selling timber in Caroline County, Virginia (Forest, Floyd: sales, how much, buyers)

[Paul Bunyon]

This is totally new to me and I would appreciate and info from anyone who may have sold the timber or have knowlege of fair pricing on selling timber that needs to be harvested in or around Caroline County, Virginia. I have been approached by a company that would like to buy my timber.

[seanpecor]

Hire a timber consultant. Ours is Gary Long from Ridgerunner Forestry, LLC in Floyd County. A timber consultant will lead you throughout the process, and your input will directly guide the nature and type of the harvest. Among other things, a consultant will mark your boundaries, and walk your land with you to establish guidelines that determine which trees are eligible for harvest, how large a diameter should be established to protect younger trees, and which landmark trees should remain if you'd like to retain a certain aesthetic. Once that's done the consultant will advertise your offer to all logging companies with a certain distance from your land. You might get a dozen offers and the competition will help ensure you get top dollar. Even though the consultant takes a cut from the sale, you are virtually guaranteed you'll get more money in your pocket, and you'll stand a much better chance of maintaining the integrity of your woodlands for wildlife and future harvests.

I could so easily see someone missing out on alot of $ if they just take the first offer that comes along. How much are they offering?

From Gary's site:

"The average price per acre (adjusted for inflation) for consultant sales was $934.46 in contrast to an average price per acre of $525.90 for non-consultant sales"

That's a big difference!

Sean

[EricD]

Isn't the market for timber really low right now?

Unless you need the money, it seems like it would be better to wait a few years. (But I'm no expert, so it might be worth getting a consultant as Sean suggested)

[seanpecor]

It depends. Hardwood Sawtimber is down only 1.5% from a year ago. Pulpwood however is up 5-10%. I suspect that pulpwood price increases more than offsets hardwood sawtimber declines. Remember the weak dollar is really ramping up the demand for pulpwood because of export increases and increased demand for domestic products.

Sean

[branson0526]

If you have not sold your timber yet I would very much like to talk to you about maybe purchasing it from you at a fair price.

[seanpecor]

FYI, we successfully sold our timber at a sealed bid auction in September. It was a selective harvest on 80 acres. Anything under 17" trunk diameter was off limits, and specific larger trees marked for exclusion for appearance purposes were off limits as well.

Thanks to the hard work of Gary Long (Ridgerunner Forestry, LLC), we received 4 bids. The low bid was $760/acre, 2 bids were around $1,200/acre and the winning bid was over $1,400/acre. The range of bids really emphasizes the importance of obtaining the help of someone like Gary who can put the word out to a huge number of sawmills and allow them to compete for your trees.

I'm not sure what the economy is doing to the mills right now, but mills were already really low on log inventory in September. So the prices could still be attractive for the land-owner.

Once the weather clears up I'll take some photos of our harvested ridgeland. About 40 acres were harvested in October and the other 40 will be harvested in the Spring. The selectively harvested land doesn't look barren at all, just thinner. We're really happy with the work that was done.

Sean

[dwoodruff]

Sir Ijust sold 18.5 acer in sussex. It took me 14 month to get to dollar for it. I talked to alot of buyers and some nice people but they all wanted to make money off of my timber. I have two people that I would be glad for you to talk to, let me know how I can get in touch with you. David Dwoodruff60@msn.com Send me an email