriculture 2010. This puts the CSO in an extremely favourable position in terms of having access to a huge volume of land sales information not made available to the public.

In 2015, the CSO used a total of 2,500 transactions to calculate the average value of land in each region. This is a phenomenon number of transactions and allows for hugely reliable results.

The median price of land, which is used by the CSO, is the exact middle value when all the transactions are sorted in order of price per acre. The CSO claims that by taking the median value, the final figures are less likely to be skewed by the inclusion of extremely large or extremely small values, thereby giving a better idea of the typical price of land in Ireland.

The CSO gives a breakdown of land values on a national and regional basis. Leaving Dublin aside, it divides the country into seven clear regions which are outlined in table two.

National average for 2015 was €6,615/acre

Given the method used by the CSO to collate data, it can take a significant amount of time to get all the appropriate information, meaning that the release date for statistics is significantly prolonged.

Figures for 2015 were only recently released by the CSO, which indicates that the national median price paid for land in Ireland in that year was €6,615/acre, slightly down from €6,760/acre in 2014. A total of 51,544 acres sold across the country, worth a combined value of €304.5m. This is back 8.4% on 2014 when 56,273 acres sold – the 2015 figure is more in line with 2013 levels. The average transaction size in 2015 was 20.6 acres (see table four).

The CSO also differentiates between arable land and permanent grassland. The national median price paid for arable land in 2015 was €10,026/acre (back from €10,511/acre in 2014), while the equivalent figure for permanent grassland was €6,378/acre (back from €6,551/acre in 2014).

It was interesting to learn that the CSO national average of €6,615/acre was significantly lower than the Irish Farmers Journal national average of €8,914/acre for 2015.

Regional values vary

With the exception of Dublin, the southeast was the most expensive region for land purchase in 2015 at €9,613/acre, according to CSO figures. This was followed by the mideast at €9,297/acre, the southwest at €7,377/acre and the midwest at €6,943/acre. The least expensive region was the border counties at €5,149/acre followed by the west at €5,172/acre. The median average price paid for land in Dublin was €11,616/acre. See table three.

West had the greatest number of transactions

In terms of most transactions, the west had the highest number at 606 sales followed by the border region at 532 sales. With the exception of Dublin at 19 sales, the mideast had the least number at 247 sales.

While it may not always be nationally advertised, it’s clear that a significant volume of land changes hands in the west and border regions each year. In 2015, over 11,000 acres sold in both the west and border regions, well ahead of the southeast at 7,304 acres sold and the southwest at 6,380 acres sold.

Land sales generate a huge amount of money within a community. Nationally, the total value of land sales in 2015 was €304.5m. Over €62m worth of land sold in the southeast, almost €50m changed hands in the mideast while the west generated almost €48m worth of land sales. This is a substantial turnover of money in local communities.

Table four illustrates that the median value of land has been moderately decreasing since 2013.

The national median value in 2013 was €6,953/acre, which dropped to €6,760/acre in 2014 and to €6,615/acre in 2015. During those three years, the number of transactions ranged from 2,500 to almost 3,100 sales, while the value of land sold has fluctuated between €304m to €371m annually.