Buyers have agreed with the agents running the well attended auction of Ken Gall's Dookie farm today.
Noonameena (267 hectares, 660 acres) sold for a stellar $5,225,000 at auction.
At the fall of the hammer, the price paid for this highly regarded mixed farm realised $7917 per acre.
The agents from Kevin Hicks Real Estate insisted Noonameena was a prized district property located next door to the University of Melbourne's Dookie campus in the Goulburn Valley.
More than 60 people attended today's auction at the Dookie recreation reserve which started with an opening bid of $3.5m.
A vendor bid of $4m kicked the contest away between two bidders who arrived at the final happy result for vendors Ken and Leanne Gall.
The buyers are regional farmers from Toolamba, to the south-west of Shepparton.
The property was being offered for sale for the first time in 72 years.
Agents had earlier suggested a price range of between $6000 and $7000 an acre for the choice farm, or between $4 million-$4.6 million all up.
Well, it did much better than that.
Agents said Noonameena provided an "ideal combination" of flood irrigation and undulating hill country.
The farm enjoys secure irrigation water from the Broken River, supplying about 93ha (230 acres) of lasered paddocks through an internal channel system with padman stops to most outlets.
A hefty 398 megalitres of high reliability water share is being made available to the successful buyer at market value.
The highest part of the farm is productive with improved pastures, some native timber and views to neighbouring Mount Major, across to the Strathbogie's and Mount Buffalo beyond.
Noonameena's four-bedroom brick veneer home was built in 1980 and extended in 1990.
The original family weatherboard homestead is still on the block which agents admit needs work.
Farm buildings include a machinery shed, a lock-up workshop (30 x 30) with concrete floor and three phase power.
It has a three-stand flat board shearing shed with capacity of 300 head inside and under the shed, with steel yards and loading ramp.
A steel cattle yard with cattle race and crush and large hay shed (640 rolls, 26m x 15m approx.) complete the improvements.
"Central to Shepparton and Benalla with bitumen frontage and strong boundaries, excellent soils, irrigation and infrastructure, 'Noonameena' presents as one of the finest mixed farming properties offered of recent times," the agents' ended.
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Chris McLennan
ACM national rural property writer based in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria. Career journalist. Multi award winner.
ACM national rural property writer based in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria. Career journalist. Multi award winner.
