A forester with a can of orange paint showed up to our hunting land walk
My coworker has been talking about buying hunting land for two years and last month he actually got serious about a piece, so I tagged along because I had nothing else going on Saturday. I figured we'd walk around, look at a creek, argue about the price on the drive home.
Instead there was a forester waiting at the gate. Older guy, canvas pants, a can of orange spray paint on his belt and one of those D-tape things for measuring trunks. He worked for the seller, and he did not care at all that we were two people who had never bought anything with a tree on it.
He walked us up a hill and started tapping trunks with the back of his hand like he was checking melons. Said the stand was planted in 2003, got thinned once already, and you could see it in the spacing. Then he said the part I keep thinking about: the seller isn't harvesting right now because prices are soft, and the trees just keep getting bigger while he waits. The wood gets more valuable as it gets older because more of it grades out as sawtimber instead of pulp.
I asked what happens if prices are still soft in five years. He shrugged and said then it's a bigger tree.
My coworker didn't buy it. Somebody else did, a week later, cash. But I drove home thinking about an asset where doing nothing is an actual strategy and not just procrastination.