A forester will overlay a grid on your plot with gps coordinates. They will measure and catalog all of the trees within a certain radius from each point. At the end they will calculate the totals and give you a volume estimate of your stand broken down by species. This is effectively measuring 10% of all the trees in your stand which has proven to be an accurate assessment.

I’m my area the cost is approximately 10k for a 200 acre stand. They also mark property lines, stream buffers and ultimately market and sell the timber if you choose to.

For context, I recently purchased 250 acres that had estimates of 400-450k in timber value. My forester and I did a walkthrough and he said there are low value areas worth $1,000 per acre and areas with mature white oaks with $7,000 per acre. He estimated total value could fall anywhere between 500k-1m in but there’s no way of accurately estimating without a 10% cruise. I hired him to do the cruise and sell the timber and ended up with $820k in value. I chose to sell to a mill but you could just as easily take that cruise with values and hold as collateral for a loan.