Those of you that remember our tabloid Woodland News publication might remember that the lead article was always a story/illustration about the benefits of the bidding process when selling your timber.
With a current healthy marketplace for high quality hardwood timber, bidding has produced some excellent results for both our large institutional landowners as well as our small private forest landowners. Here are a few recent bid opening results (redacted for privacy) to illustrate the results we are seeing.
A recent timber sale (“Timber Sale A”) in northwestern PA is a perfect illustration of how competitive bidding works well for the landowner. FORECON cruised and marked a timber sale that contained approximately 120,000 board feet (Doyle Log Rule), with a mixture of hard maple, black cherry, red maple, white ash, red oak, and hemlock. The hard maple averaged about 160 board feet/tree, the cherry about 170 bf/t, the red maple about 225 bf/t, the white ash about 220 bf/t, the red oak about 81 bf/t, and the hemlock about 53 bf/t. A bid prospectus containing a list of the number of trees and volumes by species, along with terms of the sale and sale maps, was mailed out to prospective bidders.
The results were as follows:
There was fantastic bid participation in this sale, with twelve different bidders responding. The high bid was 45% higher than the low bid, with 5 bids below the average and 7 above. It was estimated that the black cherry brought over $1,250/MBF (Doyle); hard maple came in at about $885/Mbf; red maple at about $600/Mbf; white ash about $625/Mbf; and red oak about $675/Mbf.
Another sale of note (“Timber Sale B”) in southwestern NY shows a strong demand as well for quality hardwoods. FORECON also cruised and marked this timber sale, a small offering which only contained about 39,500 board feet (Doyle Log Rule), and had a mixture of white ash (120 bf/tree), hard maple (215 bf/tree), black cherry (285 bf/tree), and soft maple (260 bf/tree).
A bid prospectus containing a list of the number of trees and volumes by species, along with terms of the sale and sale maps, was also mailed out to prospective bidders.
The results for this sale were as follows:
Though the bids on this timber sale were more tightly grouped than the first one, the results were also as good. The high bid was 35% higher than the lowest bid, with 2 bids above the average, and 5 bids below. It was estimated that the white ash brought about $550/Mbf (Doyle); hard maple about $770/MBF; black cherry about $1,320/Mbf; and soft maple about $440/Mbf.
These are just several recent timber sale examples. Please keep in mind that results depend on a variety of circumstances; quality of timber, access conditions, and prospectus terms are just some of them. The timber markets in our region remain very active and hot, and we will continue to bring more insight into bidding results in subsequent posts.
If you have timber you may be interested in selling, and want a long-standing professional forestry firm representing your best interests in the process, please don’t hesitate to call any of our FORECON offices. Our foresters would be very happy to speak with you about the markets, and more importantly, your goals and objectives for your land. You can use the form below and one of our foresters will reach out to you promptly.