How come most foresters don't oen timber land?

[Rod]

I've talked to a lot of foresters and so far I've yet to find one who invest in timberland.They tell me that they think  putting there money in 401k  plan,or a savings accout is a better idea..

[Texas Ranger]

Most foresters are to far down on the income ladder to invest in land.  I regret not buying land when younger, but, had a family to raise and educate.  Show me a forester who consistantly invests in land and I will show you a forester with family money, or one who gets more for his work than can be justified.

[SwampDonkey]

In my experience the timberland owned by a forester is inherited or he buys it because he runs a logging business. I know very few loggers that have mature timberland not being harvested unless they've been in the business a long time and got land when it was real cheap.  I've talked to foresters who would like to own land, but its too expensive for them. It's not like it was 50 years ago when you could by 100 acres for $500. Mature timberland is expensive, for 100 acres your talking at least $100,000. And unless you have rich family, you'de have the clearcut it to own it. Which defeats the purpose of owning it. The math has shown that investing in non timber assets are more profitable long term. Once in awhile you can get lucky in land speculation, but the conditions have to be right.

[jph]

I am not a forrester but we have just invested £70,000 in 60 acres of mature woodland here in the UK. With even non arable farmland making nearly £4000 per acre we think it is a good buy. As your your  man Mark Twain said, I can't remember the exact quote ''the trouble with land is they are not making it anymore''

[Tom]

Except for the Japanese.    Mark Twain......  and Will Rogers, both, I think said something like that and were not thinking of Japanese when they did.  The Japanese have built an Island in the Osaka Bay area and put a cotton Pickin' Airport in the ocean. 

It makes me wonder,  If I were to build an island off of the coast of Florida, would it be mine or would the State or Feds claim it?

Hmmmm-   probably put me in jail for defiling Government property, eh?

[jph]

Tom
Jim Rogers I 've heard of , but who is Will?

[Tom]

I thought that everybody new who Will Rogers was.  Here is a place to start.  Search the web and you will find even more.  He was one of America's "down-home" philosophers.  He was a writer, Entertainer, actor, roper and "gadabout gaddis".  Seriously, read about him.  You will laugh and enjoy yourself.  We, as Americans, are proud of him.

http://www.willrogers.org/ 

http://www.ellensplace.net/rogers.html

http://www.willrogers.com/

[SwampDonkey]

There is even a Will Rogers Institute in White Plains, NY I think. 

I was gonna comment on the Japanese and Island Making. They are in the design state of creating a super duper city in the sky to house over 100,000 people. I think it's going to be built in the ocean as well. They can't expand outward much more, so they are going upward.

I saw it on the Discovery channel a while back.

[Jeff]

I know a few foresters who own timberland, and some that sure would like to but cant afford it . Same boat I am in.  I would run like heck from a forester that thought timberland was a bad investment. Jeez, think about it.

[Tom]

I had to study a little of that Modus ponens, Modus tolens mess in college.  Let's see if I can make it work.   Hmm

I'm not a forester and I own a little timber so ..........   I must be rich.  HEH HEH !

How'd I do? 

[Phorester]

Texas Ranger and SwampDonkey nailed it.  How I'd love to own timberland.  But had to raise 2 kids, buy a house, maintain and replace vehicles, etc., etc. 

Some people say timberland is a bad investment only because it takes so long to earn money if you have timber a long ways from harvesting. 

It's not a bad investment, but is a very long term investment, and that turns some investors off. 

But there's also hunting leases, nontimber products, etc, that the average stock/bond-type sit-in-the-office-talk-on-the-phone investor doesn't know about. .  Won't make you rich beteen timber harvests, but for the average timberland owner who likes to knock around in the woods, you can certainly pay the real estate taxes every year from these other minor income producers if you work at it.

[Texas Ranger]

Tom, you done good, son.  Obviously bug work was more profitable than tree work.

[Ron Wenrich]

We had one state forester that ended up being a millionaire from the forest land he owned.  He funded two chairs at the state university.  How could a man making meager state government wages go out and buy hundreds of acres of timber?

Easy.  Tax sales.  He bought it for pennies on the dollar.  He never mentions this when he talks about how much money can be made growing trees.

I do know of loggers who buy timberland for less than what the timber's worth.  They do it in NJ, where land value is high, but timber value is higher.  But, you can't convince a realtor that a forest inventory is worth anything.   

[Ron Scott]

I believe that any forester that can "afford" to own timber land and pay the taxes on it will own it. I know many that do, but much has been inherited and retained in forest land as tree farms, private non-industrial forest land etc.

When I worked for the USDA-Forerst Service we were "not allowed" to purchase or own forest land within the National Forest boundaries. It was considered to be a "conflict of interest" so non of us became rich by owning forest land.

As the previous foresters stated, if we could have afforded it in our "early years" we would own some. 

[Bro. Noble]

Young people who enjoy country living and/or timberland need to learn from this.  You can own land and make it pay for it's way if you want to bad enough.  You may have to make some sacrifices and do without some playthings,  but if this is what you want do some studying and buy the right property.

My ancestors homesteaded part of the land where we live in the 1840's and my g-grandad on another line owned several thousand acres in the area,  a small part of it which we own.  My grandad built the house where my son lived until recently and where our sawmill is.  Some newcomers to the area assumed I inherited this land but the locals know that our family sold out during the depression.

After sawmilling in New Mexico,  and California,  Grandad bought a farm about 20 miles from here where Dad farmed and I learned to love country living.  There was a bad drought here in the early 50's and they sold that farm and we moved to town.  I still lived to visit my maternal grandad who farmed  in the area and always knew that someday I would be a farmer.

In the early 60's I started college in Iowa.  My counselor asked what I wanted to do and I told him "farm".  He asked where our farm was and I told him there was none.  He laughed and told me I needed to marry a rich Iowa farm girl or else become an ag teacher.  I assume this is a lot the same story as a lot of foresters.  The didn't have timberland but wanted to work in that field.

Anyway,  I married a city girl from my Illinois high school and we took education jobs in central Mo.  We had junk cars and no TV,  but saved half of what we made to buy a little farm.  After a couple of years we bought 8o acres and put a trailer on it.  In 1971 we sold that place and bought the first of the place we now own and live on in South Mo.  We didn't have to pay our kids way through college because they had their own milk cows and paid their own way. 

We now have a TV but it's busted   My old 84 Bronco runs great,  but reverse went out on it about three years ago.  Our mechanic said it would cost more to fix it than it was worth.  He joked that we had enough hills that we could just let it roll backward.  I've only had to walk after the tractor a couple of times and that was when I was first getting used to not having reverse

Point is,  you can have whatever you want if you want it bad enough.

I don't know if we did the right thing and I'm not sure whether we are rich or poor (excentric or crazy).  I do know it's a mistake to measure wealth in dollars.

I do know that my wife and I have had 38 wonderful years together (as of last Sat) and we have raised three terriffic kids who have a great work ethic and wonderful values.  Tom who has a degree in animal science and works with me,  Carrie who recently married a farm boy who works with the forrest service.  (they recently bought a house and small acerage at the courthouse steps and have done a good job of fixing it up and are looking for more land) She is a full time student in elementary education (junior) works Fri and Sat at a bank,  and substitute teaches one or two days a week.   Dave,  who some of you met at the pig roast is completing his PHD this summer in Math education.  He wanted to get away from the farm,  but it is kinda funny that the only girls he is attracted to are farm girls

[Buzz-sawyer]

Good post Noble
I believe we went to the same class on farm life ...I chose it as you did

[Rod]

Well I was raised in the city and when I bought my timber land I didn't know one tree from another.I've been a carpenter most my life and about the only kind of lumber I ever saw was the stuff from 84 Lumber.I've learned alot about trees now.

[Tillaway]

I would buy timberlands in a heart beat.  Too expensive, over the years big investment companies, retirement plans (teachers), and insurance companies have been scooping it up out here.  It was giving better returns than the stock market after the crash.

I have looked at buying lands but the smaller parcels are too expensive.  Large tracts, thousands of acres, are a much better value.  Financing is the trick.  Banks usually won't touch them so you have to look for alternative financing, insurance companies, private investors and such.  It takes connections to come up with the scratch.  I never had any good connections.

[Wudman]

I'll concur with the other foresters that have checked in.  I'd buy every acre of forest land that I could afford.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to afford as much as I would like.  A few years back, my sister and I were able to purchase a small farm near my parents.  The merchantable timber had been harvested.  We prepared and planted the cut over lands.  Those stands are three years old now (loblolly pine) and looking good.  There will be some supplemental retirement income there when things mature. 

I don't think you can go wrong buying timberland.  If you have to borrow money, the biological growth of your stands should cover your interest without any problem.  The growth to higher use products (sawtimber) and the appreciation of the land itself is the gravy, not to mention the satisfaction of land ownership and having a place to call home.

Returns on investment long term will rival the stock market.

Wudman

[SwampDonkey]

I'll put my $100,000 into long term life insurance, and cash in at retirement for tax free money.

[Rod]

well it looks like that timberland increases about 16% per year.Say you borrow $100,00 for 20 years at 6%,you would of payed the bank a total of $172,000.The timber and land if it increased at 16% would be worth $334,000.The reason I pick 16% is thats what my timber and land has increasced over the last 7 years.Maybe more because the timber companies said I could keep the house which when i bought the place it came with it.

Now for insurance companies how do the make their money?Well the sale insurance on house etc and they take that money you pay them to buy stuff with so they can pay you back the part you want and they keep the difference.Insurance companies have been known to buy timberland. I haven't seen any large timber companies selling any land here in West Virginia yet.You might find some small tracts that have been cut over hard,but thats about all I've seen.

[Rod]

I picked a timber company out of the air and look at their stock.And with this chart http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/charts/charting.asp?Symbol=PCL&IntraDay=Yes if you would of invested $100,000 in Plum creek timber company 10 yeras ago it would be worth $340,000 today.I think that works out to about and increase of about 12% per  year averge

[Rod]

WOW,I just looked over to the left at those pine trees and it says I'm a senor memeber .have I been here that long?Man time sure does fly by.I didn't signup with the AARP cause I wasn't ready to quit working yet.I still got to much to do..

[SwampDonkey]

A lot of large parcels of land have been sold here. Just recently, Fraser/Nexfor has announced they are selling off about 760,000 acres to invest in paper making technologies. Doaktown lumber sold over 26,000 acres of lands to local land owners. JD Irving sold 300,000 acres in northern Maine to a concervation group. Georgia Pacific sold land in Southern New Brunswick. We aren't talking about alot of money per acre (typically around $100-200/acre). In my area farmland is where the money is, forestland doesn't yield returns anywhere near 16 % in 10 years, more like 6 or 7% (of course it's much higher when looking at 50 year yields) and interest on barrowed money to buy land is usually 8%-12 % at our banks, unless you go through a low interest program with farm credit, maybe prime at best. I can barrow money to invest and right off the barrowing interest, and down the road get a tax break when I cash in.

The bottom line is, returns on land depositions varies by location and is just as speculative as the stock market.

Some math

$100,000 x (1 + 0.05)^20 = $265,329 (5 % for 20 years)

$2,500 x [1 - (1.05^20)] / (1-1.05) =  $82664 (invest $2500 annually at 5 % for 20 years

$2,500 x [1 - (1.05^30)] / (1-1.05) = $166,097 (invest $2500 annually at 5 % for 30 years

$500 x [1 - (1.05^40)] / (1-1.05) = $60,400 (invest $500 annually at 5 % for 40 years


Don't loose sight of the cost of the investment in the timber land and the cost to harvest it.

[SwampDonkey]

13 % and bit

[Rod]

http://www.brascancorp.com/RecentEvents/RecentEvents.html

Brascan has entered into a definitive agreement with Weyerhaeuser to purchase its BC Coastal assets for C$1.2 billion. This acquisition expands Brascan's asset management platform and allows us to launch a Timber Fund, with institutional investors, seeking long term sustainable cash flows.



Looks like someones paying big money for timberland up your way.That come out to being $1575 and ac.
 

[SwampDonkey]

There was an outfit proposing buying BC coastal doug fir woodland ,1750 ha (4322 acres), for $15 million. Never get anywhere near close that in my kneck of the woods.

Locally $500 to 1200 per acre for small woodlot parcels here (mature wooded), land woods and all. If your near a major township alot more, because of the development potential, not for woodland.

[jrdwyer]

I'm a forester and 38 and just now to the point of considering the purchase of my own woodland in the next 5 years.  It does seem with middle class wages that other things in life take precedent. It's a shame though that much good forestland is not intensively managed. Why not donate it to a decent forester and let him or her go wild (Ted Turner, are you listening?).

I do hope to own 50-100 acres before I turn 50. My plan is to buy a tract with 30-40 year old trees that have have no current timber value (PNV excluded) and then do intensive TSI and then maybe have a selective harvest before I keel over. I also hope to teach my son good forestry and pass the property on to him.  Time will tell.

jph, that beech in the center of the picture has great stem form and quality. Is it all like that? I know that Beech timber is very desired in many parts of Europe. Our markets for beech are weak at best. I have travelled in Ireland and Britian and old tracts of hardwood timber are definitely hard to find. Most of the big trees I saw where on estates and the few true woods or woodlands I saw had fairly low density with the bigger oak and beech appearing to have been more open grown at one time, i.e. branchy or wolf trees. Of course, I didn't see that much in the few times I've gone over there.  Travel is one area where I have blown some money. It keeps the wife happy though.

[Ron Wenrich]

Rod

You're starting to throw all kinds of things into the mix and they aren't necessarily comparable.  How a stock is doing doesn't reflect on how much their timber assets have grown. 

Trying to compare land value from one area to another isn't a direct route, if done properly.   You have to know how much timber is there, just for starters.  Valuing West Coast blocks vs East Coast blocks have a big differential in volume and value.  Then, you're going to have to project how well timber will grow on the land.

Plot size has a lot to do with price.  You have a lot fewer customers when you are trying to sell 1,000 acres vs 10 acres.  Lower demand will yield a lower unit price.  That's why those big blocks seem so cheap. 

When you're dealing in timber in the smaller sizes, you're getting a lot of ingrowth.  That's those polesize trees that grow into sawtimber size.  All of a sudden, you have recordable volume that wasn't there before.  But, you have to grow the tree through those poletimber sizes before you get to sawtimber, and that part of the investment doesn't look so rosy.

You also can get a jolt in value when the trees cross over from sawtimber to veneer quality.   A lot depends on when you've come on line with the value progression of a forest.

[Rod]

True Ron,I wonder if foresters put that much study when they pick funds/stocks for thier 401k plan?Also I thought 1575 ac. for timberland in BC was alot.But I really don't know whats going on in BC either.Maybe alot people are moving there,or maybe it has great timber on it.

[Rod]

Heres a link to 20 ac of cut over timber land that they want $6500 for it.

This was a lo-o-ong link

[SwampDonkey]

From the photos, it seems it was heavy logged, so I'de say the price was right from my perspective.

[Ron Wenrich]

You wouldn't be able to touch very much land in PA for that price.  I've been looking around at a few tracts, and the cheapest I've seen on cutover ground is $38K for 22.5 acres.  Most of it is in a floodplain.

You can find larger tracts for less money, but they still want a minimum of $1000/acre for land that just isn't good for much.  Some of these get to be pretty remote.

[jrdwyer]

At an auction of heavily cutover forestland a couple years ago in western KY, the tracts went for $400-$750/acre.  These were 40-80 acre tracts with all woods and no development potential. Also, these tracts were at least 90 miles from Evansville, IN the nearest large (not really) city.

[SwampDonkey]

Depending on the stocking and species of the cutover woodland, I'de pay $400/acre, but no more.

There is also a difference between what a property is listed for and what they actually get. There have been unharvested woodlots here of 100 acres that were listed for over $300,000 ,but they never get any offers near that unless it's from a nature conservancy trust.

It's been hard to find any good productive land for sale here at times. It's usually a parcel of land with alot of wetlands making it on the low end of forest productivity. And it's often times at the back end of a farm that someone wants to sell off after they flattened it. This is what I ran into 7 years ago, when the realestate company was faxing me land for sale that was mostly cedar wetlands and swamps off farms. I never even responded because I felt insulted. In my neck of the woods these realtors haven't a clue what they're selling and don't want any appraissal either. Before I even considered looking at the lots I just dug out the aerial photos at the Association and just eliminated them one by one based on covertype. Swamp, swamp, and more swamp, most of them you had to cross someones field to reach them, didn't want that neither.