Trees or Houses?

Implications: Sierra Pacific is auctioning off ~5000 acres of timberlands that they have identified as having higher values for uses other than growing timber.  This is typical of the trend occurring on most large timberland holdings that have been traditionally owned and managed for timber production. Though this type of sale usually represents a tiny fraction of the owner's overall holdings ( e.g. Sierra Pacific selling 5000 ac. out of a total ownership of 1,700,000 ac.) such sales can have impact on the company's operations far out of proportion to their relative size.

Analysis: The sale by a timber company of HBU (Higher and Better Use) lands can bring an immediate hefty boost to the company's bottom line, since such lands can sell for prices that are an order of magnitude more (or at least several multiples of) their value for growing trees.  Of course not all forest lands have HBU values, and when the supply is all sold the company's bottom line can drop precipitiously. 
Of equal or greater significance is the fact that the sale of some HBU lands can negatively impact the viability and profitability of the remaining lands at levels that exceed the profits from selling the HBU lands.

Ongoing timber management practices often can create vistas that are not aesthetically pleasing (at least short term), can creat considerable noise and dust, often involve the use of herbicides, often result in periodic heavy traffic of very large trucks on what are typically narrow winding roads, and in general are the antithesis of the environment that the typical buyer of "a place in the forest" sought in buying his HBU parcel.  The remaining timberland can become more expensive to manage or even be forced to no longer be managed for timber production just as those who move next to an airport or under the flight path can eventually cause the airport (that was there first)  to either adopt expensive operating procedures or shut down.  Thus timberland owners must be very thorough in analyzing the possible overall impacts of any HBU parcel they plan to sell.