In reply to fawtsc
I was attempting to order wood from TAH for my personal use. They list two shipping methods: container and LTL (less than (truck)load). I'm not in the market for 4-8000 bf, I'm looking for 1-2000. Still, that should retire the 1st thinning for a couple of owners.
I was given pricing details - the price was about $1.50 a bf for unselected 7-year-old teak, $1.50 more per bf if I wanted to "select" by giving size restrictions. I was also given some details about what shipping costs would be by container load, though I am interested in LTL costs. I am waiting for the follow-up to that request, about 3 weeks so far since my last e-mail.
I was sent several pictures of "1st quality" teak at different ages - 7, 10, 13 and 15, front and back sides.
Here are my thoughts to some of the discussion so far:
- I think I fall in with the optimistic side by nature. Not probably as optimistic as ab appears to be, but certainly in line with ma.
- so we are using oxen teams intead of machinery. Certainly I understand why that greatly slows the process. Since TATF gets paid from the thinnings, it seems to me that it would be in their best interest as well as owners to hire more oxen teams. There is a limit to how much machinery we can buy, but there have to be oxen teams available out the wazoo I would think. Why can't we keep up to half or better of the thinning schedule?
- I should have seen thinning reports for 2001 trees so far, expecting 1996 and 2003 to come fairly soon. None so far.
- even with oxen teams running instead of the machinery, some trees should be being thinned. where are the reports?
About IRR, ab said and contiues to imply that most of the IRR comes from the final payoff. This isn't really true - the more money comes back early, the better the IRR. I did some IRR calculations early on and the early money does a lot to make the investment more worthwhile in terms of IRR. If the early money is reduced, pushed back or eliminated (all of which seems to be either threatened or de facto result currently) then IRR will drop significantly. If you disagree, please show your calculations and I'll show mine :)
- My fear of having been suckered in a scam is greatly reduced by the fact that there are trees. If the trees are there, I don't care (per se) if they are puny or harvested slower than expected, TATF could still be honest if bad businessmen. I still believe that they projected conservatively, so there is some fudge room in the numbers. TATF doesn't have to lose goodwill if they make reparations with replacement trees, either additional puny trees or young trees in better locations in addition to harvest of existing trees. TATF didn't promise that our trees would grow well. They promised that there would be trees and they would care for them. Whether the trees grow well or not is up to God. If I am dissatisfied with their ability to pick sites and care for trees well, I won't do business with them again. But it doesn't have to be a scam.
If things are going poorly, I understand why info is slow to come. Who wants to send another bad update? Maybe they are waiting until they have some of the scarce good news to give some more info.
Gistheman - Andres is also the one who has answered my questions so far. If you ever get some wood, I would love to get some from you. I am interested in flooring wood and I think 7-year-old trees should work for that. Please let me know if you hear some more.
MY BIGGEST CONCERN is that TATF is not currently doing a good job of selling the wood. If the trees are there, who cares about thinning? Really. If it takes a year or two longer, it hurts a little money-wise, but in the meantime they are growing (I think). But if you have lumber and you're not selling it, you:
1. run out of room to store and dry
2. have no pressure to thin any more
3. will never be able to pay anyone
As somebody else has said, this should be the top priority and commission-based sales are an excellent idea. There seems to be no selling urgency here. That has to be corrected quickly, or my thoughts about whether this is a scam are going to turn south fast.
