NATIONAL real estate agency and advisory firm Land, Agribusiness, Water & Development (LAWD) has announced the launch of a dedicated property valuation business, to provide a fully-integrated service offering, less than 12 months since commencing operation.

A new, but fast-growing entrant to the market, LAWD was founded in July 2020 and is led by prominent agribusiness figure John McKillop. The LAWD service suite, which now includes specialist transaction, advisory and valuation expertise for agriculture and land development, is backed by a leadership team with extensive prior experience across the farm and property sectors.

LAWD Senior Director, Tim McKinnon, said the integration of a comprehensive valuation capability was in line with the company’s targeted expansion and would allow the team to collaboratively manage services to deliver complete, quality-assured valuations of specialised agricultural assets.

“As a new company, we have the ability to move swiftly to build the business and our services in direct response to an Australian agribusiness sector that now, more than ever before, demands efficiency and innovation to capture new opportunities,” Mr McKinnon said.

“The appointment of a devoted valuation business within LAWD gives our clients access to a full suite of real estate services that is driven by a national team with many decades of experience, and which understands the evolving needs of agricultural businesses.

“The integrity of our service is bolstered by the support of Quality Assurance Manager, Peter Payne, who brings more than 35 years’ experience to this role and audits each valuation before it is shared with the client.”

LAWD’s national valuation team of 10 has been operational since September 2020 and, in that time, has been appointed to the valuation panels of major banks and acted on behalf of local and international private landholders, large corporates and publicly listed companies.  Clients have been drawn from across agriculture and include some of the largest beef producers and landholders in Australia, large-scale cotton growers, and institutional horticulture investors in the southern Murray Darling Basin, as well as significant poultry asset owners and post farm-gate processing enterprises.

Mr McKinnon said a key differentiator of LAWD was its focus on combining genuine industry relationships with market-leading analytics and technology to inform market intelligence.

“We are in continuous discussion with institutional and private investors who are active in the Australian market and, as a result, have a very accurate and realistic knowledge of where the market is positioned at any given time,” he said.

“Our robust processes, combined with our team’s existing standing within industry, have allowed us to quickly build our client base and be appointed to major bank panels in what is a short space of time since commencement of operations.”

Mr McKinnon said the team’s commitment to being part of the growth of Australian agriculture, and its prioritisation of integrity, would continue to lead the business moving forward.

“This is an exciting time for agriculture and our firm focus is on using our deep understanding of the market, and genuine partnerships with industry, to support agribusiness and rural communities across Australia.”

To find out more about LAWD’s valuations capability, visit the website, or contact Tim McKinnon, [email protected]