Regional Lumber/ Log Pricing reports

[zato_ichi]

I found these reports while trying to google the forestry service about logs and whether they sell them outright or not.

I didn't really manage to get an answer as far as Tennessee is concerned but thought that maybe someone is interested in these numbers.

They don't really tell the story of how much a log costs as they are all priced per ton retail.

Maybe someone with insight can explain these reports....

http://gp.com/forestry/pdf/midsouth.pdf

http://www.state.tn.us/agriculture/forestry/tfbp.pdf

http://gp.com/forestry/pdf/midsouth.pdf

http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hva/timberp/amv.htm

[adubar]

zato_ichi,

If you are looking for house log prices, you won't find them in reports like these. What you want to know is what house logs cost delivered in your local area. Sometimes you can get this as a rough number from local log building associations, but mostly it takes a lot of calling and canvassing.

An owner-builder will pay at, higher, or lower than the local market price--it all has to do with your leg work.
I liken it to buying steel for fabrication. You need to know the market prices for new, used, scrap, but as a small time user so that you can temper your offers/deals, you need to scavange for the deals that the pro outfits usually won't find--they simply use the going rates as to them "time is money." If they can't find it at a better price with a few phone calls, they will purchase at whatever price someone asks and the "market" is selling at. Same goes for timber.


-A

[zato_ichi]

Thanks for the reply! I didn't expect that these were even close to house log prices...I have no idea how to find that out, but expect that once I've been to the class I'll be prepared to find logs for the best price.

This is just me rooting around on the internet to get a feel for how the timber industry works. There were a lot more reports available but they were all by subscription. I found it interesting how much the price varied by species.

[adubar]

zato_ichi,

There are many levels to the timber insdustry. Your local university should have reference materials on this information.

However, as for building a log home, you really only need to know your local market or markets, which is a far cry from understanding the "timber industry" as a whole. In practice, you just need to understand enough of your local marktet(s) to purchase logs once, perhaps a few times, but you are not going to be hedging against historic trends or predicting national/global markets---you don't need that many logs!

Most of what you will find online, and off hand, might make interesting reading, but it won't matter much locally.

There are tried and true methods for sourcing house logs.

The class covers this very well.

-adubar