Finding Land

[4x4American]

I have been looking for land for awhile now, but as of late been searching much harder for a place to setup my sawmill business.  I went and looked at a spot yesterday after work and the location was great.  It was an old hay field, so pretty well flat and all cleared.  Problem is that the ground is all clay.  Thick mucky clay and had a bunch of wet spots.  There was one half of the field that looks fairly usable (dry), but there were also some swails and even a little pond pretty deep. 


Would the clay scare you off?


What things would you be looking for in a place to setup a sawmill business?  My criteria has been 5 acres minimum, power at the road, zoning that allows for business, flatish ground, accessible year round for trucks.

[Bruno of NH]

i would stay away of the clay, that means mud to me .
Mud and sawmill sites not good but if you can haul in rocky gravel it could work .
my site is in an old sand and gravel pit very little mud .
Good land is getting harder to find .
Jim/Bruno

[Jeff]

Ditto on what Bruno had to say.  Sawmill sites get muddy, and clay, not good. Don't ever let anyone make you think you can use sawdust to dump in mud or water holes. It works at first, while at the same time makes the problem exponentially greater, as the sawdust will hold more water like a sponge.

[Dave Shepard]

A lot of sawmills get set up in old gravel beds around here. I hope zoning is more friendly where you are.

[clww]

Working outdoors most every day on sites that we are logging and clearing for new construction, I echo what others posted: stay away from clay.

[brianJ]

Dont even think about the part thats dry.   It is only dry because NY is having a dry spring.   That clay in a wet year could be twelve months of mud season. ???   How is that you say? ???    If snow comes  before hard freezing tempatures it insulates the ground.   Thats the worst as now you have a depth of snow before you bog around in the mud.

[4x4American]

Thanks.  Yea it's too bad because the area it is in is perfect for what I want to do.  Just wide open country, farmlands.  Where I live here it's mountainous terrain so it's real hard to find flat ground.  There is another property really close that is in a great location, price is cheap, but it's steep, with areas of flat.  Whoever logged it last left a mess of the woods, can't hardly walk through it, and they had to stone the drive up to the header, which says to me that it was *wet*.  I'm just gonna keep looking.  Been looking for a long time now and ain't found much.  The good spots I have found don't have the right zoning for me.  They'd rather put up big houses than to be *bothered* with a sawmill operation, and have to deal with noise and trucks...these people.. 

[Brucer]

... It works at first, while at the same time makes the problem exponentially greater, as the sawdust will hold more water like a sponge.

I could have used that advice 8 years ago  :(.

You can do a lot to improve things by grading the land so the water runs away from where you want to use machinery, but ... you also have to put down gravel on those higher areas. Even a little traffic over wet clay will chew it up and then it holds more water; then the ruts start to form and the water pools; then you end up with your high spot gets lower and lower. Gravel will prevent that, but it costs.

[redprospector]

Good luck with the land hunt.
Don't tell any real estate people that you want to put in a mill. I had one tell me that they'd rather I didn't buy property in the area because it would make it harder to sell the surrounding properties.  :
Electric to the property line doesn't mean much to me anymore. The property we bought has power right in front, and the power company wants $6k for a single phase service, and $12k for 3 phase. 
We wound up buying 10 acres in the desert, I've got to haul my logs down the mountain, but at least down there I don't have to deal with the tourist trap er, uh, I mean resort destination I live in.

[Ron Wenrich]

I don't know how big of an operation you are planning to do.  We had a pretty substantial operation on 8 acres.  We moved our material fairly quickly, so there was no need to inventory large amounts of material.  We did trucking, firewood, veneer, and milling.  Our site was an old shale pit. 

We had 3 phase power out on the road, but found it cheaper to make our own than to buy from the local utility.  We had street electricity in the shop and to our outlets in the mill.  Debarker and firewood processor were run by diesel.

[SwampDonkey]

It's funny what you see at times when your looking for land. There will be a growing up pasture with little spruce and aspen starting to take over, but in a rectangular corner will be a staked out building lot down in a sunken part of the land filled with water 10 months of the year.  Some little old lady 1500 miles away owns it and has never walked the land in 40 years. ;D

[pine]

It's funny what you see at times when your looking for land. There will be a growing up pasture with little spruce and aspen starting to take over, but in a rectangular corner will be a staked out building lot down in a sunken part of the land filled with water 10 months of the year.  Some little old lady 1500 miles away owns it and has never walked the land in 40 years. ;D

That is so true.  Got a call from a elderly lady (90+) that asked if I was interested in her land, 40 acres.  Told her yes at the right price.  She and her husband bought the place back in the 40's, he passed in the 60's, she has not been there since, according to her telling.  No recorded easement,  non-recorded easements expire if not used and it had not been used for 45+ years.  House and barns/sheds are now on the non-recorded easement.  She had no idea what her property looked like.  She is still paying the land taxes however every year.

[terry f]

   What would be a fair price Pine? All woods or a little of everything?

[pine]

   What would be a fair price Pine? All woods or a little of everything?

Obviously a fair price would depend upon many factors not the least of which is the location/part of the country that you are dealing with which varies greatly from region to region.

This particular property is a forested 40 acres with some hardwood, some conifer and a moderately sized riparian zone with an type F stream.
As is always said a fair price is the price that a willing seller and a willing buyer agree upon.

For property which is the forestry production zone, one house/dwelling is allowed on any single legally defined parcel.  Parcels can not be sub-divided after a set time in the past when these rules came into effect and will last until the rules are changed in the future.  If it is a 20 acre parcel then one dwelling.  If it is a 50 acre parcel then one dwelling.  75 acres one dwelling and so on. Size of parcel does not matter.

Property like this can be valued in the following way. 
Take the raw land (no timber) value per acre and add the value of the existing timber per acre minus the cost of getting that timber down and transported out minus the cost of replanting said site after logging.  Raw/bare timber land can be priced very differently in different regions of the country.
The cost of getting the timber to market also can vary quite a bit.  Terrain, riparian zone setback issues, distance to market, cost of getting an easement to get the equipment into the site to remove the timber, etc. 

Add everything up and subtract everything out and the number left over is the value of the land.  In the forestry production zone conversion of land use is basically not viable as the one dwelling per parcel limits mass development.

Example not using real numbers and a bit lacking in great details but gives an idea

Please no comments on the numbers they are for example only and are not representative.
Bare forestry land                                                 $100/acre    additive
Gross Value of timber                                            $500/acre    additive
Cost of logging operations                                     $100/acre    minus
Cost of getting legal access to property                   $50/acre      minus
Cost of punching road to property with new access   $100/acre    minus
Cost of replanting                                                  $50/acre     minus
Actual value of land                                                $300/acre

A shorter way to look at it.
Bare forestry land                                                 $100/acre    additive
Net Value of timber                                               $200/acre    additive
Actual value of land                                               $300/acre



Now in reality the value is a bit higher than my example shows because once the access/easement is secured and the road is built the value of the property is higher because it could be resold to someone that wants to live on a property that is isolated has an easement/access to it and thus the use now allows one house per parcel to be built where without the access easement you can't build a house if you can't get to it.
If the buyer does not want to sell for that purpose and wants to keep for forestry operations then there is no value gained from that as far as they are concerned.  This is not meant to be a detailed description but a real low level "dirt farmer" approach to the matter.

[thecfarm]

I have no idea about how the land is where you are. But around here any place will get muddy in the spring or a lot of rain. Add a sawmill to it and heavy trucks and it will be worser. Unless you are in a gravel pit. Plan on gravel and rocks. I would just about build high, to make room for the addition of the rocks. 

[Don_Papenburg]

Might want to mix Portland with the gravel ,Keeps it from sinking into the wet clay.

[Brucer]

I've found the best material for stabilizing mud/clay is crushed, random sized gravel. Around here it's called "road mulch".

If your gravel is smooth and all the same size, it will shift under a load whenever the ground is wet -- in other words, make ruts that hold the water. When it is a random mix with a portion of it crushed or broken, it will lock together in wet ground.

I've used two different materials, both with good results.
- Mine rock. Broken & blasted rock from a tunneling operation.
- 3" road mulch.

The first spring after I bought my property, my D7 Cat was dragging the bottom pan along the muddy road -- and it normally had 16" clearance . I had a local contractor bring me several truckloads of mine rock. He backed in as far as he could with the first load and dumped it. Then I spread it with the Cat and drove over it several times to compact it. When he backed in with the next load, he was able to back in right over the stuff I had spread.

I watched that loaded truck back in over the mine rock and the whole surface of the road sunk a little in the centre -- it looked like the surface of a trampoline with a small weight in the middle.

My only complaint with mine rock is that there's some pretty big chunks of rock in there and when the frost pushes one to the surface, it becomes a major nuisance.

[mesquite buckeye]

Generally you can access the soil maps from the Soil Conservation Service for any given county. These are paperback books that detail every bit of a county regarding soil texture. slope, erodibility, productive rating for crops, engineering info for construction and suitability of various soils for that purpose. With one of these in hand you can save yourself a lot of wasted time. The good thing about looking for land is you are free to keep looking until you find the perfect site. Then it is just a matter or money. Keep looking and good luck. Searching for your dream is fun.
;D 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

I can give you an example of a search that I went through before I found a really good site for growing saguaros.

The rancher that I work with owns around 8000 acres of land scattered along 15 miles of the San Pedro River as well as disconnected homestead land scattered throughout the Galiuro Mountain foothills. The land is located at the cold limit for the growth of saguaro cacti. It would be very tough to spend 10 years growing cacti and lose them right before the big payday arrives because they got frozen. In this area, saguaros grow best on rather steep south facing slopes, as the cold air drains away and these areas warm up nicely in the wintertime. You will also see pretty good stands on elevated uplands of rather low slope. Most of these areas are located on state land, so unavailable.

What I was looking for was an area of relatively low slope that is elevated, since the steep slopes are not conducive to equipment access either for growing or harvest. The soil needed to be at least 2-3 feet deep and with at least moderate internal drainage so we could irrigate the plants without rotting them. Rocks are annoying and makes operations more laborious, but can be tolerated. Based upon my calculations for growth rates and projected sales, it looked like I would need about 20 acres to do it. I needed close access to water for irrigation and hopefully power, so we could run equipment without generators. The hope was to find all of this in one place.

I started looking for a site in the spring of 2007. In the winter of 2009 I was out looking for wildflowers and found this spot. 

    

 

There is about 5 acres of nearly level land elevated from 40-80 feet above the surrounding land right next to the power line and irrigated fields. ;D When I found it I knew this was the place! ;D ;D ;D

We are about 10 degrees warmer than the surrounding area in the evening and 1-2 warmer by morning. That's a big help in a bad freeze. It is working so far.

The ranch owns another block of 100 acres just across the road with elevated land maybe 40-50 acres of that, but not so flat and in smaller blocks; more expensive to develop and further from the water. Hopefully by the time we get to that land we will have a sales income to pay for the dozing work and additional piping to get the water up there.

[4x4American]

Wow!  So how long does it take before you can harvest a saguro, where do you sell them and what are they used for?

[mesquite buckeye]

That's the $40,000 question, isn't it?

I started this project in 2007 collecting seeds. Had 2 seasons that essentially were wasted, as we managed to kill most of the plants we started. Put up greenhouses in 2010, which I guess is our real start year, as that is when things started to work. The biggest ones in the first field are now about 16" tall. We plan to start selling at the end of next summer (2016) with plants at least 2 feet tall. Some of them should be close to 3 feet. Our goal is 4-6 feet, a prime size and hopefully the most profitable, but we need some cash flow to cover expenses, which keep adding up.

We are talking saguaros for landscaping. They will grow well in about half of Arizona, maybe 1/3 of California, northwest Mexico, the Mediterranean region and the warmer parts of the Middle East. We are starting with just Arizona then hoping to expand.

You can read all about it in "aforestation of the stickery kind".

[4x4American]

I found a decent piece today.  It's a half hour drive away (22 miles), out of the mountains and in the flatland country.  Neighbor is a logger, has a Timberjack skidder setting in front of a pile of logs, nice john deere loader tractor.  The ground is clay, but it's a sandy sorta clay.  It's workable.  The guy who is selling the land moved down to South Carolina and in his ad says that he wants to sell the land this month, make an offer!  The location is good, a little far from home, but it's flat, and I can pull the sawmill in and start sawing material for a pole barn right away.  This time of year I can get log trucks in and out without a doubt.  I would most likely put some crusharun or blue stone down at the entrance in some time.  May need to put a culvert pipe in at the entrance, maybe not.  It is zoned for agricultural.  The road seems to have some traffice which is good.  Power is right there.  Taxes the guy said is $3-400/year as it is right now.  Which isn't bad for NYS.

[brianJ]

Good for you.  A lot of those former fields have a big ole rock pile somewhere along the edge wherefarmers dumped rocks after tillage all these generations.  That can make a good base.

[4x4American]

Another realator lady who's been sending me all over the land for different potential properties sent me a new one today.  almost 100 acres, there used to be an old sawmill setup on it, not sure what all is still there.  That might be pretty good, if there's already a setup for a sawmill!  Gonna look at it one day this week.  Hopefully the property lines are easy to follow.

[thechknhwk]

Now you're talkin'.  A hundred acres would be awesome.

[4x4American]

Yup!  Excited to go look at it.  I hope it will work.  Really gotta get the mill off the property here and setup somewhere I can get log trucks in and out and get caught up!