need help - maybe ripped off by a buyer

[Mike_Barcaskey]

In the course of my tree service work, I took down a tulip poplar about 115 feet tall. The trunk was limbless and arrow straight for 40+ feet.
DBH was about 36+ inches and dia at 40 feet was about 28 inches (not exact)

Local fellow that I knew of buys logs, hunts and belongs to our church, so I look him up. Nice guy I'd like to be friends with.

I ask if he'd be interested in the logs and tell him where they're located at.
he said he'd take a look and I replied Let me know if you want them and how much

just checked the messages on my cell phone and he said he pulled the logs out today.

I call him and he offers me $100 for the 4 logs he took (9 foot each)

I'm over a barrel, and though I dont want to involved the cops, I think $100 is a bit low.
I have no experience in tulip popular, I just know a price for the cherry and red oak I sell
heck, I could have got more for spruce that size.

any ideas on what those logs were worth?

He didn't do me any favor by hauling them out as the home owner was going to cut them up for firewood. so I had no labor for my crew hanging over my head. I had told the homeowner I would split what ever I got for the logs 50/50, trying to be fair with him and feel I got shafted by the buyer.
My dad and his buddy wanted a log or two for their mill, so I'm double out

[Jeff]

You could use this to help determine a value if you can find the averge price for the lumber in your area.
https://forestryforum.com/calcs/treevalue.htm

One comment, I dont think you can compare tulip polar to Red Oak and Cherry for value. 

[pasbuild]

I don't know what they would be worth in your area but in my neck of the woods for anything less then a truck load you would have a hard time giving them away.

[Jeff]

We dont have tulip polplar here, but that price didnt seem out of line to me if the guy hauled it.  What little tulip we have gotten at the mill was sawed up as if it was aspen. You would be hard pressed to sell even the biggest and best aspen tree for 100 bucks. Ron W. probably has a good insight in this one as they saw a lot of Tulip

[Mike_Barcaskey]

I know they're not close to cherry and red oak, I'm just thinking that they're worth more

by the replies so far, guess not

[pigman]

I tried to "rip off" a few people by trying to buy their single trees left by tree service companys. Most of the time they were either left to rot or cut into firewood. :(
Bob the would be rip off artist

[J_T]

Have beat myself for things Ihave done in the past and mark it up to learning. I agree he should not touched them till he made you a offer but now you know you wouldn't want to be involved in a big deal with him so you may have saved yourself a ton and don't know it . My self I don't go after one tree as my cost would be more than I could gain if they are free. Under a thousand bf I don't start the truck. To me the stress in the church and else where wouldn't be worth it  If it cost me a little I would make it right with the home owner and if I felt I had not been done right I would never deal with the man again. I hate stress No stress Jim

[Brad_S.]

Here in New York I've paid $400 a thousand for top quality logs, $250 a thousand for lesser quality. This would be delivered and on the Doyle scale.
If I picked them up, I would pay less.
If they came out of a residential yard, I would pay way less. There are some on the forum who wouldn't have paid a cent.
The homeowner might have felt he had a lot of firewood if you had left it, but he really would have had a lot of crappy firewood, poplar isn't premium firewood, as I'm sure you know. I feel getting it out of there was doing the homeowner a favor.
I didn't figure out the footage (it's late, I'm tired and lazy :D) but, although I think the guy may have gotten a deal off you, I don't know that I'd go so far as to say you were ripped off. I don't know that he would be my first choice to call next time though if you feel taken.
You could always tell him the homeowner wanted more and if he doesn't either pony up or explain why it was worth $100 to him, he should put them back for the homeowner.

[J_T]

Pigman IM me your phone number I'll call you every time someone try's to give me a tree last one was a four foot across white oak 8) :D :D Bet it still has some good wood in it. ???

[Jason_WI]

I was given about 4000 bf of aspen as the land owner would have had to have paid for a logger to come in to take them out. The forester came throught his land and marked these trees for removal to let more valuable species take over.

Take your 100 bux and run. No doube there is iron somewhere in that butt log.

If that was a balck walnut or red oak then this would be a different story.....

Jason

[UNCLEBUCK]

It doesnt sound like you gave him permission to take but just look and make offer . I know I am overstepping here but from my experience I find some of the shadiest people also are heavy into church ,not sure why but thats how I found a few .

[Brad_S.]

Sadly, I'm in agreement with you, Unclebuck.

[sigidi]

I'm the wrong side of the world to make comment on the value of the tree.

but nothing to stop me commenting on the method of gaining the tree ;)

I reckon it stinks, you called the chap out of decency and regard for him, you also where trying to please the homeowner and I bet the thing which burns you up the most isn't that the logs are gone, but that you are left in a bad light with the homeowner - I bend over backwards (always to my detriment) to make a client/customer of mine feel good. If they want 10 posts I'll cut and deliver 12 so they can knock back 2 they don't like, but only charge em for 10, I figure this keeps 'em happy and I get a good reputation.'

Now if a chap takes off with some timber he was supposed to LOOK at, then as Chris Rock said "that ain't right!"

[ellmoe]

Mike,
    I think I'm with the majority when I say that you probably got a fair price on that log. As to not calling you with a price before he picked it up, that isn't right. However it really is a "small deal", and making two trips , one to look at it and one to pick it up, pushes the economics. Every week we get calls for free trees, 90 % of the time I have to reply that it's not worth the effort to even go look at them. After all, I could be sawing and making guaranteed money, instead of maybe wasting my time for a lesser amount. When you consider the species of this log and the volume. I'd cut him some slack this time. I would, however, impress on him, that he may have caused you problems with your customer by removing logs without a agreed upon price beforehand. Make it clear that in the future you will need a dollar value first.
Mark

[Cedarman]

I would call the fellow and say something like, "I am a little puzzled over the logs you took, I think they were worth a good bit more than you offered. Maybe I'm wrong here, but could you educate me on how you determined the value? I am sure you would want to treat me fairly, so could we go over this deal?"  From this you will learn how he figured the value and then you will know if it is a good deal or not.  His point of view may be he paid more than he should as a favor to you.  It might be good to get his perspective.

Did you explain to the log buyer that you could use the logs if he did not want them?
Would you say there was 1000 to 1400 board feet in those logs?
I just have a lot of questions.

[SwampDonkey]

The guy seems quite bold to me to go ahead and take the logs out without a deal struck before hand. You sure there isn't some kind of misunderstanding? I'de cetainly have some words with the guy to see what his intensions were. I'm with the rest of the guys on the valuation of the logs though. It doesn't grow up here, but I know from conversations on the forum, your not talking about high value trees. I can see everyones point about not being interested in small quantities of wood. You guys with portables have to make a days pay at each site you set up on. But, on the other hand it's not so bad if you have alot of demand for picking up small quantities of wood with your trailor or a one ton because you can make your rounds that day to make up a load or two to take back to the mill. You just have to plan your day to do the pickups and you have to have the equipment to handle to pieces. I figure a day of picking up logs in a short radius of your setup (20 miles?) would be just as profitable as sawing. Without planning it wouldn't pay to run all over creation to pickup those small quantities of logs though. I wouldn't run after just a single puckle of logs either. Tell them to bring them to you on their pickup or trailor.

[Mike_Barcaskey]

most of the time I load and deliver the logs, otherwise I sell the rough cut
these logs were only about a mile from his house, so I dont think it was much skin off his rear end. I figured something stinks in that he wasted no time in picking them up
I'll straightened it out on the $ and the picking up, and live with the $100
If I had to dispose of the logs, and built the price into my bid I'd be  8) over the deal
Next problem is to see how much he tore up the homeowner's yard and what I have to fix. hopefully nothing.

and when it comes to tree service logs/yard logs/one or two logs I dont have trouble selling them now
when I started 6 years ago, and was not bargaining from a position of power, I couldn't give them away.
Now I have 3 guys (including this one) who will pick up and pay. They all have the metal detectors to run on the log

When I built my house I took out about 8 red and white oaks (not yard logs) May have been 14 logs 20-36 dia and 9+ feet long. Had a guy come out to buy them, he *pithed and moaned, too few logs, white oak aint worth it maybe metal (nearest house about 50 yards thruogh the woods.

after a few minutes of listening to why he didnt want them he finnally came up up a $200 price. I said wait a minute, walked back to the garage and got the 041av. wait back to the logs and started the saw. He says "What are you doing?"
I says, "Firewood"

he doubled his price and  told him to get
He's called several times over the years for logs, but I refuse to sell to him

thank you all for your replys, hopefully I can work it out and do business with this fellow in the future.
Just venting a little as I'm getting tired of being the world's favorite whipping boy
>:(

[Cedarman]

I hope you get it all worked out so that both of you feel the deal was fair.
I had some property for sale one time and a couple was interested in it. I priced it market value ( Sold it a year later for even more than I was asking at this point).  They said no way, they knew what I paid for it.  Well, I felt they begrudged me my fair value.  They ran a backhoe construction business. Since then I have never referred anyone to them, always to others. We all want to be treated fair.

So, for you're tree you want fair value and for people to follow your instructions.  Sounds fair to me.  Good luck with your business.

[ohsoloco]

A little while back I sold some tulip poplar to a mill.  Six 8'6" logs, three of which were over 30" in diameter and limbless.  I delivered them myself and made a little over $300. 

[Dangerous_Dan]

Last time I sold some Tulip Poplars I got $.35 a board foot for whole logs delivered. I don't know what scale was used. Not sure if that is a good price and it was 3 years ago.  :

[SwampDonkey]

ohsoloco,

Aspen veneer is about $280/thousand here delivered to the mill, which is 3 hours away.

[FeltzE]

Mike,

I'd like to make several different points, not necessarily related.

First, Never enter a sellers deal where the buyer picks up the merchandise without having a SALES AGGREMENT!

Second. You should have a price in mind for what your merchandise is valued at to offer to the buyer

Third, and not related. I have picked up logs from tree services for about 4 years. Only on occasion where there are multiple truck loads of GRADE timber would I even consider paying for the stock. Yard timber often contains sawmill suprises which may not always be metal in nature, and always cost more than their worth when experienced!

Timber over 30 inches in diameter is unsaleable commercially in my area. There fore less than worthless, the firewood guys don't want it, it's too big to handle, the sawmills aren't optimized for large timber either.

#1 Grade hardwoods in our area are worth $325/mbf DELIVERED to the sawmill.

Your lucky if you can get some one to pick up one-zies.

As a tree service, you should be quoting your tree removal based on the cost (labor, supplies, trucking, dump fees) for the job. If the costomer wants the log then thats less labor to remove it, lower bid price for the contract. If the customer thinks there is a "value" to the log or timber let him sell it.

I could go on with more comments but I am sure I'll offend some one with them.

I can do tree removal, have the gear, experience, can buy the insurance and do it, but I don't. I worked exclusively with 2 tree removal companies, and the aggrement was to pick it all up, not just the choice timber, they got payed to cut them down and remove them, I acted as a labor savor to pick up tons and tons of good and bad timber. We all did ok.

If you want to sell logs, then educate your self on the commerical buyers, sort your logs by grade, cut them to the proper lengths, and deliver them by the TRUCK LOAD to the staging yards or samills. That will be your best and most reliable course of action.

Eric

[rebocardo]

I do almost all urban trees and I tell you, you can't even give a 48" DBH white oak away unless you haul it to a pulp place. I tried here to get some to help and even for $1200 I could not get anyone to help me take down a 48" DBH white oak at my wife's church. The ad is still in the wanted section. The tree is now in my driveway as firewood and lumber.

Most urban trees are considered less then pulp by most tree service companies and they usually charge what the tip fee is at the dump for the tree removal. Many of the places around here chip most if not all of the tree and carry it all to the dump or a land fill. Unless someone is clearing a lot and hauling a full tractor trailer full of oak, it gets cut up into 1-2 foot sections and goes to the landfill or chipper. Urban trees usually have no value as wood because there is no market for it, especially for a small amount (less then a trailer full).

I think your buyer may have looked at what you had, shrugged his shoulders, given you $100, figured maybe I can get $200 for the whole load or break even and hauled it away thinking he was HELPING you. He certainly was helping the land owner. As a firewood it is rated just about cottonwood:

http://www.mb-soft.com/juca/print/firewood.html

and you can't get much lower then Fair and its 14#.

If that was me I probably would have taken it for free if you were a friend, otherwise I would have charged you $100+ to remove pine, aspen, or any other soft wood. I certainly never would have paid anything at all for it unless it was oak, hickory, or cherry.

The time to determine a price you would like or regret is before you have someone take a look at it instead of leaving it open ended. You left it to someone else's discretion and did not like the result. Next time give the person a take it or leave it price and you both will be happy with the deal.

I would thank him, take the $100 in check form, sign it and give it all to the owner, and call it a learned lesson and be friends with everyone. Better trees will come your way.

[etat]

I would thank him, take the $100 in check form, sign it and give it all to the owner, and call it a learned lesson and be friends with everyone. Better trees will come your way.

I don't know that much about logs but I tend to agree with this.  The guy might a got just a bit of the best of you but you probably learned a lesson that's much more valuable than what you might have either lost, or gained.  You 'might' need the guy again and now you have the knowledge that you need to make the deal in advance.  If you cut all ties with him you won't ever stand a chance to maybe make a better deal in the future and recover some of your loses.

[Ironwood]

ALL GOOD POINTS! Reid