Mixing Forestry and Real Estate

I had a client approach me about their property. After a conversation with them, it was apparent that they wanted to sell their property but not immediately. They have a 5 – 10 year time frame for selling. They were interested in generating some immediate cash flow from the property. I did a site visit and it was apparent that there was some low hanging fruit….lots of merchantable timber. About 75 acres were planted Loblolly pines about 15 years old and ready for a first thinning. About 110 acres were natural pines and hardwoods probably 40 – 45 years old. The stand was heavily stocked so there was a great opportunity to remove lots of timber and leave a very nice stand of trees.

I put a video together showing the before, operation in progress and the after.

The moral of the story, if you are a timberland owner, there may be a opportunity for you to generate some cash and still sell a very attractive tract of land…. See you can have your cake and eat it too!!

To view my listings visit AllSouthLandandHomes.com  If you have questions about buying or selling LAND, contact G. Kent Morris, ALC, RF @ 706.457.0090

Tell Me More About Surveying!

Although I am not a surveyor, I get questions about surveying from time to time so I thought the topic worthy of a post.

Purpose – The purposes of a survey are numerous, the most common are: 1) Determine property lines and corners and 2) Determine the number of acres in a tract or parcel of land.

Benefit –  There again there are many but I will only list a few: 1) Determine exact number of acres, many properties are sold on a $ Per Acre, so the final sales price is determined by a survey and 2) Discovery of encroachments including fences, gardens, buildings etc

Process – Obviously with great leaps in technology and the large number of satellites in use for Global Positioning Systems, surveying techniques have changed as well and in my opinion not all for the best. A decade or so ago, surveyors used transits to measure angles and distances. This required having light of sight requiring the property line being cleared of brush and limbs. This resulted in easy identification of the property lines after the survey was completed.  

Surveying today uses differential GPS requiring 2 receivers. One receiver at a know position provides positional error correction to the roving or working receiver. The corrections are transmitted in real-time by radio link or preformed by post survey processing. Of course this provides very accurate measurements but no line-of-sight. A survey can be completed now without the property lines being marked or flagged on the ground. The use of GPS technology allows the surveyor to move from corner to corner and usually it is by the easiest and most convenient method.

Remember all the Sine and Cosine calculations in your Geometry class? Well survey accuracy is measured by ‘survey closure’. This is the ratio by which the survey fails to close to the perimeter of the tract surveyed. It is a mathematical exercise.

Here is the take away….If you want the property lines marked and flagged, ASK FOR IT BUT THERE WILL BE AN ADDITIONAL COST!!

If you would like to see my listings, visit AllSouthLandandHomes.com  Questions about buying or selling LAND? Contact G. Kent Morris, ALC, RF @ 706.457.0090