Timber land as an investment?

That ad tells me its going to be priced way to high.......

A forest is a living growing thing, if it is your crop you need to tend it like any farmer or rancher tends their living beings.

It sounds like you would be better off buying a poor forest and growing it into a good one. Cheap buying price, use it for hunting and riding, and manage the crop, encourage good trees, discourage poor. In 40 years you get a good crop of new growth, and hope the cycles of wood demand favor you. Along the way you make minor sales that hopefully keep up with the property taxes as you cull firewood, and the occasional mature tree that is worth something with select cutting.

Paul

That is cheap if it has actual wood on it!

Back in the day up here in the tundra it was common to own a 'wood lot' of 5-20 acres which was waste land along a ravine of native hardwoods - elm, ironwood, ash, box elder, etc. a very occasional oak or walnut.

I've got a 5 acre plot, a railroad right of way cuts off 1/3 of an acre plus takes up 1/2 acre of it so really have just over 4 acres usable; most of it is a very steep cliff you have to hold on to the saplings to climb up or down. Less than a 1/2 acre flat on top, and small bit of flat on the bottom is mostly the rr right of way, or creek. All of it is inaccessible, it has a winter easement to harvest firewood across the neighbors farm, there is not even a field road, you can go there after the crops are out across the field with a tractor.

So you get the picture, scrub trees of low value, horrible topography, no access.

This is valued at $6000 by the county, and folks get that, for the hunting land.

Paul

Forcast

I hope that the sale of the pines was for 4 acres of first cut thinning of planted pines and that the harvester had a long ways to haul the yield. Otherwise there should have been a better price.

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Agmantoo
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Timber is a very slow investment. We do it. We have a lot of forest which means we're doing selective cutting pretty much every year. With a small plot like 100 acres figure on doing it about once a decade or so. With less, longer between cuts. Timber is a slow investment.

There are other ways to earn money on the land as well that work well with the timber. We also have a farm and we live here, thus saving the cost of renting or owning somewhere else. Multiple things stacked together make it work well.

-Walter

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well, just had a talk with the local logger last week.here in cny so many are cutting trees that saw log prices have dropped in half.markets flooded (and so are my woods).

Lots of properties if financed can not have any Timber cut and sold off it until said property is paid for.

big rockpile

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Depends on a lot of variables
- how many acres? Tracts under 40 acres of planted pines of the same age are not considered worth the time for harvesters and so are hard to make money on here.
- planted already or in need of planting? Planting costs $ and it will be 15-20 years befor your first thinning
- how good is the soil/site - what is your expexted growth compared to "typical" ?
- what type of trees?
- most importantly how much are you paying for it? (Land value per acre + timber value per acre = value /acre) here timber land value should be $1000/acre...but its hard to find that cheap...which is why timber is mov8ng out of our area.

we've been pleased with our ~200acres...but I lost 50% of one stand due to the ice storm last year. The recommendation was clear cut and replant. But I couldnt see taking the low prices for the residual and eating the cost of planting AND waiting 18 years to get back to where we started. I pushed over the damaged trees and will gaze under them and cut in a few years when trees are bigger.

My folks bought 80 acres of mountainside timberland almost 30 years ago. I've been harvesting it a little at a time ever since. I've probably taken 4 times as much out in value as we invested, maybe 6. Since we bought it cheap at under $250 per acre. Land in the area is at least 8 times that now. Good investment for sure. But we bought it as a place to live. And I always did my own harvesting so I retain 100% of what the logs sell for at the mill. It supposedly takes 400 acres of good timber to create a full time income for a family. Considering the price of land I'd go for vegetable cropping now. It's a lot more concentrated work but more concentrated income as well. Can make a living from a few acres if done right. And it's a big IF!
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