NYS - Current Pulse of the Timber Market?

[Abeman]

Landowner here looking for anyone with current knowledge of the timber market to weigh in. Is now a good time to sell? When I go to seek pricing, are proposal by board foot, by tree, or lump sum?

I know I have some oaks and black walnut, what's the current value per linear foot for these?

[nativewolf]

Hi, that's a complex question but welcome to FF. 

First, you can look at the Penn State university report that won't be perfect but is directionally ok.
https://extension.psu.edu/forests-and-woodlots/forestry-business-and-economics/timber-market-report

Things to know, timber is bought and sold, ok Hardwood timber, using criteria such that are generally known as "grade".  Clear large diameter logs bring the most money.  The volume used in our industry is a board ft, 12" x 12" 1" thick.  The estimation tools favor larger logs and undervalue small diameter logs, it is what it is.  A log with  higher grade can be worth 2-3 times as much as the same size log but lower grade (due to all sorts of flaws that a log buyer sees).

Prices for Walnut are as high as they have ever been I think.  White oak prices are also at all time highs,  Black Cherry is pretty weak, Red Oak pricing is quite variable across the US with RO pricing in Virginia not as high as that in the NE. 

Perhaps you should call your local forestry extension agent to get some thoughts on selling timber.  The are many implications from Tax to replanting that you'll want to consider before harvest.  If there is a significant amount of timber, say over a dozen acres I suggest hiring a consulting forester, that's often the best way to increase the profit (they can get multiple competing bids) and they help advise on the other issues as well. 

[dgdrls]

http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/5259.html

some guidance to  New York regional $$$

D

[mike_belben]

Agree with native wolf.  Stock markets are high, interest rates are low and shipping is very competitive so distant demand is driving your local prices up higher than domestic demand alone can sustain.  That can all collapse pretty quickly. 


Keep in mind there is a sale on stumpage and a sale on shares.  In stumpage your standing trees are paid for upfront.  Naturally a percentage of them will have internal defects that lower their value or will be damaged in felling etc.  The landowner who takes pay on stumpage passes all this risk of tree value loss on to the buyer so naturally the bidder will want to buy a little lower to compensate for it.  If i am buying say 5 standing "veneer" trees.. And only 3 make veneer.. Well im gonna lose my shirt on those so i must try to negotiate a lower purchase price to cover it. 

It isnt uncommon for a stumpage contract to specify up to 2 years to harvest.  And for harvesting not to occur until the later end of the contract.  The buyer is letting the trees grow a little on your land, and if youve received a really generous payment i think thats pretty fair considering he shoulders all the risk and labor.  logging is hard, growing trees is pretty easyin comparison.  Only my opinion.


In shares the negotiation is on what percentage goes to the logger vs the landowner.  This means the trees are felled, hauled to mill and a check is cut to each party.  The risk of internally defective trees going down in value from original appraisal is now shared between both parties.  Me personally, i think i can bring a landowner more money on shares than on stumpage because i dont have to buy them up front.  The more logs ya haul the more money flows.
Each tree that drops a grade or two because of shake or ants is only a half loss shared by each. 

The risk of a shady outfit stiffing the landowner is higher so thats definitely something to keep in mind.   You want two checks cut by the mill IMO, not all to your or all to them.  There are tax implications, you dont want to be paying all of the tax nor do you want all of the money going into their account and promising theyll cut you a check. 


Tax wise, a forestors appraisal is pretty critical.  How many acres are you considering cutting?

[coxy]

  If i am buying say 5 standing "veneer" trees.. And only 3 make veneer..

you guys need to show/tell me how you can tell a veneer tree still standing I have never been able to figure that one out   I'm always willing to learn something new 

[g_man]

As a landowner selling stumpage or logs by share you might be interested in knowing what the market pricing is in your area for logs of various species by grade. The link below is a current spec/price list from Castleton VT, between Rutland and Lake George. If you get to understand the info on the spec sheet you will be better prepared to communicate with and understand what a forester or logger is saying about the sale. It also gives you some insight on the financial end of why they cut or don't cut what they do. Reaching a compromise between what is good financially and what is good for your woodlot takes a landowner and forester/logger who can communicate. As you will see the spec sheet is complicated for anyone w/o any prior knowledge of logs and grade.

Some landowners don't want to deal with any of that and let the logger/forester make all the decisions for them.

http://northeasttimberexchange.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NTE-Castleton-VT-December-11-2017-Saw-Log-Prices-and-Specs.pdf

gg

[nativewolf]

  If i am buying say 5 standing "veneer" trees.. And only 3 make veneer..

you guys need to show/tell me how you can tell a veneer tree still standing I have never been able to figure that one out   I'm always willing to learn something new 

Man, it is some work.  The bark tells is all I've got...if the bark looks perfect, it may be a veneer log.  As long as it is 16" min at the small end. 

[BargeMonkey]

  If i am buying say 5 standing "veneer" trees.. And only 3 make veneer..

you guys need to show/tell me how you can tell a veneer tree still standing I have never been able to figure that one out   I'm always willing to learn something new 

Depends how hungry the mill is for wood and how flexible the buyer is, I see some of these prices quoted by guys lately for good wood and I'm not seeing it, this is probably my slowest yr in a long time with only just over 1/4 mil ft to the mill. 😂

All depends on quality and what you've got, certain mills may pay more, BnB which isn't to far from you pays fairly well. It's not the value of the timber now, it's the value when the logger actually gets there, I've seen where a few weeks makes a huge diff. Everyone I know is busy, telling a landowner it's 1-2yrs wait time isn't abnormal.

[nativewolf]

Barge: question for you.  In these long wait scenarios  do they  pay for the timber in advance?  I know that most of yours is related to some dirt work, view clearing, etc do you ever buy timber that far in advance?

[coxy]

you don't want to go by the bark around here or you we be on the unemployed list real fast  :D :D  I have a few people that has been waiting for me since  October  of 16  99% of my LO get a % I don't worry about other people trying to steal my jobs (all though a few people has tried :D) the LO know my work

[mike_belben]

  If i am buying say 5 standing "veneer" trees.. And only 3 make veneer..

you guys need to show/tell me how you can tell a veneer tree still standing I have never been able to figure that one out   I'm always willing to learn something new 

Dont ask me man, it was just a hypothetical illustration.  I dont pay for trees at all, my logging is a consequence of doing dirtwork for people with more trees than money.  Prime WO stave is best ive ever cut.  $1800/mbf. 

Thank god ive never fooled with stumpage cuz the nicest standing staves ive ever looked at were hollow!

[Corley5]

Buddy of mine burned himself on what appeared to be a REALLY nice stand of Northern Michigan sugar maples.  He paid the landowner a lump sum before cutting thinking he had veneer quality trees.  After the first half dozen were on the ground he realized he'd made a big mistake.  All the trees were at least 2/3 heartwood.  Some had just a thin ring of white wood.  Most of the logs went for pallet wood and flooring bolts.  General consensus was the soil conditions and possible pasturing many years prior were to blame.  The soil was red clay based.  There'd been no cattle on the ground for fifty years or more.  He lost his *** on that job.  The nicest, straightest, most perfect looking trees can be low grade  ;) ;D    

[Corley5]

Sugar maple veneer logs were hot around here a few weeks ago.  A local mill needed a couple hundred thousand feet to fill an overseas order.  Things have backed off now but the market is still worthwhile.  Not as good as it could be but no where near as bad as it could be either   I did hear after the little bubble burst that the scale stick was a little short during the rush :-\

[coxy]

I hate that short stick or a fat thumb  :D

[Skeans1]

Just wondering if you guys run off percentages like we do here in the PNW?

[Abeman]

Agree with native wolf.  Stock markets are high, interest rates are low and shipping is very competitive so distant demand is driving your local prices up higher than domestic demand alone can sustain.  That can all collapse pretty quickly. 


Keep in mind there is a sale on stumpage and a sale on shares.  In stumpage your standing trees are paid for upfront.  Naturally a percentage of them will have internal defects that lower their value or will be damaged in felling etc.  The landowner who takes pay on stumpage passes all this risk of tree value loss on to the buyer so naturally the bidder will want to buy a little lower to compensate for it.  If i am buying say 5 standing "veneer" trees.. And only 3 make veneer.. Well im gonna lose my shirt on those so i must try to negotiate a lower purchase price to cover it. 

It isnt uncommon for a stumpage contract to specify up to 2 years to harvest.  And for harvesting not to occur until the later end of the contract.  The buyer is letting the trees grow a little on your land, and if youve received a really generous payment i think thats pretty fair considering he shoulders all the risk and labor.  logging is hard, growing trees is pretty easyin comparison.  Only my opinion.


In shares the negotiation is on what percentage goes to the logger vs the landowner.  This means the trees are felled, hauled to mill and a check is cut to each party.  The risk of internally defective trees going down in value from original appraisal is now shared between both parties.  Me personally, i think i can bring a landowner more money on shares than on stumpage because i dont have to buy them up front.  The more logs ya haul the more money flows.
Each tree that drops a grade or two because of shake or ants is only a half loss shared by each. 

The risk of a shady outfit stiffing the landowner is higher so thats definitely something to keep in mind.   You want two checks cut by the mill IMO, not all to your or all to them.  There are tax implications, you dont want to be paying all of the tax nor do you want all of the money going into their account and promising theyll cut you a check. 


Tax wise, a forestors appraisal is pretty critical.  How many acres are you considering cutting?

Thanks for the excellent post Mike! Very helpful. There are 20 Acres of wooded land, 10 of which are inside wetland boundaries. I'd like to harvest as much of all my woods as possible without causing ripples with the DEC. I like the shares option you layout. I'm meeting with a forestor next Wednesday to discuss plans in more detail.

[mike_belben]

Glad to help

[starmac]

I can tell you the pulse here is already on life support, and one hand on the plug.

[PA_Walnut]

What are you guys paying for larger diameter (16") standing cherry and black walnut? I'm trying to get my finger on the right pulse also. Been buying some and curious if I'm in the right arena.
Thx

[dgdrls]

What are you guys paying for larger diameter (16") standing cherry and black walnut? I'm trying to get my finger on the right pulse also. Been buying some and curious if I'm in the right arena.
Thx

Check here, This is what NaitiveWolf posted above

First, you can look at the Penn State university report that won't be perfect but is directionally ok
https://extension.psu.edu/forests-and-woodlots/forestry-business-and-economics/timber-market-report

[nativewolf]

Man I tell you if I had Black Cherry in PA I'd be trucking it a few miles to get off the southern border.

We are getting $500-850/mbf for cherry here in northern VA but frankly it is not huge stuff that I'm shipping.  I've been told I can get much higher if they are large export quality logs and fingers crossed I'll have that opportunity closed up tomorrow.  Spent long enough cruising that stand with lots of cherry, I'd sent pictures of a few.

The Walnut is definitely averaging over $2000/mbf, closer to 2,500.  However, we only cut larger walnut.

[Abeman]

I walked the property today with my family and we did some research on our black walnuts. My boys had a blast picking up a bunch of the nuts (can we eat these this late in the harvest...these were all on the ground). To summarize, it looks like we have around 75 to 100 black walnut trees from 10"-14" DBH, and roughly another 20-40 that ranged between 16" up to 24" in diameter.

I don't know how to post pictures, if anyone can point me to a tutorial that would be great; I took a bunch today that I'd like to share.

[nativewolf]

Lots of tutorials but basically I find it easiest if you add some photos to your gallery and post from there.  Search the forum for better advise. 

RE those walnuts nuts. Great eating but when you pick the meat to eat you want to wear gloves as the brown layer between the green outer shell and the hard inner nut is a strong natural dying agent, brown..who'd have guessed.

So, gloves on, peel, and get to the nuts.  The american walnut is tough, use hammer to open or youtube to find alternatives. Very tasty

Re trees:  the smaller trees are for your old age or the kids.  The larger subset may have some potential for income today.  Know that the diameter that matters for scaling purposes is the diameter at the small end of the log, inside the bark.  For walnut there is a lot of taper and thick bark, so 8' up you may lose 2-6" , a 24" tree can easily become an 18" log for scaling purposes.  If clean bark, no knots, no fenceline wire, etc, you would have about 100bdft at $2-5 per bd ft for the first 8' log. 

You can see that what you are trying to grown are larger diameter walnuts, the larger the diameter and cleaner the higher the price.  That same log in a 17" top would have 84 bdft.  If it drops to a 15" top then the grade changes as well, down to $2-3, and so forth and so on.  If you have any at 20" at the small end and nice logs then you can go all the way up to $6-8 depending upon quality.

[BargeMonkey]

 We don't have this "mysterious BW" up here, I've only ever cut 1 and it was dead. Anyway the GFs family had a tree tip over this fall, I go down to clean it up, it's in the better park of Catskill 😂 this BW had 3-4 decent logs in it, about 18" On the stump, I would have sawed it, her father wanted it blocked up for the firewood, said if you want you can have the other 10-12 out in the back yard 😂

I PM-ed you those #'s, both those guys are good, John is about as good as they come and been in the Northern logger, does all the work over to Hunter and Windham, markets his own logs, both those guys book wood yrs in advance. I'm actually headed down to look at a big job in Monticello for family of a landowner up here.

[nativewolf]

We don't have this "mysterious BW" up here, I've only ever cut 1 and it was dead. Anyway the GFs family had a tree tip over this fall, I go down to clean it up, it's in the better park of Catskill 😂 this BW had 3-4 decent logs in it, about 18" On the stump, I would have sawed it, her father wanted it blocked up for the firewood, said if you want you can have the other 10-12 out in the back yard 😂

I PM-ed you those #'s, both those guys are good, John is about as good as they come and been in the Northern logger, does all the work over to Hunter and Windham, markets his own logs, both those guys book wood yrs in advance. I'm actually headed down to look at a big job in Monticello for family of a landowner up here.

Wait wait...which GF?  You really cut it for firewood?  Shoot, I'd have swaped him Firewood split already for that tree.  darn...

Did you take the other 10? 

[Abeman]

 

  

  

  

  

 

[Abeman]

Thanks for the help...figured out to get the pics in. Any idea what species this is, I measured 40" DBH? 

 

[Banjo picker]

That last tree looks like a post oak to me.  In the white oak family at least a first cousin.  Banjo

[BargeMonkey]

That last tree looks like a post oak to me.  In the white oak family at least a first cousin.  Banjo

Looked kind of like a white oak, we are 99% RO up here.

[BargeMonkey]

We don't have this "mysterious BW" up here, I've only ever cut 1 and it was dead. Anyway the GFs family had a tree tip over this fall, I go down to clean it up, it's in the better park of Catskill 😂 this BW had 3-4 decent logs in it, about 18" On the stump, I would have sawed it, her father wanted it blocked up for the firewood, said if you want you can have the other 10-12 out in the back yard 😂

I PM-ed you those #'s, both those guys are good, John is about as good as they come and been in the Northern logger, does all the work over to Hunter and Windham, markets his own logs, both those guys book wood yrs in advance. I'm actually headed down to look at a big job in Monticello for family of a landowner up here.

Wait wait...which GF?  You really cut it for firewood?  Shoot, I'd have swaped him Firewood split already for that tree.  darn...

Did you take the other 10?

 
That GF. 😂 those are G's, something I hadn't seen before.  blocked ever last piece up. Got about 100mbdft in my yard right now to saw, at somepoint I will go down and get those, on a dead end street way up on the hill in Catskill, not exactly friendly to get a truck into.

[nativewolf]

  

  

  

  

 

So I think 1 pic may be a locust?  Anyway,  good to see the kids picking up walnuts.  Your trees are the picture perfect reason walnut is tough...lots of crotch wood just where you don't want it, that 1 tree crotch is about 4-5 feet off the ground and that was a nice log.  Still might get a log between that crotch and the next crotch, you need 7'.  The other tree with the picture of the kids has more potential, you'll want 7-8' because except for the low crotch on that one it looks ok so you are in the price above 2/bdft.  Not sure just how large it is.  Sometimes with Walnut we dig down a bit to get an extra few inches.  . 

Thanks for posting and good to see your family enjoying your forest.

[nativewolf]

We don't have this "mysterious BW" up here, I've only ever cut 1 and it was dead. Anyway the GFs family had a tree tip over this fall, I go down to clean it up, it's in the better park of Catskill 😂 this BW had 3-4 decent logs in it, about 18" On the stump, I would have sawed it, her father wanted it blocked up for the firewood, said if you want you can have the other 10-12 out in the back yard 😂

I PM-ed you those #'s, both those guys are good, John is about as good as they come and been in the Northern logger, does all the work over to Hunter and Windham, markets his own logs, both those guys book wood yrs in advance. I'm actually headed down to look at a big job in Monticello for family of a landowner up here.

Wait wait...which GF?  You really cut it for firewood?  Shoot, I'd have swaped him Firewood split already for that tree.  darn...

Did you take the other 10?

 
That GF. 😂 those are G's, something I hadn't seen before.  blocked ever last piece up. Got about 100mbdft in my yard right now to saw, at somepoint I will go down and get those, on a dead end street way up on the hill in Catskill, not exactly friendly to get a truck into.

G?  G?  darn...sigh...thanks for finally making an honest bargemonkey post.  You need some help in your yard, we were lucky to find 2 good guys and a weekend helper.  Have labor when we need it.

[PA_Walnut]

Wolf,
Thanks for the snapshot. Is this what you are selling your logs for, or what you are paying?

I always have a challenge over what to pay for logs that I am purchasing for my mill...sometimes they are down and bucked-up, sometimes they are standing, sometimes I have to bring my equipment in to move/load them, etc.

Of course, a nice log delivered to my yard is sweet, but I usually have to involve myself at some other level....particularly nice stuff.

Have a formula I use, but would like to hear others' comment on theirs, as a sanity check.

[nativewolf]

Ahh, what the logs bring.  We have only the rare super special log so this is mostly good to very good sawtimber and veneer trees.  As you know we sell the whole tree once it is down, all the way down to 6-8" branches. 

This is mill pricing (or export yard) then split with the landowner, we are doing almost all cutting on shares, 40/60 to 60/40 depending on the property and amount of walnut.  For one off's in the field it is down to 30/70. 

[coxy]

hey barge if your in Monticello you can look up your buddy that's where he lives   just remember in some places you need a permit to cut  just thought id let you know  ;D

[Southside]

Thanks Barge - 'bout spit all over the keyboard after reading your post.      My wife was wondering what was so funny.....

[mike_belben]

Looked caucasian to me.  Which is 99% of what we have down here.

[Corley5]

Put those walnuts in your driveway and run over them with your vehicle a few times to break the husks up and get them off the nut.  Then you can pick up the husk free nut.  Way better than peeling them by hand and it won't hurt the nut a bit   Or find an old corn sheller to run them through