[Closed] Buying woodland?

Woodlands.co.uk sell woods but I think they also have a few articles on what you can and can't do with your wood once you've bought it

You may be surprised but you dont have to be rich to buy woodland. There is quite a lot of it for sale, I was talking with my boss the other day he lives in the south lakes and buys and sells land and seems to know what hes on about. He was telling me he had been offered woodland for as little as £1 an acre, grassland has been £2500 an acre for a while and you can make money from it if you work it and woodland is seen as non profitable. Now I dont know the ins and outs whether you had to buy 100s of acres or it was just 2 or 3 but it crossed my mind that it may be more feasable than I first thought to do as you suggest.

Grassland at £2500 an acre! where? it's got to be eastern Europe, in the UK expect to pay £8K to £10K for bigger parcels of land and up to £24K for smaller ones. That is of course assuming the land has no chance, ever, of getting any type of planning consent.

Just curious but any reason you can't buy a bit of woodland and then do like [url= http://www.****/news/article-2004203/Real-life-Robinson-Crusoe-spent-26-years-living-beachfront-shack-driftwood-evicted-remote-home.html ]Driftwood Dave[/url] (although it would be your woodland)?

Very occasionally you might see cheap forest land - but this is near always a clear fell site that has to be replanted (legally). All tree felling requires a felling licence which will stipulate that the site has to be replanted within 2 years (for example). The FC has the power to replant the land and claim all costs (very rarely does this).
So an owner might get a felling licence on their site, sell the timber and then sell the land and the new owner has responsibility to replant it.
Once was involved professionally in a site were a couple had bought about 20 acres of clearfell, fairly cheaply and were planning on living in a caravan and on replanting slowly over the next 5 or 10 yrs. In fact their 2 years of the felling licence were up as soon as they bought it - but their solicitor hadn't bothered to tell them.

I did a few years ago. We've got about 3 acres which we're trying to look after, but after about 50 years of neglect it's hard work, but good fun, plus we don't have to buy wood for the wood burner. Depends where you are but costs and availability will vary. You're normally not allowed to build in woods, but the odd overnight stay in a tent is ok. Also, most for sale now are larger woods sub-divided so your neighbours may not like it if you do anything too noisy.
Tree house and bike trail are on the list of things to do, just need a bit more time.
Happy to answer any more question, but just on my way out so may be a few hours.

IanB to the forum please.

You can buy woodland as an investment, a bit like a pension plan or as something for your kids depending on how long it has before the timber can be harvested. Could be 60 years. And in the meantime you can make trails on it 🙂

...and if you did, would you chuck wood, chuck?

sturmey - Member
grassland has been £2500 an acre for a while

lol let me know where exactly ??

Mate of mine had an absolute bargain recently. 23acres for 80-odd grand.
This was with absolute no chance of planning permission, about 15acres of which are marshland and not suitable for the horses he has...and as said, this is regarded as a great bargain!!

Great stuff. Really got me thinking! Suspect price of wood is just going to keep going up so might be more of an investment than I first thought.

yeh woods a great investment but one your only going to be able to cash in once in a lifetime the other 65 years your going to have to maintain and repair money doesnt grow on trees

Not sure buying for an investment is a good idea. I'm sure we could sell our bit for more than we paid, but that wasn't the plan. We just wanted to own a wood. The free wood to feed the log burner and any 'profit' we may make (I hope we never sell it) is very much secondary to the pleasure we get from it. (Plus the 'free' wood isn't, when you include driving there, chain saw stuff etc.)

Suspect price of wood is just going to keep going up

I was wondering the other day how the increase of electronic publishing of books, newspapers and so on would affect the timber economy...

Thought that woodlands.co.uk had some useful stuff on their site when I looked at this a while back. Was considering from the scale/perpsective that richmars seems to be doing, i.e source of fuel, recreation space, doing some basic management/ conservation stuff, with the investment thing secondary. Obviously you need to have the time & money to invest - I'm keeping it on my 'future' list. 🙂

I was wondering the other day how the increase of electronic publishing of books, newspapers and so on would affect the timber economy...

Probably less than the cost of burning the stuff for biomass power generation - this has caused the price of wood to rise considerably, which is a reason why we import the stuff from eastern europe (e.g. Lithuania, which is 2/3 covered in pine forests).

Good point ART, definitely something to do for the love of it first and foremost! Just be a bonus if the kids end up with a little windfall in the future, but the idea would be they'd have had much more enjoyment from the land before then.

Jus been on woodlands for sale & there's nowt in the north of england for less than £5000 an acre and most of it is nearer £10000.

e.g. Lithuania, which [s]is[/s] used to be 2/3 covered in pine forests

FTFY

I noticed the woodlands signs up near me a while ago, and have found the wood in question. £39k buys 5 1/2 acres, so £7090/acre.
Its on a decent slope, so has potential for bike trails.
hmmm....

What does public liability insurance set you back these days? Apparently you have to have this, even if there are no rights of way anywhere near your land.

[url= http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-30122884.html ]if your numbers come up[/url]

A few thoughts:
woodlands.co.uk is aimed at the leisure market - people are buying a large garden, the underlying timber value comes no where near the asking prices.
(at last) Timber prices have risen considerably over the past 2 years, due to the weak pound reducing imports and rising demand for biomass material. We actually export large volumes of pulpwood to Scandinavia - coals to Newcastle......
Plantation values have also risen - the returns have been very good.
There are very definite taxation benefits to owning woodland the timber is free of income tax, capital gains and IHT.
Public liability insurance is relatively cheap.

all you need is to find a few truffles and it will pay for itself !

I may be wrong but AFAIK forestry land is not subject to inheritance tax and there is little if any tax taken from earnings from tree production.Hence the reason the uber rich all have a large slice in their portfolio.

Spotted a wood for sale near me a while back and had similar thoughts. Basically it's been split into plots so it's more like buying a terrace house - you never know quite what your neighbours will do. They've sold one plot, two more for sale but others are marked out. £35.5 k for 2.6 acres !!!!! To me the restrictions seemed to really limit what you could do. No camping, agriculture/forestry activity only.

[url= http://www.woodlands.co.uk/buying-a-wood/central-england/templar-wood/ ]Wood for sale[/url]

I bought 9 acres for 11000 pounds, you can find it cheap if you look hard enough. Talk to local farmers, most of em have no use for woodland.