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Getting land owners to sell their timber how do you do it?

Started by logman81, July 17, 2013, 10:49:07 AM

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logman81

Hi all lately I have been having a heck of a time getting land owners interested in selling their timber. Never had this much trouble in the past few years, I know living in a small state makes it tough because all the competition is closer together. I do nice clean work and have lots of satisfied customers that would gladly recommend me. Could it be because of low market values and their waiting for the market to get better? What are some of your tactics to bring in new customers? Any suggestions?
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Tmac47

Have you documented your work with pictures?

Telling people you do nice work is one thing, showing them you do nice work is a completely different ballgame.

enigmaT120

They sure don't all do nice, clean work.  I took a tour recently of some local properties that had been thinned.  Lots of damaged leave trees (bark scraped off) and compacted soil.  Pictures would be good, but I would also like to be able to see a recent operation, if the land owner is willing. 

I have some trees I want to sell, but it's only a truck load so it's not worth it for most people to move equipment in.  I may have to wait a few years for another area to grow enough to be ready for a commercial thinning. 
Ed Miller
Falls City, Or

logman81

Yes I do take a few pics. I also welcome them to see past jobs that I've done.
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mesquite buckeye

You may have to pay more than you are used to. I hear prices are sneaking up. They may be hearing from their buddies that one of them got thus and such. If your prices are too cheap, lots of people won't say anything other than they don't want to sell. With more money all things become possible.
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

ga jones

I agree with mesquite. The prices for the land owner in this area is up and you have to adjust accordingly.
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logman81

This is true but I am some what restricted to what I can pay by what I can get for the logs at the mill. But I have found that my prices are better than most of the competition. I have lots of ads in CL and do get a call here and there. But most of the time it's somone wanting give away thier yard trees which I don't want.
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mesquite buckeye

You might start talking to landowners/tenant farmers and ask if they might know of anybody who might want to sell trees. If you see a good tract of timber, you can always find the property owner from courthouse records.
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

Ron Scott

Are you well known by the professional foresters in the area and on their bidder's lists for when they sell private landowner timber?
~Ron

doghunter

place a sign in front of your jobs stating your name,numbers, and standing timber wanted.
                                                                                                                                   doghunter

logman81

Those are all good ideas, I am known by a few of the private consulting foresters and they like my work. I do have site signs with my info and it says that I buy timber, I put them up at every job I do. As far as knocking on farmers/landowners doors where I have seen good timber I have not done it, it may be time to start doing so. I do know of one pretty good size tract of beautiful red oak that is only about three miles from me most of it looks to be prime saw logs with some veneer. It has never been logged.
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thenorthman

Do you get any work from the CL ad?  There are a few crews out this way that advertise there, I'm not one of em... I know a couple of em by reputation, and its hit and miss, so I'm leery of putting an add up for me. 

I don't offer cash for timber, I offer a %, seems like the crews offering Cash up front are the most likely to be crooks... but that's here and not there... That and the crews that offer % are the ones staying busy, the cash for standing trees guys always seem just a little bit desperate... (well more desperate then the rest of us)
well that didn't work

enigmaT120

Northman beat me to it, I was going to ask if anybody in your area paid per centage.  Timber prices have been pretty high here, so per cent works for both sides.  What is the percentage split, generally?

Ed Miller
Falls City, Or

Tmac47

There's some up-and-coming software called LoggerLog that you could also consider.

It's essentially and mobile app that tracks the timber process and lets landowners login to a website and track the whole thing.  Live tracking and data and all that.  Would probably be a neat selling point.

mesquite buckeye

If you go to a percentage split deal, make sure you adjust the percentages to reflect the quality, species and ease of extraction involved. Easy walnut veneer trees should yield a higher percentage to the owner than hard to extract, low grade oaks for example. ;D 8) 8) 8)
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

thecfarm

I just got a letter in the mail the other day. Someone wanting to log my land. I have George that does any cutting for me. He does a real nice job and he knows I am fussy with my land. I had a guy that saw me outside and stopped and asked if I wanted any wood cut. That's my story.  ;D
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logman81

That can be a hit or miss method, I try to let word of mouth get most of my jobs but I need more work even if it's just small lots. It may be time to put some signs on the truck.
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thenorthman

Quote from: enigmaT120 on July 18, 2013, 12:20:33 PM
Northman beat me to it, I was going to ask if anybody in your area paid per centage.  Timber prices have been pretty high here, so per cent works for both sides.  What is the percentage split, generally?

Mostly 30-40%, but with prices going up the percentage could go up as well, don't know what the other crews are paying, trade secrets and all, it also really does depend on the ground and species, for instance there is a cotton wood patch I'm waiting for a call on, and waiting... they may be lucky to get 15%... cotton wood only sells for like $180 per 1k... (that may be a little high).
well that didn't work

GATreeGrower

Quote from: logman81 on July 18, 2013, 11:05:11 PM
That can be a hit or miss method, I try to let word of mouth get most of my jobs but I need more work even if it's just small lots. It may be time to put some signs on the truck.

Signs on your trucks or decals would be a good move in my opinion.  We have used one logger on our tree farms for the past 5 years.  He is always busy and I think a good deal of his business comes from people around town seeing his trucks always moving wood and equipment.  That combined with the excellent work he does seems to work for him.

GATreeGrower

We don't always get the best price in town on tonnage, but it is very worth it not to have a big mess to clean up & replant, or a bunch of skinned trees that the bugs eventually get.

SwampDonkey

The largest percentage of stumpage paid out for cutting land up here is based on pulpwood prices. Unless your in mature spruce ground (and that's nothing like pre-2005 prices yet), most of the volume is pulp and very little hardwood veneer from a single woodlot. So prices in my area are not going to be that high. There are all kinds of woodlot owners who want to sell wood, but there are also a lot of folks that don't want any wood cut at all. Most all the farmers here cut wood or have a logger cut it. In fact most of their woods ground is pretty much all cut by now. Not talking so much about the small hobby farm, but the large growers. What keeps our softwood log prices low off private land is crown timber. Any commercial mill up here has a crown license, so why give more to a woodlot owner/logger than they can get it off their license for? Plus it's identified and they know when how much area of it they can cut. Plus the silviculture is free.
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PAFaller

You have to pound the ground and pound it hard. Even then its likely you will knock on a lot of doors with little success. Find markets for species that maybe other crews dont often cut. Here in hardwood country the mill I work with has hemlock markets as well. 30-40% of their yearly production is hemlock. Its not a huge money maker for the landowner, but we are one of the only places that buys it on a regular basis. They'll also work out deals with farmers and the like where they'll saw siding in return for more logs, and that keeps everybody happy. Ya the big mills with multi-million dollar lines of credit that buy lump sum up front woo a lot of landowners with the fat check, but helping people out goes a long way too. And often times, you get in with a large landowner cutting hemlock and do a good job, when they need some cash or know hardwoods are up they will deal with you again.

Then you need to get your name out. Sponsor little league teams, support the local 4-H group, it all builds recognition over the long haul. I make it a point to buy an animal or two at the county fair, and I give money every year to the local FFA chapter that goes into scholarships for kids still in school working on their SAE projects. With my wife being the teacher we dont announce that I am the donor, but having done it for 3 years now everyone kind of knows that my forestry and logging business is the money behind it. This year I gave out 2 awards, not huge amounts but enough to feed a pair of market hogs for a couple months and help a young girl buy some supplies for her sheep raising project. It feels really good to give money back, as I was an FFA member in my high school days, and parents talk, and when its positive it helps your name a lot.

Once you get to know people offer to help them out. Again, maybe I have a bit of an advantage because I've worked on dairy farms, but I have talked to a lot of dairy farmers at 5 in the morning in the milking parlor, and thrown my share of hay bales for free, knowing that the word of mouth in that community means more than any money I would make doing it.

Hang your business cards up everywhere that you can. TSC, gas stations, local coffee shops, the saw shops, sporting goods stores etc. If you sell firewood, make sure your customers know you buy timber too. Maybe even sweeten the pot with a finders fee if they lead you to a patch of good timber and you can get it bought. Just don't get discouraged. I grew up in New England and moved to PA with my wife, didnt know a soul here for quite awhile and felt like I was going nowhere. Its taken a few years to really get some recognition, and even now I do more contract cutting than I do cut my own jobs, but I'm working with a good mill and they're okay with me doing my own stuff too. It takes a long time to build a business, especially cutting timber.

It ain't easy...

logman81

Thanks for the good info Pafaller, I have some advertising to do!
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gspren

 Here is a land owners opinion. On the one time that I sold timber, about 16 years, ago I talked with 2 loggers that made offers before getting a consulting forester involved and he ended up getting me more money for less trees than what the loggers proposed. One of these days I will sell again and plan to use the same forester. There was about 30 acres of mostly oak and tulip poplar.
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logman81

I always recommend talking with a forester before hand. It is a good way to figure out what should and should not be cut.
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