Carbon and low-cost breeding brings buyers

Bidding started at $3m and when it reached the $4m mark, Ray White Rural agent Rob Wildermuth said he was excited to see four active bidders still engaged.

The winning bidders were Cameron and Rachel Greig of Walcha but Mr Wildermuth said the Thargomindah property had drawn people from Roma, St George, Newcastle, Hungerford, Surat, Wanaaring, Brisbane and as far south as Newcastle.

The local market was strong he said, with investors looking for large, low-cost breeding operations, which are in scarce supply.

"Quite a few of the people who inspected the property had a dual purpose for it, running cattle and putting a carbon contract on it," Mr Wildermuth said.

"The carbon income is becoming a major force in this sort of country as well."

Located 60km south of Thargomindah and 127km north west of Hungerford, Wathopa was originally open plains country but, over time, trees had emerged across the landscape.

Mr Wildermuth said fencing off those trees presented an opportunity to register a carbon project, something farmers were increasingly considering, although he said it was impossible to say how much that might have influenced the price.

The price, close to $51 an acre, was higher than Mr Wildermuth had expected, saying that while the price of a neighbouring property settled 12 months earlier was undisclosed, it was believed to be about $40 an acre.

Wathopa was originally purchased by the Keane family in 1908 and was sold by the estate of Jack Keane who passed away in April last year, aged 91.

The property has six main paddocks with laneways leading back to the yards, a low-set timber five-bedroom homestead, and six-bedroom shearers quarters.

Other improvements include a four-stand shearing shed, enclosed workshop with concrete floor, four-bay machinery shed, three-sided shed initially used as stables, plus an airstrip and hangar.

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