This question is for anyone who might be a logger or is in the business or has had logging done on a farm that could throw some quick advice my way, thanks

So I own a farm and recently a logger came to me asking about cutting some trees in the wooded area. He and I went to inspect and he showed me what he wanted, which added up to about 200 trees, all 18in or greater in thickness. He offered me $3000 and said if there's anymore trees he'd want after that, he'd offer more. I've never had any logging done on the farm before.


Is that price about right for what he wants? I'm always happy with an extra 3k but for 200 trees I wasn't sure if I was maybe getting a low offer. Any advice is appreciated, thanks.

11/30/2011 1:21:47 PM

im not a logger or anything but you gotta make sure you know what trees hes cuttin, if hes cuttin down 200 walnut trees youre probably getting screwed, maybe even cherry

im pretty sure you could hire a consultant that can evaluate your stand and the quality of your trees, i dont know what kind of time table the dude or yourself would be on

the thing is that this guy youre dealing with may know a fuckin great deal enough to know how to get himself a good deal if you know what i mean. I think it would be worth it to slow down and explore what youre doing, dont work on his terms

[Edited on November 30, 2011 at 1:31 PM. Reason : f]

11/30/2011 1:28:51 PM

nah no walnut. Mostly red oak i think, maybe some hickory.

11/30/2011 1:31:14 PM

contact your local nc forest service office!

also, PM Fumbler. he is a service forester with NCFS & can tell you allllllll about how loggers basically steal timber out from under people who don't know any better all the time.

11/30/2011 1:32:30 PM

Quote :

"contact your local nc forest service office! "

11/30/2011 1:37:46 PM

WHOAWHOAWHOA wait a minute.
Don't sell anything yet! (wait for my reply)

11/30/2011 1:52:48 PM

lol thanks. No I haven't signed or sold anything.

11/30/2011 2:10:17 PM

How'd I forget about fumbler

11/30/2011 2:10:27 PM

i guess there's a decent amount of pin oak as well

so mostly red oak, pin oak, probably some hedge trees, and some hickory. As far as I know there's nothing expensive like walnut or cherry. I think there's one nice walnut tree but he wanted to wait 10 years to take it

11/30/2011 2:25:13 PM

Where is your farm? Can i build a house on your farm?

11/30/2011 2:32:10 PM

i've got a handful of pin oaks in my yard that guy can have for $free

11/30/2011 2:34:02 PM

that seems super low if you really have that many mature trees

11/30/2011 2:34:07 PM

I'm glad you posted this. Before you sell any trees you need to know what you've got.
$3000 for 200 trees is $15 a tree. A small stack of firewood at Harris Teeter is $5.
Does this sound like it might be a good deal?
Prices fluctuate a lot, but looking at just stumpage prices a single pine that size should be worth $40-60. Before the economy went down a tree that size would have brought at least $100.

There are factors that affect stumpage value (what you get paid) such as:

The economy. Current prices are about 25-60% of what they were before the economy started to suck. Prices fluctuate all the time within the larger general price trends. You can hit a high point and actually sell timber for more than what it was worth in a good economy. Consulting foresters are always on the watch for these spikes and can help you sell your timber at the best times.

Short term demand. If a processing facility runs low or if we've run into a period of wet weather (they can't log some tracts when the weather is wet) they'll offer more money. This is basically what creates those short term fluctuations.

Size of your tract. Once the tract gets less than 20 acres the value can decrease. High quality stands (sounds like yours is high quality) are more resistant to decreases. If you're dealing with a logging operation or one that is already logging nearby then size of the tract doesn't matter. It costs a logger time (money) to move from one site to another. If they barely have to move then you shouldn't see hardly any decrease.

Distance to a mill. The farther they have to haul the wood the more it costs them in time and fuel. Most of the time this isn't a big factor when you're talking about pine sawtimber.
Where is this tract anyway?

What the fuck you know. If you don't know wtf you have then he's not going to give you much money. Pretty obvious, but people often don't realize how little they know. You're smarter than that because you started this thread.
Generally speaking, if a buyer knows that you've dealt with timber sales in the past you'll get offered more. If a consulting forester is involved then the price you're offered is going to jump up 25-50% right off the bat. Often times we see the prices jump up many times over.

What you need to do
-Like others have said, contact the NCFS county office in whatever county the land is in:
http://ncforestservice.gov/contacts/contacts_main.htm

-Call the county office and tell them you were offered money for some timber. They'll want to know where it's at. Ask them to give you a management plan for all the timber on the property. You'll want that so you can plan ahead and know when you need to harvest your timber. They'll give you their recommendations, which will probably be to harvest at least those old trees. They'll also give you a list of consulting foresters, timber buyers, and info on selling timber.

-Read the management plan. Seriously, read it.

-Pick a consultant. Ask them which consultants work in that area and ask which ones they've had good experiences with. They can't tell you which one to pick because it's our policy, but they will hint to the ones that are good. It's generally better to pick a consultant that's local.

-Let the consultant handle the timber sale. They'll charge you 5-10% of the sales price, but that's ok because you're going to make a lot more money anyway and you'll have much less of a headache letting the consultant handle it.

-Once they start logging then contact the county office again and ask them to do a logging inspection. This is important if you have streams on your land. If they screw up a stream and leave the site you could be stuck with fixing the problems. A good consultant will handle the water quality issues for you. Also, a consultant will draw up a good sales contract that puts the water quality responsibilities back on the logger.

-After the logging is done have the consultant handle the reforestation or call the NCFS and let them know you want a reforestation plan for that area. If it needs to be replanted then the consultant or NCFS will get you an application for our Forest Development porgram that pays for part of the reforestation.


Some other info...
-In NC there are registered foresters that have passed the NC Board of Registration for Foresters test. A consulting forester or a service forester (me and others with the NCFS) works for you. There are registered foresters that work for timber buyers. You need to be aware that being a registered forester doesn't exactly tell you which side of the fence the forester is on. Some foresters on the timber buying side will try to convince you that they're on your side since they are a registered forester. Just keep that in mind.

-The money you make on a timber sale is taxed as long term capital gains. Don't report it as regular income unless you like paying more taxes for no reason. The money you pay the consultant can be taken out of the sales price so you don't get taxed on that part.

-It's easier to manage most land that is clearcut harvested. If the logger you were talking to only wanted the big trees and wanted to leave the small ones then it might not be a good thing. If he leaves crappy small trees then once those grow bigger you'll just have crappy big trees that aren't worth much. If they cut all all the trees down then you can reforest the area with good seedlings.

-You can pay less in property tax for forestland (NC Forestry Present Use Tax Valuation Program). To do this you need at least 20 acres of forestland and you need a management plan. If the land isn't already taxed at the forestry rate then once you get that plan, bring it to the tax office and apply for the forestry present use tax.

Edited to add some more stuff...
It sounds like you might not have a lot of land with trees that are ready to harvest. A management plan from the NCFS will help you figure out what can be sold.
If it ends up that you don't have much area to harvest then sometimes it can be hard to get a consulting forester to handle the sale. A consultant in this case might want a flat fee for handling the timber sale or may want you to enter into a contract for them to help you with future timber sales. At the very least you could also get a consulting forester to cruise your timber and give you an estimate on the value then handle the sale yourself.
Most likely you should be able to find a consultant because they're hungry for work in this economy, but if you can't get a consultant that's fine too. You can deal directly with loggers. In this case you should call a few timber buyers off the list the NCFS should send you. Get a couple of offers to see if you can get a price that's closer to what the consultant valued the timber at.

If you have more questions feel free to ask me or the NCFS (if you ask me you are technically asking the NCFS )

[Edited on November 30, 2011 at 2:49 PM. Reason : ]

11/30/2011 2:34:08 PM

good job tww.

11/30/2011 2:44:22 PM

^^Awesome info.

11/30/2011 2:46:37 PM

i'd find someone trustworthy to cruise it for you. be careful, because they're often in cohoots with the loggers.

11/30/2011 2:51:04 PM

Quote :

"i'd find someone trustworthy to cruise it for you. be careful, because they're often in cohoots with the loggers."

That's right. Almost every consultant I've worked with or heard about is trustworthy. If you get a bad vibe, ask the NCFS county office. They know who's good and who's shady in their area.

There are non-consultants and non foresters who will cruise timber for a fee. That's perfectly fine, but before you have them do that ask the local NCFS office about them. There are timber cruisers who work for or with timber buyers that have done some shady things in the past.

On the flip side there are consultants who often repeatedly sell to certain buyers rather than offering the sale up to anyone in a sealed bid. This can seem shady, but usually the consultants have those relationships because they know those buyer/loggers will do a good job and will offer comparatively good prices. Selling to certain buyers/loggers instead of bidding often happens with smaller tracts because the consultant may already know that the logger will be working nearby and you probably wouldn't get much interest from other buyers in a bid.

On bigger sales that are sold on bid sometimes a consultant will convince the seller to not take the biggest bid for many reasons. The most common reason is the logger could have a bad reputation for screwing up people's land. Another common reason is the landowner may want the harvest area to be clean. This necessitates bringing a chipper onto the site to chip the small stuff that would normally be left to rot on the site. On a lot of sites bringing a chipper ends up costing the logger time or money so they may offer a little bit less for the timber. This is totally up to the landowner. Personally I'd want the highest bid unless there will be so much debris left on site that it would hinder tree planting. That can all be discussed with the consultant.

[Edited on November 30, 2011 at 3:07 PM. Reason : ]

11/30/2011 3:02:37 PM

Quote :

"WHOAWHOAWHOA wait a minute. Don't sell anything yet! (wait for my reply)"

Spoken like our very own Clark Howard of Forestry!

11/30/2011 3:14:21 PM

Very nice and insightful posts.

11/30/2011 3:16:25 PM

this is one of the most awesome threads on tdub. Good job tdub crew!

11/30/2011 3:17:00 PM

Those are your tax dollars at work.

11/30/2011 3:23:14 PM

How much does reforestation cost? If you don't tell the government, and the loggers don't tell them, would they be able to find out? In my experience getting the government involved always costs the landowner money. I'd rather have a screwed up creek than get stuck with an environment red tape nightmare.

11/30/2011 3:31:49 PM

If all you have to do is plant trees then that's $75/ac for loblolly pine. If the area needs to be sprayed to kill hardwoods that's $70-110/ac depending on what herbicides are used and at what rates.
The government doesn't care what you do about reforestation. You can pay out of pocket and take the reforestation costs out of your taxable income. If you want our money to help pay for it, then we're going to inspect the tree planting and logging job because you can't get money if it's a bad planting job or if the site is violating any laws.

As far as streams and stuff there are Forest Practice Guidelines Related to Water Quality (FPGs) to prevent erosion, sedimentation, pollution, and changes in water temps.
The NC Div of Water Quality is in charge of enforcing the FPGs as well as river basin rules but the NCFS does the actual ground work for inspecting any site disturbing practices (logging, herbicide spraying, heavy site preparatioon, etc). We inspect and logging operation we're requested to inspect or we find on our own. If we find a problem that can't be worked out we pass it on to the DWQ.

The NCFS enforces only one law regarding site disturbing practices, that's NC's stream obstruction law.

Sworn forest rangers are protected from trespass in performing range duties. That means we technically can't do the DWQ's job of inspecting logging operations for FPG violations, we can only enforce the stream obstruction law.
If someone actually pushed the issue then one of two things would happen:
1 - They give rangers protection against trespass to enforce the FPGs, at which point we'll be issuing fines for violations.
2 - They don't give rangers protection against trespass to enforce FPGs and instead the DWQ starts doing to the leg work.

You don't want #1 to happen because we'll turn into the bad guys.
You don't want #2 to happen because if the DWQ shows up on a site and finds something wrong then someone is going to get fined $texas. The DWQ isn't as lenient as we are.

Believe me, it's in everyone's best interest to leave things the way they are. We don't enforce the rules, we work worth loggers, consultants, and landowners to keep their sites in compliance so it doesn't have to be reported to the DWQ.
As it is right now, most of the non-compliance stuff we pass up to the DWQ gets ignored because they have bigger fish to fry with land development. If they have to enforce their own laws then the non-compliances aren't going to get overlooked.

With us, we like to visit sites while they're being logged. It's much easier to get a logger to pull out a load of dirt from a stream while they are there. If that problem went unnoticed until a month after the logger left the site then the logger isn't going to want to bring a piece of equipment back to do the work. If the timber sales contract didn't put that responsibility of staying in compliance with laws onto the logger then the landowner is going to have to pay someone to bring equipment back and fix it. If the DWQ finds it they're not going to screw around. They'll just bill you then take you to court when you don't want to pay $45k to fix a problem that could have easily been fixed when we gently asked the logger to fix it while he was there.

Not to mention it's really bad to have a screwed up creek just from the landowner's environmental conscience and it can lead to really big problems. I've seen loggers who've screwed up stream crossings that result in flooding on a neighbor's property. That's real fun to deal with in court. I've seen other sites where loggers rut up the land by logging when the ground is wet. Many landowners don't realize the resulting compaction and erosion reduces their site productivity. Wouldn't you want us to help you protect your land?

[Edited on November 30, 2011 at 4:25 PM. Reason : ]

11/30/2011 4:21:50 PM

yep, smc's viewpoint is certainly short-sighted. having a fucked-up creek or not isn't up to you if it involves other landowners or state waters.

11/30/2011 5:06:32 PM

i havent read everything on this thread but when I was in school we called this guy a pinhooker. This is someone who would offer you cash for your trees even though they are worth so much more than what he offered. They go for the response of what you said "hey i can have extra cash." In reality they make so much more money off your land because he ripped you off. In forestry people have no respect for people like this

11/30/2011 5:31:26 PM

wow thanks man, very VERY helpful

My farm is pretty large (def more than 20 acres), we are rowcroppers so trees are just a nuisance unless they are planted on purpose to slow wind. The timber area we don't use so i'm not in the business of replanting. In fact, i'd prefer he leave some trees so that I can continue to rent to hunters each year. The deer here are crazy overpopulated, so it's really good hunting and they pay more and more often

the farm isn't in NC though, but I can contact the state forestry service here and see what they say

11/30/2011 5:51:29 PM

No problem with the info.

If you have empty space from a harvest you really should reforest it unless it naturally comes back with desirable timber species (and the forest service in whatever state you're in can let you know if you have enough trees or if you need to replant). In Virginia it's a law that you have to reforest the area if it doesn't naturally come back.
Reforestation is cheap too if you get a fair price on your timber.
You might not use the woodlands, but why not invest a little bit and know that each generation in the family will get one or two nice payoffs?

Where is this land? Is it loblolly pine country or hardwoods?
If it's in a place you can grow loblolly pine you really should clearcut it.
Ask any hunter. Some of the best deer hunting is the border between a clearcut and other woods.

11/30/2011 6:20:07 PM

<3 this thread.

My family has periodically cut timber and reseeded. I recently inherited the farm and can fit what I know on the head of a pin.

My only insight is that we have NEVER had anyone cut timber who came to us first.

Oh and I remember that the last time my grandmother logged, while it cost her to reseed, I recall her getting part of the money back or a big tax break on it... There's never been a reason not to replant. Woodland is definitely a long term investment.

[Edited on November 30, 2011 at 6:28 PM. Reason : .]

11/30/2011 6:23:12 PM

its about a 2000 acre farm in the midwest (missouri). Corn/Soybean farm.

The trees there are mostly cottonwood, some pinoak, and a few redoak. There are a couple walnuts but he wants to wait 10 years so they can mature before he cuts on them. Apparently he's looking to make pallet wood from these trees, and it's pretty bottom-end stuff. Like I said, we arent like a typical east-coast tree farm. It's really just cleaning up some timber area that's overgrown. I definitely don't want to cut down the whole timber, i'm not replanting anything and it would prob chase away a lot of the deer. I can get usually 8-10k/year from hunting rights and that's every year. This guy is coming by to cut once, and then not for another 5-10 years because it wouldn't be needed.

From his end, he said he wont' even be getting $40-$60 for the cottonwoods. Maybe on a couple of the red oaks but there aren't that many apparently anyways.

That being said, and from a few other guys i talked to, I'm thinking 15-20/tree might be a more fair offer than I had previously thought. He's going to come by tomorrow and we're gonna talk a bit more about it.

his offer wasn't actually 3k, it was an initial 3k and depending on what he got for it he'd offer more. So I gotta figure out exactly what he means by that

11/30/2011 6:47:08 PM

Ah, that makes a big difference.
You're talking about flood plain/flood terrace stuff.
That price might not be that bad

Definitely talk to the forest service there. If there's an opportunity to be more productive with your timberland without much input then you should do it.

Quote :

"I definitely don't want to cut down the whole timber, i'm not replanting anything and it would prob chase away a lot of the deer. I can get usually 8-10k/year from hunting rights and that's every year. This guy is coming by to cut once, and then not for another 5-10 years because it wouldn't be needed."

Ask the forest service there how to manage for deer.
I help people bump up their hunting leases through good forest management all the time. You don't need to put in any more money to do it either, you just have to plan ahead to create a little forest diversity.

11/30/2011 7:06:00 PM