Landowner Type Profitability

[ForestryIntern]

I am working for a Forest Consulting Firm and we are trying to expand the business in two directions.  We want deliver services one way to large landowners and another to small.  Part of this includes different pricing to each and I was wondering what most foresters are getting in profit from landowners under 5,000 acres and those over.  The under 5,000 is giving us the most trouble with billable hours varying so much for the small landowners.   

[SwampDonkey]

Most of the woodlot owners here deal with marketing boards to find their wood markets, administer the silviculture (thinning/planting) and stream crossing work. You can't really compete against subsidies from wood sales volumes in the $M's and government funding for silviculture.

[Ron Wenrich]

What type of services are you providing to the landowners?  In our area, the ones over 5,000 acres are generally some government agency.  A landowner with that type of acreage probably could do well to have his own crews.

[SwampDonkey]

Around here large land owners are usually loggers/land clearing businesses or commercial sawmills both with their own crews as Ron suggests. We don't get much land tied up by third parties in conservation. What little that is, is pretty much locked up for nature to do as it pleases or government managed protected spaces. We don't get outfits moving in and buying up thousands of acres of woodlands unless they are a mill.

[BrandonTN]

Swampdonkey, these land clearing businesses/logging companies, what do they do with the land in your area after they harvest it? Sell it for cheap (since the timber value is temporarily removed) to buyers looking for a long-term investment? Or does it usually sit in their ownership until more timber grows on it?

[SwampDonkey]

They usually hang onto the land, some will swap land with a mill if it's kind of isolated from road frontage. It's also good equity to buy logging equipment. The land clearing is usually for a farmer, so the land is new fields. House lots are... well you know. I've thinned land for large woodlot owners who are mostly loggers, but sometimes a farmer who does his own harvesting.