How much is timber worth?

JohnFreeman

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There's another thread on here that's interesting, and mentions timber poaching. I see a lot of lot clearing (and it's heartbreaking when it's a mature stand).

So.... what's hardwood worth?
 
I get letters from timber companies almost weekly about our property.
I've yet to have one come out and give me a estimate but may just to see what they say, I think once they find out what terms I'd negotiate they would pass.

https://forestry.ces.ncsu.edu/forestry-selling-timber/
 
All over the map. Good hardwood is paid by the board-foot, so it takes a practiced eye and some real figuring to determine what a stand is worth.

Pulp and pine are priced by the ton, so you will need a bunch before it becomes profitable.
 
You could research this in your county by going to the Register of Deeds website and searching for Timber Deeds. These are usually recorded as public records and are available online in most counties. When looking at deeds you will see a stamp for deed stamps--this is a tax levied at $1 for each $500, so $20 in deed stamps indicates $10,000 in payment. The timber deed will also show the acreage. It will not show the quality of the timber, of course, but by looking at a number of these you could get a range.
 
Back in the day I took three years of a forestry program. Like mentioned earlier, companies range all over the place. My brother did his 8 acres and got 15K. He did it about 10 years ago and the land has still mot produced even a good start on reforestation due to his lack of interest in replanting. I would never do it without a plan to replant and reforest.
 
You also need a decent size area of timber and decent quality to get top dollar. Also depends if it is mostly hardwoods or something like pine or popular. Its not worth it for most larger loggers to move equipment in for just a acre or two and especially if all they get is pulp wood off it. There is guys that will cut smaller areas but payout is usually not as well.
 
Not an expert in growing timber, but I've made some observations over my life.

Good timber doesn't come from growing "trees". They come from growing forests.

Look at the trees which did not grow up in forests or other similar stands were you have a lot of trees growing together. For example, trees that are planted in yards, widely separated from each other. They don't grow the same.

For trees to make good timber, they need to grow straight and tall. If they're "packed together", they do this because they're in competition with each other for light. They shoot up straight so they can reach it, with long trunks and fewer low limbs.

A lone tree will, of course, grow pretty tall depending on breed, location, etc. But their trunk develops and grows limbs down low, because they can get light down low. They may grow in a leaning/bent fashion, based on how the sunlight reaches them where they're at.

So if you want to grow timber, you have to plant a whole cr*pload over acres and acres in order to maximize the quality yield per tree.
 
We used to have a bunch of pines on this place and some HUGE poplars. We had a guy come in, that worked by himself and said he'd split the board feet price 50/50 with my parents. We kept up with the loads he hauled out and he also brought us sawmill receipts showing the loads he took. He was here a month and my parents half of the money was a little over $15,000. And while his equipment was here he let me use it to clean up the limbs. This place is covered with gulleys so I just filled in the gulleys with the brush. It's all rotted down now and you'd never know anyone was here except for the occasional stump
 
In my experience, scrappy pine will net the landowner 4-500 per acre, mature hardwood can go up to about 1500. It's got to be real nice to get much past that.
 
I once made an offer on 40 acres. The asking price was the sum of the assessed value of the land, the house, plus an estimate from a timber survey.

The survey is a forester walking through and estimating the board feet and type of wood, but this one relied very heavily on the assumption that much of the hardwood was veneer, which brings the highest price. The trouble is that veneer isn't veneer until it is lying on the ground and the timber grader marks it as such. At the time, veneer was bringing triple the price of lumber quality.

It used to be that veneer had to be straight and limbless up to twelve feet high, plus having no rot in the core, which is why the sawmill wouldn't pay veneer rates until it was cut and on the ground.

To ensure a higher likelihood that the timber would mature to veneer quality, landowners would faithfully trim limbs up to twelve feet.

Then the definition of veneer changed to limbless up to sixteen feet. A lot of timber cultivated to be veneer became lumber. If you were a landowner counting on harvesting income, Ouch!

BTW, the forty acres estimate was $30k in wood back around twenty years ago, and much of the timber was mature oak that to my unprofessional eyes would have made the veneer grade.
 
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