Upstate New York timberlands

[Kyle English]

Hey fellow BPers I was just curious to see if anyone in New York has any market knowledge or experience with timberland investing? I thought it would be a very interesting niche of investing to explore more and learn more about. Any feedback would be awesome! Thanks, Kyle English

[Jay Hinrichs]

some pretty straight forward ways to determine a timber market.

first would be to contact a local registered forester they will give you the following

1. Mills that buy logs

2. Loggers that are currently working in the areas

3. Harvest permits or what has to happen to get one ( if needed at all)

what species bring the most money.. along with harvest per MBF per acre so you can do napkin math.

so for example.. in our area of the northwest we are soft woods.. Fir Cedar and on the east side of the moutains Pine

some hard wood but mainly alder with a tiny bit of Oak.. nothing much else in Hardwood.

So we of course have all the big dimension stud lumber mills.. they all have log buyers.. so we contact a log buyer to get their delivered log prices.. then we know that we can log for about 250 per MBF camp run to the mill.

And then we know for example right now domestic fir is bringing 800 per MBF camp run which is pretty much an all time high... so we know there is a 550 delta.. now then you have stumpage.. the land owner will want a stumpage price for the logs which is generally about 200 to 300 per MBF  leaving a net profit of 200 to 350... now some will do all this for a 50 to 100 MBF net profit.. just depends on the stand..  Hard wood your yeilds are a fraction that of soft wood per acre.. 

and logging prices could or are different.. but gives you the formula to figure it out.. I suspect in your area.. many who own land may not even be putting stumpage value on the land.. so your not paying for the stumpage.. but if you log can you sell for the same amount as a virgin property.?