Landowner Guide

How to sell timber off your land

Selling standing timber is one transaction with four moving parts: finding out what is actually growing out there, deciding what should be cut and what should stay, getting real buyers to compete for it, and writing down what the crew may and may not do on your ground. Most of the money a landowner leaves on the table is lost in the first and third of those. This page walks the whole sale in the order it happens, and points you at the mills, foresters, and tools you need at each step.

Find a consulting forester See the mills near you

“I want to sell my timber” — start here

That sentence usually turns up after somebody knocked on the door with an offer and a reason you should decide today. Three things come before the answer: get a consulting forester who is working for you, have the timber marked and cruised so you know the volume you are selling, and make buyers compete for the same defined lot instead of taking the first number quoted at you. The rest of this page is those steps in the order they happen.

When you are ready for the competing part, put the tract out for sealed bids and let the buyers within hauling distance answer in writing, on the same deadline.

Step one

Get a forester before you get an offer

If you take one thing off this page, take this: hire a consulting forester before you talk price with anybody. A consulting forester is hired by the landowner and works for the landowner. That is the whole difference. A timber buyer or a procurement forester is competent and often perfectly straight, but they are paid to buy wood well for the mill or dealer that employs them. Their job is not to get you the top dollar.

What the consulting forester does first is find out what you own. They walk the tract, mark the trees to be cut, and cruise the timber - sampling plots across the stand to estimate volume by species and by product. That cruise is the single document that changes the balance of a timber sale. Without it you are negotiating against somebody who has walked the property with a prism and a tally sheet while you are working off a guess - the arithmetic behind a prism plot is on this site if you want to see what he is doing out there. With it, every buyer is bidding on the same defined lot, and you can tell a good offer from a poor one.

Consulting foresters are usually paid a commission on the sale price or a negotiated fee, and they will tell you which before they start. Ask what the arrangement is, ask for references from landowners they have sold for, and ask whether they will administer the harvest as well as sell it - somebody should be checking on the crew while the job runs.

Your state forestry agency and the land-grant extension service also run landowner assistance programs. They will not sell your timber for you, but they will walk your ground, talk through management options, and point you to registered or licensed consultants working in your county. That help is a phone call away and typically costs nothing.

Step two

Know what you have

"How much is my timber worth" has no answer until four things are known, and they are the same four things every buyer is working out while they walk your tract.

Species and quality: A stand of planted pine, a bottom full of mixed red oak, and a ridge of scrub are three different markets. Within a species, straightness, limb height, and defect decide whether a stem goes for a high-value product or gets chipped.
Volume and stem size: Volume comes off the cruise, expressed in tons, cords, or board feet depending on the region and the product - and which log rule the board feet were scaled with changes the number before anybody argues about price. Bigger, cleaner stems earn more per unit, and a tract with enough volume to keep a crew busy is worth more per acre than a scattered one.
Access and terrain: Legal access, a road a loaded truck can use, room for a deck, ground that carries equipment in wet weather, steep slopes, and stream crossings all show up in the price. Access problems come straight out of the bid.
Haul distance to a mill: Wood is heavy and low-value per pound; trucking is a large share of what it costs to deliver a load. The further your gate is from a mill that wants your product, the less is left over to pay you for the tree.

It also helps to know that one tree usually leaves the woods as more than one product. The small stuff and the tops go for pulpwood, headed for a pulp, paper, or chip mill. Mid-sized pine stems often sell as chip-n-saw, which yields both small lumber and chips. The best large stems are sawtimber, and the very best hardwood butt logs may go for veneer or poles. Those products carry different prices and are bought by different mills, which is why a buyer sorts logs at the landing and why a single "price per acre" number rarely means much.

There is no published rate sheet you can look up for standing timber - stumpage is negotiated locally, tract by tract. What you can get is context and arithmetic:

Market boardDelayed quotes on the futures and equities that move wood demand. Context, not a stumpage price.Forestry calculatorsBasal area, stand density, the Doyle / Scribner / International log rules, and cubic volume - every step of the arithmetic shown.

Step three

How timber is actually sold

Two separate decisions get muddled together constantly. The first is what you are paid on. The second is how the price gets set. You choose one from each column.

What you are paid on

Lump-sum sale

One agreed price for a defined block of timber - the marked trees, or everything meeting a written specification inside a mapped boundary - normally paid in full before cutting starts. Once the money is paid, the buyer owns the timber and carries the risk on what it actually yields.

Simple: one payment, no scale tickets to chase, no arguments about weight.
Predictable: you know the number before a saw runs.
Tax: lump-sum sales are generally the cleaner ones to report and are commonly treated as a capital transaction rather than ordinary income - but that depends on your circumstances, so ask a tax professional.
The catch: it only works in your favour if the timber was cruised. You are selling a volume, sight unseen, that the buyer has already estimated.

Per-unit / pay-as-cut

An agreed price per ton, cord, or thousand board feet by product, paid as the wood is cut and delivered. Your payment is calculated from the scale or weight tickets the mill issues on each load.

You share the upside: if the tract carries more volume than expected, you are paid for it.
You share the risk: weather, a mill quota, or a market turn mid-harvest lands on you too.
Requires oversight: insist on copies of every ticket, know which mill each load goes to, and have somebody - your forester - checking the sort and the counts.
Common where:volume is genuinely hard to estimate, or on thinnings where the product mix is uncertain.

How the price gets set

Sealed-bid sale

The timber is marked and cruised, a written prospectus goes to every qualified buyer within hauling distance, bids come back in writing by a stated deadline, and they are opened together. You are not obliged to take the high bid, or any bid.

This is how you find out what your timber is actually worth. Buyers value the same tract differently depending on which mills they supply, what quotas they are filling that month, and how far they have to haul. The spread between the high and low bid on the same lot can be wide, and you only see it if you ask more than one.

Negotiated sale

You deal directly with one buyer and agree a price. It is faster, and it has real uses: a small salvage job, a few loads off a house lot, a long relationship with a logger who has treated you well.

The risk is plain - with nobody else at the table, the only check on the price is your own knowledge of the tract. If you negotiate, do it with a cruise in hand. And be wary of the offer that arrives unsolicited at the door with a cheque already written and a reason you must decide today.

Put the tract out to bid

Post the tract once - species, products, acreage, access, and your terms - and take sealed offers from buyers in one place instead of fielding calls one at a time.

Get bids on your timber

Step four

Find the buyers

Follow the wood and you find the buyer. Sawmills, pulp and chip mills, pellet plants, veneer plants, and pole yards are the end customers for everything cut off your tract. Between them and you stand timber dealers and logging contractors, who buy stumpage, harvest it, and deliver loads against the mills' quotas. When you sell standing timber you are usually selling to one of those - and what they can pay you is set by what the mills are paying them, minus what it costs to cut and haul.

That is why the mill map matters so much. Haul distance is a real driver of tract value, and knowing which mills sit inside a reasonable radius of your gate tells you which products have a home near you and who ought to be on your bid list. A tract an hour from three mills that want southern yellow pine is in a different position than one that is three hours from anything, and where the money is made between stump and mill gate explains why that gap is so expensive.

The AXE USA mill directory carries mills across 21 states, copied from state forestry agency directories, with the products each one takes where the source lists them.

Mills by state

Not in one of those states? Start at the full mill directory, and ask your state forestry agency for its own primary wood processor list - most of them publish one.

Step five

Get it in writing

A handshake sale is how disputes start. Everything below is ordinary to put in a timber sale contract, and no reputable buyer will blink at being asked. Have an attorney who knows timber deals read it before you sign - your forester will have a template, but the signature is yours.

Price and payment terms: The price, how it is calculated, and when the money changes hands. On a lump-sum sale that usually means payment before cutting starts. On a pay-as-cut sale it means a stated payment schedule tied to scale tickets, and your right to see those tickets.
What is being cut - and what is not: Marked trees only, a species and diameter specification, or a defined area. Name the trees that stay: seed trees, den trees, yard shade, streamside buffers, anything with a fence line or a survey pin in it.
Harvest boundaries: A map and marked lines both parties have walked. Trespass onto a neighbour's timber becomes your problem as fast as it becomes theirs, and boundary disputes are the most expensive kind.
A time limit: A start and an expiry date, with any extension in writing. Without one, a contract can sit over your land through a market you wanted to sell into.
Roads, decks, and the condition on exit: Who builds and maintains the access road, where the loading deck goes, what happens to ruts, culverts, gates, and stream crossings, and what the tract has to look like when the crew leaves.
Insurance and workers' compensation: Ask for current certificates of general liability and workers' compensation from the logging contractor, issued directly by the insurer, before work begins. Logging is dangerous work and you do not want an uninsured crew on your ground.
Damage and liability: Who is responsible for damage to residual trees, fences, gates, crops, roads, and utilities, and how that gets settled. Spell out indemnity rather than assuming it.

Step six

After the crew leaves

Getting the next stand started

A harvested tract does not stay bare. Decide before the sale whether you are replanting, relying on natural regeneration, or converting the land to another use - it changes how the harvest should be done. Some states, cost-share programs, certification schemes, and conservation easements carry reforestation requirements or offer assistance, so ask your state forestry agency what applies to you. Site prep and planting are seasonal work booked in advance, and crews fill up.

Reforestation →

Best management practices

Every timber state publishes forestry best management practices - streamside buffers, stream crossings, road and skid trail layout, water bars, and how a site is retired when work ends. They exist to keep soil out of the water, and following them protects the property's soil and roads at the same time. Write BMP compliance into the contract and walk the tract with your forester when the job closes out.

State agencies →

Taxes and records

Timber sale income has its own treatment, and how it is handled can depend on how long you have owned the timber, whether you hold it as an investment or a business, and what basis you can establish in it. That is a conversation with a tax professional who has handled timber, and it is worth having before you sell rather than after - the financing, insurance and timber tax section lays out the vocabulary you will need for it. Keep the cruise, the contract, the map, the tickets, and the settlement paperwork.

Business directory →

Straight answers

Questions landowners ask

Do I actually need a forester to sell timber?

No law requires one, and plenty of timber is sold without one. But a consulting forester works for you rather than the buyer, and the first thing they do is tell you what is standing out there. Selling volume you have never measured, to a buyer who has, is the most common way a landowner ends up disappointed after the fact.

What is the difference between a lump-sum and a pay-as-cut sale?

A lump-sum sale is one agreed price for a defined block of timber, paid up front, with the buyer taking the risk on what the tract actually yields. A per-unit or pay-as-cut sale pays you on measured volume as it is delivered and scaled at the mill, so you carry more of the risk and need access to the scale tickets. Lump-sum sales are generally the simpler ones at tax time; ask a tax professional how either would be treated in your situation.

How do I know the price I am offered is fair?

By making buyers compete for a defined lot. Have the timber marked and cruised, put the same written prospectus in front of several qualified buyers, and take sealed bids opened on a stated date. A single unsolicited offer is a price, not the price - and there is no published stumpage rate you can look up to check it, because value swings by species, product, tract access, and haul distance to the nearest mill.

Do I have to clearcut?

No. A thinning removes part of the stand and leaves the rest growing, which is often the right move in a young, crowded stand. A regeneration harvest removes the stand so a new one can be established. Which one fits depends on stand age, stocking, species, and what you want the property to be in twenty years - that is exactly the question a consulting forester is paid to answer.

My timber was hit by a storm. Does that change anything?

Yes, and mainly the clock. Down and broken timber degrades - stain, insects, and decay take the sawtimber value first - and after a wide storm a great many landowners are trying to sell damaged wood into the same mills at once. Salvage sales are usually worth less than they would have been standing. Get a forester out quickly, and be realistic about what buyers can still use.

Where AXE USA stands

AXE USA is a directory and a marketplace. We are not your forester, your tax advisor, or your law firm, and nothing on this page is advice about your tract. The mill and business listings here are compiled from public records and state agency directories, so details change and mistakes survive - confirm a phone number, a product line, and a company's standing yourself before you rely on it, and take professional advice on your own ground before you sign anything.

AXE USA does not verify the licenses, insurance, credentials or business standing of the people and companies listed here. Listings are built from what the member told us. Check credentials yourself before you hire anyone, sign anything, or send money.

Ready to take offers?

Get the timber cruised, decide what stays, then let buyers compete for it. Post the tract for sealed bids, and check which mills sit inside hauling distance of your gate before you pick an offer.

Get bids Mill directory