2 yrs ago I signed a contract for $8.00 a ton to clear smaller pine trees, its called chip and saw, they chip it up and make plywood and whatever else. Mostly due to rain, they never came and cut the timber,,, a year later I renewed the contract for a year, they still never came and cut it. 2 weeks ago they wanted to renew the contract ------------- price ---------- $4.50 a ton. I said I"ll wait. Naive me,,, I thought it would have been higher.

You have to be kidding us.

Timber.

The guys in the middle are raking in the dough.

The paper mills are still largely shut down. The chip portion of chip and saw, usually goes into paper, so prices a depressed for chip and saw.

^This!!!! All chip-n-saw can be use as pulpwood, but not all pulpwood can be used as chip-n-saw even though in some cases they are the same size and species tree.

I assume you got paid for the estimated tonnage each time you signed/renewed the contract. When you renewed the contract a year later was a timber cruise done to reassess the tonnage that had been added in the previous year?

Dang Bro that sounds ridiculously low.

Good friend in Alabama has a pretty good sized timber outfit and said going rate there for pulp wood which is the same think you are talking about I believe is $8-$10/ton right now. He said it really depends on the density of the timber on a track of land and how far it is to the mill from where he is cutting that changes pricing he spends on it.

I get this question at least once a day, as i work for the state forestry agency in TX. Timber prices and lumber prices are very very loosely related. There is no shortage of standing timber, and the mills are not hurting for raw product. They are not going to pay top dollar for anything that is not in demand. The demand is in the finished product, and just like fuel and ammo, as long as people are paying stupid prices, they are going to keep pricing at stupid levels.

There are 5 major companies that produce most of the lumber in the US. When you have that, it is no different than the oil industry really. Check out Weyerhaeuser, Georgia Pacific, Rayonier, West Fraser and Canfor's investment profiles over the last 24 months.

Here is a good article to take a look at.: https://www.vox.com/22410713/lumber-prices-shortage.

I needed a 2x2 to make a cigar box guitar for a birthday present. I usually go to a real lumberyard and pick up a piece of maple. When I called, he said he was out of stock. I finally glued up 1x2's to get a 3 foot long piece.

Great info and great read. Thanks for the link.
Looks like they are up anywhere from 200% to over 300% from a year ago today. Guess some cash put in them about a year ago would have yielded a big payoff!

On a side note a friend who is building their retirement home right now on their family farm told me this. Their home will be 2100 sf so about of average size in the area. A month or so ago they got their first quote on the lumber, it was $74k. Then 2 weeks later they got a 2nd quote and it went up to $84k for the same materials. Monday they were finally ready to start framing and got their final quote and it had gone up to $99k. That is almost a 38% increase in about a 5 week time frame. This quote does include doors and windows the way I understand it.

Something is broken right now in this country for this to be going on!

Here is another brief article that was posted today.

https://www.southernforests.org/new...-southern-forest-owners-2013-so-what-now