Investors are buying up vast tracts of timberland across U.S. in one of market's longest-term bets — SkimNews
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- Bank of America reports institutions are buying U.S. timberland at a pace of one million acres per year — a three-year streak of dealmaking its 2026 outlook expects to continue.
- Timber managers acquired 55% of all acres that changed hands in 2025 against just 15% sold, with BoA's Ken Shepard calling timberland a strategic, long-term play backed by bioenergy wood-pellet demand and recreational buyers.
- Pat Dorn, owner of 2,500 acres in South Carolina's upstate and former chairman of the SC Forestry Association, said he has curtailed his timber investments because supply currently beats demand: "Timber is not an investment I would make currently."
- South Carolina Forestry Commission stumpage data show statewide pine pulpwood prices fell 33% from $5.67/ton in Q3 2025 to $3.79/ton in Q3 2026, while hardwood sawtimber rose about 40% to $22.52/ton.
- NCREIF's Timberland Property Index posted a 0.95% total return in Q2 2026 — just 0.34% income plus 0.61% appreciation — underscoring how thinly the asset class is currently yielding.
- Michael Martin, a western New York timber owner, said partial harvests every ten years barely cover his property taxes: "At the end of the day, I barely break even," adding that stumpage values are extremely local and direct ownership carries wildfire, pest and trespass risks.
- Timber ETFs like the iShares Global Timber & Forestry ETF (WOOD, ~$260M) and Invesco MSCI Global Timber ETF (CUT, ~$30M) do not own trees — they hold publicly traded forest-products and housing-supply-chain companies, per Marnoa's Nadeem Kassam.
Why it matters: Pension funds and endowments can wait out a 25-year sawtimber cycle while individual buyers cannot, creating a widening gap in which institutions quietly accumulate land at 55% of all transactions while private owners like Pat Dorn curtail holdings. Dorn's blunt takeaway — "the return is in the land, not the timber" — reframes the whole trade as a metro-sprawl bet wearing a forestry costume, with the 0.95% Q2 2026 NCREIF return and a 33% drop in South Carolina pulpwood prices underscoring that timberland rewards patience, not current yield.
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