Purchasing woods

[TapTapTap]

I think the market price of raw land with hardwood stands is way too high to support a sugaring business. Even with neglecting the cost of land it is challenging to be profitable. Actually, you need to neglect your labor costs too.

[Michael Greer]

Gosh that's a question with too many variables. The biggest factor would be where you are; 200 acres is worth way more in one area than another. Secondly, you have to recognize that sellers are motivated by entirely different ideas. One fellow may recognize the value of a real sugar bush, while another just sees trees. A third may envision a hillside of upscale vacation homes and the boat he's gonna buy with the big bucks. Around here in northern New York large wooded tracts get bought up, clearcut and chipped, and sold off to the next fool. It has far less to do with your plans than those of the seller.

[Ed R]

This really is location dependent. In the fall of 2017 I purchased 77 acres in the UP of Michigan next to the 70 I already owned. There are just under 2500 taps on that 77 acres grouped on just under 40 acres due to a pond, open fields and a popple stand being on the balance of the property. One of the 20 acre sections could come to straight to my planned sugar house the other 20 would have to probably go to a woods tank. I will receive approximately $12,000 from thinning activities and the popple cut (to be completed this fall). I paid $66,000 for the property. If this property was on the south side of the bridge it would cost at least 3x more, just as rec land without the timber value. There are still some places where land prices are still relatively low and bulk syrup produced on cheaper land still pays the same as that produced on 3-4 thousand dollar an acre land. I have not made a drop of syrup yet on the up property but the woods are there so when I retire and reverse snowbird migrate I can make all the syrup my older body can get thru the snow and deal with. Until then I can still enjoy heading up 7-8 times a year fishing, hunting and in a week or two hopefully picking some morels and getting bit to heck by blackflies.