“Money still grows on trees” as a recent article in the Wall Street Journal mentioned (“For Some, Sound of Profit Is Timber”). As a long term investment, timberland has out-preformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index. Pension funds, insurance companies and investment trusts, among others, have increased their holdings in timberland dramatically over the last 25 – 30 years because of this realization.

There are several factors that play a role in making timberland an attractive asset.

Congratulations for visiting our new Web site.  After our January 2009 newsletter entitled "Whew, that was close", we heard loud and clear that our readers wanted market information and perspective more frequently than quarterly.   Hence, we changed our website to address your requests.

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In these turbulent economic times, many of us are wondering what our property is worth or is it saleable at all. As my partner, Ned Massie, has often said – If you offer it for a dollar, someone will buy it; but if you offer it for $5 million there may not be many buyers depending on what the property is. Obviously, the value will probably be somewhere in between.

Recent housing data reveals that home sales have rebounded in certain areas of the country. In California, sales in the first quarter of 2009 jumped an impressive 82.7% over the first quarter of 2008. The volume of home sales has even rebounded in certain parts of Virginia.