Greetings Elizabeth:
Don't sell these trees until you determine their actual, fair market value--involve a professional forester to protect your financial interests and the ecological integrity of your forest land. Some of your trees may be worth a mere $53; however, some of your trees may be worth more than $1000. If you don’t know how much your timber is worth, then you obviously need to involve an unbiased, third-party professional forester to assist you in the marketing and administration of your timber sale.
The vast majority of Illinois’s forest landowners are at a huge disadvantage when selling timber to loggers/timber buyers. Why? Loggers and timber buyers are in the business of buying standing timber at the lowest possible price to maximize profits—this doesn’t make them crooks, this is simply the way their business model operates. In stark comparison to this logger/timber buyer business model, forest landowners must be compelled to market and sell their timber at the highest possible price—to the most competent and trained logger—to maximize profits and to maximize return on investment in timber and land (i.e., you paid money for the timber and land, and you’ve paid taxes for “X” number of years) while also conserving and managing the forest resource for continued and future benefit.
So what should a forest landowner do when placed in this all too common situation? The answer is so simple, “Contact a professional consulting forester to assist you in the marketing, administration, and sale of standing timber.”
To view a list of professional consulting foresters who service Illinois forest landowners, please visit the following Web site:
http://dnr.state.il.us/conservation/forestry/CONSULTING_FORESTERS.pdf
