Maybe it was the time I spent living in Tasmania helping to manage a farm and BnB, or the large land size, or just me seeking an outlet from an extraordinarily busy time in my life, but I purchased 120 acres just outside of Maleny –  a 1.5-hour drive from my home.

It had two ways in: one where bitumen tuned to dirt road; the other through a permanently running creek that went through the property, which was the only way I ever went in. This was going to be fun; weekend escapes, camp fires, running cattle, watching all manner of wildlife that occupied the land, including deer. Improvement and getting dirty would be part of it with plans to add two more homes to the property, leaving a manager in the existing home as we also improved the land from the lantana-choked 80 acres of bushland and 40 acres of pasture. Let’s call it a 'farmland renovation'.

Rising from the creek, which was effectively our bottom boundary, we owned to the peak of a ridge, very steep in parts that incorporated three valleys. As such, access and clearing wasn’t easy but we hired machinery to clear paths, return old paddocks to pasture, and build additional dams to capture the water as it made its way to the creek. But it was hard work. The campfires almost never happened, the compulsory monthly visit became a drag, and the subsequent homes never arrived with a lot of capital that could not be borrowed going into the land improvements.
While these activities were adding to value, the lifestyle component got lost and at some point, the maths on this side of the equation won out. Ok, you want a Farm Holiday occasionally – what’s it cost to rent a weekend at a place like this compared to owning, paying and being responsible for it year-round? The answer was obviously much less, plus throw in some theft from the onsite managers and it was time to sell.

Purchase price was $320k (to check on RP data), capital invested was approx. $120k, sale price $619,500. Aging market timing assisted but really this ‘lifestyle’ play turned into an unusual albeit profitable renovation. While it wasn’t the best use of capital, it still worked out fine. Two lessons remain though. One: holidays homes (beachside, mountainside, rural) are a complete and utter indulgence that make no mathematical sense to me unless the cash cost over what it would take to rent the same place every year off someone else is irrelevant to you; and two: a remote business or investment can cramp your style on time and routine, so if you can’t visit regularly, completely trust the staff or have a system of transparency – while the cat’s away, the mice will play.

As a side note to this, when I sold the place the new buyers didn’t want the cattle yards we had installed which were movable. We arranged to sell these and the stock of cattle to a nearby owner who wanted to pay cash. My manager took and kept (stole) the cash along with hiding all the farm tools, tractor and the farm 4WD. His logic was I did well on the sale and this was his share. Lessons!

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