A Timber Buyer Made You an Offer: Read This Before You Sign

The letter looks official. Sometimes it's a knock on the door instead, or a business card tucked in the gate: a timber buyer has been through the area, noticed your woods, and is offering real money for trees you weren't planning to think about this year. Often it's a specific, surprisingly large number.

Here's the first thing to know: this is normal. Buyers cruise rural townships for standing timber the way scrap dealers watch for farm auctions. An unsolicited offer doesn't mean anything is wrong, and it doesn't automatically mean the offer is unfair.

Here's the second thing: the offer is a bid, not an appraisal. A bid is prepared by the party who profits by paying less, and it's made before any competing buyer has seen the same trees. Those are just facts about what a bid is. The rest of this article is about what to do with one.

What the offer actually says, and what it leaves out

Most unsolicited offers share a shape. They name a dollar figure, a rough description of what's being bought, and a deadline. The description is usually something like "the marked timber" or "all merchantable oak." What they usually don't include tells you more than what they do:

• An inventory or tree list. Ask which trees, species and quantities are included and how they were estimated. A sample cruise may not include a complete tree-by-tree tally.
• A map of the sale area. Where does the cutting stop? Property lines, wet areas, the corner of the woods you care most about?
• Payment basis. Is this a fixed price for defined timber or a rate applied to measured production? For per-unit offers, confirm the log rule, units, scaling party and deductions.
• Contract terms. Payment timing, harvest deadline, road and fence repair, residual-tree damage, cleanup, and who carries insurance.
• What's left standing. The offer prices the trees that leave. The value of your next twenty years of growth depends on the trees that stay.

Why first offers come in buyer-shaped

No villainy required. Just incentives. A buyer's first number is an opening position in a negotiation the landowner usually doesn't realize has started. It's also priced for an uncontested sale: no competing bids, no marked boundaries, no one checking grade calls.

NC State Extension summarizes research associating professional forestry assistance with better sale outcomes. Those historical studies are not a prediction for a Michigan property. The practical value is clearer inventory, sale design, competition and contract oversight; the result still depends on the timber and the market.

Seven questions to ask the buyer today, politely

You don't need forestry expertise to ask these, and a reputable buyer won't flinch at any of them:

1. Can you give me the tree list from your cruise: species, counts, and diameters?
2. Is the price lump-sum or by unit, and how did you get to it?
3. Exactly which trees or which acres? Is there a map?
4. When will I be paid, and how do deposits, production records and final payment work for this sale structure?
5. What's your timeline to harvest, and what happens if weather pushes it?
6. Who repairs roads, fences, and crossings, and is that in writing?
7. Can I have two weeks to look this over?

The two-week move

Use the time for three things. First, don't sign anything, including a "non-binding" letter of intent; some aren't as non-binding as they sound. Second, walk your own woods and decide what you actually want from them: income now, better timber later, wildlife, a place your kids hunt. The right answer to an offer depends on goals the buyer never asked about. Third, get an independent set of eyes on the trees. That means someone paid by you, not by the mill.

What an independent review changes

Sometimes nothing, and that's worth knowing too. An honest review can conclude the offer is fair for what's there, and you sign with confidence instead of doubt. More often it changes the shape of the deal: which trees sell, which stay, what the contract requires, and whether one buyer's number survives contact with three competitors' bids. Occasionally it stops a mistake: a high-grade cut dressed up as a "select harvest," walnut bought at firewood arithmetic, boundaries that drift onto the neighbor.

As for cost: every property is different, so review and sale work are quoted site by site, in writing, before anything begins. The first conversation is how we find out whether it's even worth your money.

If you take nothing else from this page

• An unsolicited offer is a bid, not an appraisal. Treat it as the start of price discovery, not the end.
• Allow time to understand the sale scope and written terms before signing.
• Ask for the tree list, the map, and the terms in writing.
• Use the available review period to define the sale and get independent advice before committing.
• The trees that stay matter as much as the trees that go.