Timberland buyers need to figure out what a tract’s timber is worth before they submit a purchase offer.

Many timberland sellers provide different types of documents that “show” the value of their property’s timber. Sellers have given me “timber valuations” that go from oral statements, to handwritten notes on the back of an envelope (Red Oak = $50,000; White Oak = $75,000) to numerical cruises ranging from two pages to more than 100.

I’ve found that many of these documents overestimate the volume of timber that a timber buyer will ever pay for, which, of course, inflates the dollar value of the timber the timberland seller is selling and the timberland buyer is purchasing. Read more »

I looked at an older farmhouse on 40 acres last week that has…issues.

It was built around 1890 in the boxy three-over-three style common in its area. As originally constructed, it had two stories, six rooms, front porch, short ceilings, no bathroom, no electricity, no closets to speak of, no insulation, wood siding and a standing-seam metal roof. The central heating system was a single flue pipe with six ports, three on each floor, for wood-burning stoves. The house sat on a stone foundation, such that the bottom of the floor joist was about eight inches from the surface of the ground.

Over the years, things had been done. Some properly; others might be described as fitting comfortably in the “jack-leg” school of home improvements.

A tight bath-sink-toilet bathroom had been stubbed out on the ground floor. The kitchen had a sink and few other necessities. The rooms were adequately sized, but would become smallish if closets were built in.

The water system was a gravity-fed spring located about 500 yards away, across a river. The small-diameter plastic line’s low point was six feet below the river’s bottom. Water flow in the house depended on vigorous hoping. Read more »