If you have not been to your county extension office, you need to run down there ASAP. Taxes on timber are clear as mud and the office can help with taxes and other timber questions. Our local office just had, or will have very soon, another class on timber taxes.
NC state used to have a phone number one could call to get timber prices for previous quarters for different regions of the state. I did a quick search and found this,
Price Report | Extension Forestry. The reports are in tons not MBF so you would likely have to convert. There should be other reports in MBF. The phone service the state had years ago was in MBF.
Timber prices are very localized and market dependent.
When we sold timber around 2000 we were at the height of timber prices. Both pine and hardwood was $300-400 a MBF and we sold both. While both woods were the same price, we made as much, if not more money on pine, than hardwood because hardwood does not grow as many trees per acre as pine. Most of our woods were hardwood with one fiveish acre section that was all pine. The pine was clear cut and the rest selective cut. We cut about 30ish acres and left out about 15-20 acres. In hindsight we should have cut it all since wind storms have taken down trees we wanted to keep.
Using a timber agent, getting a management plan, and having a timber logging contract that specifies logging BMP is a very good thing but one still must watch the operation. Both you and the agent.
Later,
Dan
