A STANDOFF between sellers and buyers that has all but stalled rural property sales activity in recent months was broken by a $6 million auction result in Dubbo earlier this month.
On offer was “Geurie Homestead”, the last of the once-extensive Macquarie Valley property portfolio of former hoteliers, Joe and Zeta Wallace.
Since her husband’s death in 1999, Mrs Wallace had sold four of the five properties they had acquired since 1990, leaving until last the flagship 1723 hectare “Geurie Homestead” .
The property went under the hammer with Dubbo agent, Peter Milling and Company, last Friday where it sold for $6m to the Millner family – Michael and his wife Jenny, and sons James and Rob – of “Rosedale”, Blayney.
Michael and Jenny Millner already own another former Wallace property, “Murrumbidgerie”, which fronts the Macquarie River downstream from “Geurie Homestead”.
They bought “Murrumbidgerie” in 2006 for an undisclosed price after the 1048ha property was passed in at a Peter Milling and Company auction for $4.1m.
The Millners will use “Geurie Homestead”, which has extensive irrigation flats, to extend the existing commercial cattle and cropping operations on “Murrumbidgerie”.
Among other things, the country will be used as a source of fodder for the family’s Rosedale Charolais stud.
“Geurie Homestead” was originally part of the larger “Murrumbidgerie” run, and is situated 20 kilometres south-east of Dubbo, where it fronts the Macquarie River for 10.3 kilometres.
It has about 330ha of alluvial river flats of which 230ha are developed for centre pivot irrigation, and was offered with 3156 megalitres of Macquarie River water entitlements.
Selling agent Peter Milling said while he was pleased with the result, it was a “sign of the times” that a number of would-be buyers could only sit on their hands owing to an inability to raise the necessary finance.
Seven contracts were issued prior to the auction, but on the day Mr Millner was the only bidder, albeit a successful one.
