my stock portfolio has certainly taken a hit to the downside. the housing market has tanked and the values of many houses and rental units have gone down with it. stocks of the publicly traded timberland owners have gone down 20 to 60% in the cheap timberland boots last year or so. the logic is that the decline in housing has caused a drop in lumber price which has created a drop in timber (stumpage) price which has resulted in a corresponding drop in timberland prices. so logically my portfolio has taken a hit on the tree farm side too. but has it?

cheap timberland boots i do some consulting with market analysts and hedge fund managers interested in valuing timberland and the drivers behind timberland waterproof boots it. the most common question that i have heard sale timberlands recently surrounds the declining value of timberland and just how great that decline is. how can a company like weyerhaeuser or plum creek be properly valued given the logical decline in timberland values? i could give my opinion (and i always do!) but that is not enough.

i have been maintaining a database of the major timberland transactions for over a decade so i wanted to quantify the change for 2008. below is a chart showing the $/acre sale price trend for the last decade.