A large Mid Canterbury dairy farm that sold for $17.1 million has gone to a partnership of local buyers.
It's one of the highest farm prices fetched since the global credit crisis struck in 2008.
The 525-hectare farm at Dorie, northeast of Ashburton, comes with two cowsheds and four houses and has resource consent to milk up to 1800 cows.
The general manager of PGG Wrightson Real Estate, Stuart Cooper, says the sale reflects a pickup in the market for large rural properties, which have begun to sell again after a hiatus for the past two and a half years.
But new lending from banks is still scarce, Mr Cooper says, so equity investors are putting up the money for higher-value farm sales.
