Hi there, I bought 18 acres of woodland in NH that I'm going to build on, and decided to sell the logging rights- for soft wood, before building. I just got the contract from the logging company though, and the prices seem incredibly low.
Species Estimate Value
White Pine 30 mbf 150 per thousand
Hemlock 10 mbf 60 per thousand
Whole Tree Chips 300 tons .50 per ton
Firewood 50 cords 15 per cord
Pallet 5 mbf 100 per thousand
In general, from what I've read, a land owner would make 30-50%, ballpark....
Can anyone offer some general input?
for starters, it appears you have a whole lot of pulp wood, 300 tons is a lot of pulp like 11 chip van loads, vs maybe 10? log loads, off 18 acres thats not much.
So its a lot of work to deal with pulp logs, and they don't pay Shizz so your eating it on the marketable timber
It also has a whole lot to do with what the mills are paying near you. And that I have no idear, unless your dealing with the mill direct?
Either way logs don't seem like they pay much, but they do add up to a decent chunk of change at the end of the day. going off the quoted estimates you should net right around $6500, for basically garbage wood its better then a poke in the eye.
Should you wait? depends I doubt the soft wood market on the east coast is ever going to improve (they planted too much when pulp prices were good) so perhaps scalping it and planting back to hardwoods would be better? I suggest consulting a local forester
Anyhow, for example around here, pulp prices at the mill are $24? for hardwoods and the low 30's for "soft" woods (assuming they are even taking hardwoods...) when trucking is going to be roughly $400 a load, or more... and you only net 30 tons per truck, thats only $720 for a load of hardwood pulp, which likely isn't enough to pay the logger, let alone the land owner.
