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for those with experience, how does a logging company determine what they will pay for standing timber? and what would he then turn around and sell it to a sawmill for? example, a 100 ft white pine, 30" diameter straight and healthy. how would a logger price that for buying from the landowner and then selling to the mill? hopefully that is clear. i know it varies by location but a rough idea.

It’s a commodity. The market dictates the price and the logger gets a split.

Can of worms,
Infested by snakes.


The business makes used cars look clean and transparent.

You talking about the value of this tree, or a property?

Pricing of timber whether it be pulp or hardwood varies. For me, the value of the timber was a bonus. In MI, the programs offered for selective cutting, I couldn't pass up.

For us, being a recreational property, the property taxes were cut in half and it's good for 20 years. Plus coin in the bank for the wood

They will mark trees and use a formula to determine how much board feet by volume and species. There are markets for timber prices so it is simple to come up with a net value. The sawmill usually buys the wood and the landowner gets a percentage and the logger gets a percentage.

Some sawmills have their own foresters and perhaps sub out the logging operation. There are also independent foresters who do all the legwork and then present what they have to the mills to sale it. He handles dividing up the funds.

Bottomline is the landowner gets a percentage, typically 40-50 % of the total value. Just remember stump prices are a long way from what you buy finished product for. There are a lot of hands in the pot from cutting a tree to buying lumber at the lumber store.

I have had properties logged 4 times so I have a pretty good feel for the process. Remember the quality of the job is almost as important as the bottom line.

First question is...is your logger honest. If he is, then you'll find out what the real price is.

In the western softwood market, mostly, the landowner contacts a licensed forester, the forester evaluates the stand, size, grade, species, logging difficulty, environmental hurdles, total expected volume from that stand. Then the forester, who knows his market, contacts the mills buyers, tells them what is being offered. Likely, a forester with a reputation, the mill's buyer will not even go out to look at the proposed job, and make the forester an offer, by species...xxx dollars per thousand bd ft. The forester takes those numbers to the landowner, advises him of his costs, foresters fees, state permits, est. logging cost...sometimes transport will also be on the landowner or on the logger's total cost...anyway, all those moving parts are put together and the forester tells the landowner a ball park estimate of what he will pocket. Papers are signed if it's a go, the forester prepares the logging and rehab plan, state permits are prepared, a logging contractor(s) will come out and go over the plan on the ground with the forester, a deal is reached with the low bid logger...xxx dollars per thousand bd ft, loaded on the mills trucks or delivered to the mill. You, the landowner, sit back and let the checks roll in. If you live out west, log prices are in the basement due to the historic volume of burn salvage available from the the last 2 fire seasons. Hate to be Debbie downer but pine in the west is and will be low forever, the tree farmers in the SE grow that stuff like row crops.

When we had some timber taken off our place the price was set by the mill. The logger cut and transported to the mill and took a cut. Mainly needed some trees removed near the house and where a turureshop will be. Also want to thin and get some of the marketable timber cut before it got too big for the mills.

Like Joel our property is in forest deferral and our taxes are reduced. You have to cut and sell some to keep it in deferral.

i guess what i am trying to figure out is if a mill can get X amount per bf of lumber, what percentage of that would a landowner get? say a bf is $1. would a landowner expect to get 25 cents? if the deal was on the up and up. i think flinlocke laid out the process pretty clear. just wondering on percentage that could be expected.

maybe too many variables. my mind is kind of mush, i been outside in the cold all day shoveling gravel and have a few brews in me. almost bedtime.

Read this at least 10 times...then hire a forester to mark and handle the sale. Money well spent.

^^^^THIS^^^^

Put it up to bid

If you're serious about selling some wood, or serious about improving your forested property, ask around about a forester. University extension offices can help you find good help.
You can get away with a good LOGGER, but there are all sorts of personalities out there. Always go look at jobs the logger has done and see if you like them. My landlord is a logger, his company has done a number of private projects with satisfied customers, but he's not cheap. The right kind of equipment is expensive, and you CAN'T do it yourself unless you're willing to do it every year and never back off.

One final thought. On almost all these projects, when we've gone over the end result, we almost always wish we'd taken just a few more trees, about 2/3 of the clients agreed immediately. Usually looks great and grows even greater, but it grows....so I'd really think hard about taking off just THAT much more, makes results last longer.

this. if 3 bids are good, then 5 might be better.

timber mart south from uga forest resources school might be helpful depending upon what state, etc.

wet years makes tbr more difficult to harvest; dry years makes timber tracts less difficult to harvest in general and on average.

This

Like someone else said, be damn clear about the condition your property is left in, especially if you don’t have the equipment or know how to clean up once they’re gone.

It must vary greatly by region. Here in Coulee country , when my BIL and sister owned the land and still had the dairy they got screwed on logging of their 50 acres of woods, imo, and there were some substantial trees back then, oak , hickory, cherry, walnut, etc. The were paid nowhere near 40 to 50%. The loggers made a mockery of the woods as well. They would destroy a couple dozen young trees and saplings to skid out one mature tree. Tops left everywhere after they had promised to skid them to the fields so I could cut them up. It took many years for the woods to recover and invasives completely over ran some areas which I did my best to remedy with my amish weed eater. The rose bushes and prickly ash have completely taken over some areas. YMMV! Does not matter now though as they had to sell the farm.

You write as though you know the routine

A licensed forester in Wash, Ore, Calif, is your legal representative, acting in your behalf. If he screws you, he will lose his license, reputation and will be legally liable. From some of these posts, it sounds like the east is pirate waters with little or no regulation, in which case I don't have a clue. Out west an average truckload may run around 15 to 20 grand a load, no skullduggery allowed. Port Orford and Redwood can run 40 grand a truckload...that's grand larceny or grand theft...and NO mill will accept a load without a birth certificate.

Good friend of mine has about 250 Acres of white pine in Southwest Virginia. Couple of years ago one of the stands had reached practical maturity. Huge trees in there. I've hunted this land for 25 years.

He solicited bids from about 12 different logging companies... of the 12 companies three or four of them actually sent someone out to cruise the stand to be harvested. I forget exactly but maybe 56 Acres. Of the three people that actually put any kind of real effort into the cruise he liked one the best. I don't recall if he went with this company or not but he gained a lot of knowledge on the cruising process.

His contract with the selected Logging Company required that they re gravel any road damage but did not include a replant. The replant was far too expensive for his liking so he did it himself.

I get kind of foggy on the details exactly how many board feet they took, but in my opinion it had to be a masive haul because the trees were gargantuan. As I understand it... all of the wood was be to be processed into Timber homes, I believe that is the ultimate premium desired use of a Harvest.

They were at it for several months. I seem to recall his payment was somewhere between $800 and $1,800 per acre. Like I mentioned before he had 12 estimates. Eight or nine of these estimates for lowball non visit wild-ass guesses.

Overall I was fairly shocked at the low number he received for such a massive amount of wood. He is a smart man and knows what he's doing so I don't believe he was taken.

They also left a tremendous mess. Did a burn the following year and it's still a mess.

In West Virginia a logger friend of mine gets between 500 and 800 for Oak... 500 being Red Oak and 800 being White Oak. That is felled and stacked Lumber of excellent quality trees. Edit... that is per thousand board feet. To recap $500 per thousand on red oak and $800 per thousand board feet on White Oak. That comes out to $0.50 for a 12 inch by 12 inch by 1 inch thick piece of red oak. My guess is the mill charges about 350 to $500 per thousand to process. This wood is sold to the consumer dried at around $3.50 per board foot. White Oak would be accordingly higher. If the White Oak logs are large enough they will quarter saw them for an extra premium on the final sale price. I would expect quarter-sawn kiln-dried White Oak Boards of a 12in width to fetch over $10 a board foot on the consumer Market. If you do not know how to calculate board feet please Google. Quarter-sawn White Oak also known as tiger oak is where that unique medullary Ray occurs. It is highly desirable it is also highly stable. I took down a fence made of quarter-sawn white oak that had been standing for 60 years and was able to resell the lumber as "vintage Lumber"... people went wild over it... wainscotting their den and crap like that.

The third point I will make is depending on the location you may get absolutely nothing. I have a 6 Acre Farm of Premium trees in North Stafford Virginia and could not get a single logger to even come in and take the trees for free. It was simply too small a job and too much of a hassle for them, so we set up a sawmill and are making our own Lumber with it. Got lucky... all of the maples are ambrosia maple.

Good luck in your project, expect to be disappointed and you may not be in the end... 10% chance.