Trying to learn a few things before I buy land

[DAK]

Hey everyone my name is Dan, so far I love your site. I am a young guy interested in buying some property and would like to log some of it to help subsidize its cost.  If yall have any good links or advice on quoting timber I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks everyone!

Dan

[CX3]

Welcome to FF.  Logging is a good way to take care of a few pesky mortgage payments.  I hope it works out for ya.

[Texas Ranger]

Welcome to the board, DAK, give us an idea where you are located and some one from around you will chime in and talk your language.

[ely]

heres two for certain tips on your land. once purchased you will have trespassers and taxes
welcome to the site.

[DAK]

Thanks for the warm welcome yall, I like this site already! ha ha. I'm currently in school in Middle Tennessee but am planning on moving back to west tennessee somewhere within an hour of home (Jackson TN).  Needless to say I have another 2-3 years (hopefully that soon at least) till I am out and working.  Anyways as it is to everyone on here I'm sure, I've always wanted a small farm and lots of land in this area is pretty wooded.  I have a friend who just bought 50 acres and managed to pay off about half of it with a couple big walnut trees and some select oak and pine cutting.  I guess what I really am looking to find out is some of the basics in identifying species and learning what size is harvestable and what kind of prices can be expected. 

I am sure there are threads similar to this one that are throughout this forum that have this info, I am just yet to find them.

Also there are many loggers who will come quote your timber if you have 10 acres or more, but I am not interested in being short changed if possible. 

Anyways if yall have any links or insight I would be greatly appreciative.

Thanks again for the help and welcome!

Dan

[DAK]

BTW CX3, you have an awsome logging set up, I'm in envy when I see your threads.  I guess a guy can dream HaHa

Dan

[CX3]

Well thanks.  In all reality, awesome would be a 450 Timberjack painted cherry red with flames, a new peterbilt with straight pipes, walnut logs so big it takes half the spool to choke them up, and a dallas cowboys cheerleader bringing water to me

[paul case]

welcome,
i have done just what you are talking about. timing on the log thing is everything. i cut delivered and sold serveral loads of grade red oak from a 20 ac  property i purchased some time back. land cost me $950/acre. i cleared half of it where the timber was the best and the timber was worth $7500.

thats the good part.

the rest of the story is this was before fuel was $3 or more. i used equipment i had been farming with to load and deliver the logs.

it is a lot better if a person undestands a couple things before he starts.
1. it is real work to do it yourself. if you are going to hire it done it will cost you, probably from 40% to 60 %

2. if you do it yourself it wont be fast. timber markets change at 200x the speed of a 1 man logging crew.

3. there will be trees that will be good for little more than firewood. thats the lemon part. learn how to make lemonade.

pc

[DAK]

Haha yea that would be nice CX3.

I understand what your saying tho, my plans would be to have them cut by someone else and do the dragging and delivery myself.  What you have done is what I would like to do, subsidize some of the cost of the land.  I would not expect to do it overnight either and I do not plan to get rich off this process.  You stated that some timber is basically worthless, what kind of things should I be looking for to determine if a tree is valuable or worthless.

Thanks for all the input guys!

Dan

[Ron Wenrich]

Not all land is equal.  Just because its listed as wooded, doesn't mean that the wood on it is worth anything.  Before you even purchase a property, it would be a good idea to have a forester walk the property (minimum) or do an inventory before you buy it.  Just because trees look big and nice doesn't mean they're worth much.

What you are trying to do is come up with a bare land value.  That would be the price of the land less the value of the timber.  I've seen cases where the timber was worth more than the asking price.  This is the situation that you want to get.  They're hard to find, as many people will cut the timber prior to sale.

It sounds like you're planning to use your forest as an ATM card instead of a savings account.  Lots of landowners do that, and they lose money in the long run.  A "selective" cut is many times a code word for high grade.  That's where you liquidate all the high value trees, and leave the smaller scrubs behind to grow.  Depending on past management practices, that may or may not work.  Again, a forester comes in mighty handy before you do the cutting.  Good management is more dependent on what is left in a stand instead of what is taken out.

[Meadows Miller]

Well thanks.  In all reality, awesome would be a 450 Timberjack painted cherry red with flames, a new peterbilt with straight pipes, walnut logs so big it takes half the spool to choke them up, and a dallas cowboys cheerleader bringing water to me

You forgot to add all the trees would be strait,large n tall with very few limbs till the last 15' Mate   I dont know thats a pretty tidy Freightliner you have there anyway CX Theres only one of that model on the road in Australia and its a pity they decided not to import them into this market   somthing to do with them rattling themselfs to pieces on australian roads  

Welcome to the forum Dan you are on the rite track just stick with Us and put some good planing ito it and you should do well enough out of it to cover a good part of the property purchase price Have you though about buying a Sawmill to make the most value out of your timber  

and paul ill buy some of that timberland at $950 an acre but I would want alot of it Mate  

Regards Chris

[SwampDonkey]

Ditto to Ron's post. Sounds to me you need help with understanding what you have and what the market is at that time. You can dream of walnut trees worth $12000, but you better understand what makes it worth that price and who is ready with cash in hand. You have some work, unless you just want someone else with a saw in his hand or felling head to make all the decisions and hope for the best. 

[Wrangler55]

Haha yea that would be nice CX3.

I understand what your saying tho, my plans would be to have them cut by someone else and do the dragging and delivery myself.  What you have done is what I would like to do, subsidize some of the cost of the land.  I would not expect to do it overnight either and I do not plan to get rich off this process.  You stated that some timber is basically worthless, what kind of things should I be looking for to determine if a tree is valuable or worthless.

Thanks for all the input guys!

Dan

 Dan,

 Check out this site. http://timbergreenforestry.com/  It's got a lot of information about turning low grade logs into usable products.  They manage a 200 acre forest by removing the dead, dying, trees in decline, or trees that are marginal for any reason.  They turn small crooked logs into flooring and install them for customers. The price you get for products will always bring more than raw materials.  Logs sell for low prices, compaired to rough sawn lumber, which is low priced when compaired to kiln dried lumber, which is low priced in comparison to installed flooring. You've got to pick a price point and effort level to maxamize your proffit and minimize your effort and expenditure.

 I chose to carve custom rifle stocks and have progressed to the point I bought a sawmill to produce my own lumber.  It's a manual mill because it was cheep and will produce enough in two days of sawing to keep me carving for a month.  I sell unfinished gunstocks for several reasons... One of which is: I do 90% of the work carving the stock which takes 10% of the time required to produce a finished gunstock.  The customer who buys a stock from me provides the 90% of the time required to do the last 10% of the work.  I can (if I work to the max) produce 4 stocks a day, and while the customer is spending 2 or 3 days to finish his stock, I can make and sell more unfinished stocks.  Plus the customer gets the satisfaction of building something he can be proud of and he's done enough of the work to rightfully feel he's done the work.

 So, before you finish school, take some forestry or agriculture classes as electives.  And take advantage of the schools library.  Then go talk to landowners in the area you want to live in that have made or lost money with their land investment.  Also find loggers and sawmills.  Take time to talk to them and ask enough informed questions to learn from each person.  You can learn at least four, things from every person you talk with... 1. What they did right, and 2. what they did wrong, 3. what they would do different if they were to start over, 4. and what you've learned that you can apply to your own situation. Find success stories and do what you can to emulate them.

 I stopped at a local log yard yesterday and talked to the lot manager. My goal was to get a price list to see what professionals were paying for logs in my area.  I not only got the price list, I got a great deal on some logs. The lot manager has a rifle with a broken stock.  He's swapping me some logs for a custom stock. The logs I get won't impact his business because I'll take logs that aren't marketable as sawlogs. So, I get wood and he gets a free stock.  I use wood that has 'character' for my stocks.  Most of the best wood comes from the crotch end or root end of logs that loggers leave in the woods.  Also curved, short, ugly logs that are unmarketable are also left in the woods or sold as pulp wood.  That stuff sells for $100/thousand or $0.10 a bft.   A lot is free if I take my trailer to the logging site and pick up the wood myself.

 Hal

[paul case]

and paul ill buy some of that timberland at $950 an acre but I would want alot of it Mate  

Regards Chris

the trouble is they aint making any more of it.  pc

[SwampDonkey]

The trend up here is to liquidate before the sale, so $1000 an acre goes out the window in these parts. Maybe $200, many times $5O/acre. One guy working with the Agricultural department gave me the line about financed farms not allowed to be liquidated. I said open your eyes, I've never seen anyone buying a farm that didn't hit the woods to help pay the bill. Heck down at one of the Federal experimental farms, probably the rest are the same, it has been flattened for 25 years. I guess they needed to pay some bills to.

[Meadows Miller]

Jezz Paul  I thought there would be a bloody hitch somewhere to bring my grand plan undone Mate 

Regards Chris

[DAK]

yall are awsome please keep the feedback coming! And wrangler that sounds like some good advice taking the left overs and turning them into profit. I also think some forestry classes like you said would be helpful too.  How do yall identify tree species and which ones are profitable?

[DAK]

I also really like the idea of turning the wood into hardwood flooring considering I used to install and sell it.  I'm guessing you use a planar to tongue and groove it?

[Meadows Miller]

Gday

Dan seeing as you use to lay flooring you could well get into manufacturing your own flooring for sale but it would be capital intensive as you would have to tie a fair amount up in stock air drying for planing into flooring  but you can get effective small scale kiln kits at low capital cost but you would still have say $30k plus tied up in a couple of kilns and a good molder there is usually three grades #1 #2 and what we call Natural feature grade which has a lot of defect allowance you can get #2 & Nfg out of a pretty average looking log  if you planing to buy a fair size parcel of land it would be money well spent to get a forester to go over the block and give you a report on quality and expected volume in the stand Mate

With species identification  it takes time to educate yourself as there are alot out there It would be good to do some research on your trips home to get specific details and education in the forest type you intend to purchase 

Regards Chris   

[SwampDonkey]

How do yall identify tree species and which ones are profitable?

You have to know at least two approaches that. 1)You have to be able to look at the bark, form of the crown, leaves, twigs and such out in the woodlot to know what you have. This is the dendrology of the tree.

2)When in the mill yard and all you have is bark and the end grain (cross section of the tree growth) of the ends of the log.

Then open the log up and you get to see the side and flat surfaces at this point. Peeled veneer is the only truly tangential surfaced forest product. Where as lumber has both tangential (surface of  the log) and radial (across the rings as in quarter sawed lumber or the sides of flat sawed lumber) surfaces, this is in relation to the length of a board or log. Height growth, the length of the log, is called the longitudinal direction.

There are keys to help learn to separate wood in log and lumber form, but you have to learn the jargon. At this point, a ray , a pore, earlywood , latewood, sapwood, and heartwood probably don't mean a thing to ya.

If your looking into the manufacturing of forest products for the profit end, you have to look at the input costs into getting the logs, the specifications required in the purchasing of the logs (defect, sweep, knots, small end size), costs to manufacture the lumber, the grades of lumber, the in-outs of drying the product, the markets out there to sell it to.

If your just wanting to sell logs, you have to know the log markets in your area, what they pay, their buying specs. Maybe they work on contract, or maybe you have it logged for you and what is your cut. You have to negotiate that, but you have the have an idea what is fair.

[DAK]

Wow this has been some great input, sounds like you never stop learning in this trade.  Although its a bit overwhelming, the idea of producing hardwood is sounding very interesting.  My biggest mountain to climb will obviously be purchasing the land and equipment.  I am understanding that I could buy "junk" logs for relatively cheap, so that makes me wonder if anyone that already owns a mill would cut, plane, and route a tree into tongue and groove for a price or would the price most likely be too high?  If anyone has ever heard of smaller mills doing this than I could easily start this summer and just use my friends farm as a place to store the logs and possibly convince him to turn an old barn of his into a kiln. Is a makeshift kiln extremely difficult to make? Thanks again yall.

Dan

[beenthere]

DAK
This vidoe may be of interest, and just posted up on another thread. Is pretty specific to mfg flooring, using volunteer help.


That other thread mentioned was about quarter sawing to get the rays to display themselves better in the product.
http://www.forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,48563.msg700693.html#msg700693

[tjdub]

The trend up here is to liquidate before the sale

In my area there was a 80 acre half woods, half tillable parcel for sale (realtor owned it)  A local guy was interested, he went through all the hoops and all the paperwork and bought it.  Well, what do you think happened while he was concentrating on the closing process?  The realtor had it logged at the last minute without telling him.   Imagine his surprise after he took a look at his 80 acres after signing those papers!  Be sure to get what you're buying in writing because until you take ownership, the seller still owns the trees.

Also, don't put too much trust in realtors, they know all the tricks.  Ideally, when you buy land, there should be 4 people involved (1 seller, 1 buyer, and 2 lawyers).  Unfortunately, that's not often possible in this age.  These days it's just 1 seller, 1 buyer, and a bunch of bankers and a realtor doing their best to rob both parties

[jeffreythree]

Dan, glad to see someone who educates themselves before buying.  I was looking for a different kind of property when I bought my small place that ended up being mostly  wooded.  I read as many of the landowner/nonprofessional books I could find on the subject and read any relevant thread I could find here, after the purchase  .  The realtors would either say "It's a good deal" since it had just been clear cut, or "Look at all this timber you could sell" when in reality it was to junky to bother cutting and risk a lower land price.  I realized after purchase that I should have looked into who buys timber in my area as well.  Oh well, live and learn on that end.  It led me to produce retail craft products (I was already a serious woodworker) from our wood that have made quite a few more payments than a couple of loads of pallet or hardwood pulp ever would, even after the purchase of a small mill.   The best part is my top seller has become things made from cedar elm, a "junk" tree we have a lot of.  I am slowly making things better while making a buck .