Land will be good to have when the End of the World happens.
Coming up soon.

Good read. The highest returns on cutting it seems may have been during the peak of the real estate boom before it went down years ago and never really recovered for small owners. What a lot of people don't realize is we export a lot of timber. Longleaf is a good alternative if you don't really need the return throughout period, but at the end. According to the models over life of timber payout is about the same and it takes a burn better in areas prescribed burning is allowed, provides better turkey and quail habitat, and less spraying. Would be good to have a mix of hardwoods, loblolly, and longleaf in different areas for a large tract for all game management. This would provide acorns and greenery for a wider variety of game, especially doing prescribed burns routinely in pines. Natural generation of all timber could be a cheap aternative with select thinning and prescribed burning. I have seen an area this has been done and can provide a cheap alternative in swampy areas with restricted equipment access just may not have as much return.

I purchased quite a bit of International Paper Co pine stands in No Alabama in 2006. Great property that had been intensely managed for pine for decades. Thought I’d be able to make a decent income growing timber and possibly build a couple of sub-divisions. Boy was I wrong. . Of course IP shut down their HUGE paper mill in Courtland and 2008 happened. We’ve had to be creative and do lots of multi use management activities just to scratch some income from property. Now timber sales are about 1/3 of our income and we make up for it with farming and hunting. All 3 operations bleed red every year. Best way to make a small fortune.....

Is to start farming with a large fortune!

I don't see how it's even close to feasible for someone starting from nothing.
Well maybe if you grew jazz cabbage but not traditional crops.

I think there was one of these hidden in 257's statement.

Pair my post to the end of riverwoods. That's an old saying.

And a true one

Here is some investment timber in Houston co that cut last week

Looks just like a stand I saw on 95 south of Columbia.

If you just dump a bunch of cash into something you don’t know schit about, 9/10 times you’re gonna lose money.

Adapt to the circumstances to cut losses. Pine beetles? Pine straw while you got it. Hardwood diseases? Cut em all and sell firewood. You’ll lose every bit of your investment if you just sit around and do nothing. I don’t have a subscription to the WSJ but I need to buy one just to read the article.

They had about 400 acres like that, property is close to the state park

There is a post on here somewhere where Rebleman says pine will pay 8-12% annually.

There is a link to the WSJ article on here somewhere as well. Was discussed a few weeks ago .

8-12% annually is healthy. Wonder if that will hold true going forward for the next 5-20years.

That’s what some of our looked like in Cullman Co after the 4/11 tornadoes

I read the article. It described several scenarios of individual landowners that decided to grow timber for one reason or another. One in particular spoke about one person who received ‘free’ seedlings and then hired labor from a parking lot to plant them. Then, 30 years later, the landowner went back to harvest them to get rich just to find out they weren’t as valuable as he thought they would be.

(Stepping on soapbox.)

This is exactly why some people need consultants. Some landowners get lulled into passive management. If it is truly an investment, you have to treat it as one. You have to take advantage of spike markets, know when the value maximizing time is to sell.

You also have to exploit nontimber income markets. Easements, rights of ways, pine straw, hunting, fill dirt, and oil and gas all can have a significant impact on your ROI. Sadly, most landowners never consider these options.

Sure, timber markets have declined and we need them to improve but I rarely run across anyone who regrets investing in timberland.

gotta love it if you wanna have timber land. more recreation value, compared to growing timber

I respectfully disagree completely. You have to remove the emotion if you truly want to maximize value.

I personally can't stand a pine tree. They completely ruined row cropping in my home town. Up here every one of my farmers owns dozers/trackhoes. When not in the field they're cleaning up ground for more production. Death to the pines.

making money on wood takes time or prostitutes. It just comes on down to how the lumber is is worked.