How much to offer for half-acre directly behind house?

This seems to be the best-suited forum for this question, apologies in advance if not.

My brother-in-law John wants to buy some land from HIS brother-in-law, Paul. The land in question is directly behind his house, in a rural area. It's about half an acre (same as the house garden) and extends back to a stone wall which marks the back boundary of Paul's land.

It extends a few hundred yards further on both sides too - this may be relevant with regard to rights of way for farming etc., I don't know. (At the moment Paul isn't farming but there is a family tradition - it's unlikely he ever will though, according to John).

So the question is: what sort of price would this half-acre of land command? It's set a half-acre back from the road, with John's house directly in front, so presumably there's no question of it fetching 'site'-type prices.

John (who hopes to extend his garden back on this land, if he can buy it) was just hoping to get a rough idea of what to offer, and frankly I've no idea. Any suggestions or experience from any of you experts? Thanks...

Why dont you ring a local auctioneer? Look on daft or my home and check out the area you're speaking about.

Thanks, but he's already tried that.

Not a runner - there are no comparable plots being sold. This is not a site, nor is it farmland (well it is potentially, but the idea is to buy it for a long garden, and by selling it the seller would be breaking up a bigger field, so therefore that might increase the price beyond). Assuming it can never be sold as a site i.e. with PP - because it has no road frontage. In other words, best guess is that it would cost more than farmland but less than residential development land.

Half-acre sites in the area go for about Eu100k, BTW.

Thought perhaps someone on AAM might have experience of a similar deal.

Surely you can just prorata farm land prices in the area? More like a couple of grand I'd say!

Just look up the price that farming land is being sold for in the region, and use that as a basis. If it's not usable as a site, then there's no need to offer development land prices for it.
Leo

I know of a very similar case recently in the SE where a site owner purchased a landlocked extra half acre at the back of his family home site. It was valued at €30,000. It was gifted uncle to nephew and the buyer paid the CGT liability of the uncle and then gave the difference over.

€30,000 doesn't seem like a lot when you think of the value it added to the nephews house. IMO a 320k house on 1/2 acre went up to closer to 400k with the full acre.

> If it's not usable as a site, then there's no need to offer development
> land prices for it.

Well yeah, that's been John's assumption, as noted above. Presumably that's a safe assumption (i.e. that sites without road frontage can't/won't be zoned)... any planners on AAM who'd care to comment?

Thanks Davidcoco, that's exactly the kind of info we were looking for. A bit more than farmland prices so, apparently...

>It was valued at €30,000.
Who did this valuation? Local surveyor/auctioneer? Or agreed between parties?

usrbin said:

Who did this valuation? Local surveyor/auctioneer? Or agreed between parties?

Click to expand...

Independent valuer who was informed prior to visit that that figure would be the ballpark figure in mind. The valuer did say that it might be a bit more but he would give a letter for the 30k.

I thought the average price for agricultural land was 15,000 per acre.

Someone locally has bought land behind his house with a view to knocking his own house to improve access and build several houses on the enlarged site.

My Brother has just purchased a strip of land adjacent to his house. It measures 5 metres (road frontage) by approx 150 metres. He paid €8000. A half acre site beside it was sold for €190. Any use?

Good info from all, thanks very much. Froggie, I'm guessing that the site price was EU190,000? But wondering how the strip of land was so cheap - was the site beyond already marked out/sold and therefore this narrow strip was never going to be suitable for building? Cheers!

sorry, yes €190,000. The farmer informed my brother as a matter of courtesy that the field next door was being offered for sale as sites (3 in total) My brother decided to chance his arm and asked the farmer if he would sell him a small strip adjacent to his house. 5 metres was agreed on as it gives him enough space to create a drive way.