Why prices are moving
Below the 5-yr medianWhy are stumpage prices rising right now?
$404/MBF rolling 3-month state sawtimber average through Aug 2026. The average has risen 2 straight months.
Data through Aug 2026 · source last checked Aug 26, 2026 · page revised Aug 26, 2026
Cite
- Rolling 3-month average
About this data
- Source
- Washington DNR, Oregon Department of Forestry, Idaho Department of Lands, Montana DNRC, US Forest Service Region 6 and BLM Western Oregon timber auctions
- Series
- Green sawtimber, rolling 3-month volume-weighted price, state sales quoted in $/MBF
- Basis
- Stumpage; $/MBF only — federal $/CCF and per-ton sales never blended
- Geography
- The Pacific Northwest
- Unit
- $/MBF
- Calculation
- Rolling 3 months of completed sales
- Last observation
- Aug 2026
- Update frequency
- Event-based; updated as results post
The rolling 3-month state sawtimber price has risen 2 consecutive months, up $46.91/MBF (+13.2%) since Jun 2026. Green sawtimber ran a median +26% over its appraised minimum across the trailing 3 months. Completed sawtimber sales averaged 2.5 bidders over the same stretch. 74 public timber sales completed in the trailing 3 months, 2 of them drawing no bid.
The rolling 3-month state sawtimber average is $404/MBF through Aug 2026, up $46.91/MBF or 13.2% since Jun. The trailing quarter saw green sawtimber draw a median 26% premium over appraised minimum with completed sales averaging 2.5 bidders. Year-over-year the market sits 25.6% below the 3-year median of $542/MBF.
| Period | Current | Prior | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Month over month | $404/MBF | $374/MBF | +7.9% |
| Year over year | $404/MBF | $542/MBF | -25.6% |
| vs 3-yr median | $404/MBF | $542/MBF | -25.6% |
Previous weeks
An earlier week
Stumpage prices are not rising right now. The rolling state sawtimber average has fallen and is down $49.18/MBF (-11.6%) over the past 3 months (since Apr 2026). For the current picture, see Why are stumpage prices falling right now?.
What makes stumpage prices rise
Stumpage is the price of standing public timber at auction, and it moves for structural reasons that repeat every cycle. Every sale on this site is a real competitive event, a tract, an appraised minimum, and whoever shows up to bid, so the price is set by what mills need and what the woods can supply, sale by sale.
Lumber demand is the far end of every bid. A mill bids stumpage against what it expects to earn on the boards, so when lumber markets firm, on housing starts, repair-and-remodel demand, or thin mill inventories, the room in the margin flows back to the auction floor. Stumpage tends to follow lumber with a lag measured in auction cycles, not days.
Log supply is the near end. When private landowners hold timber back, when weather shuts down logging, or when salvage volume dries up, mills lean harder on the public auction program to keep log decks full, and more serious bidders show up per sale. Bid intensity, tracked on the region pages, is the cleanest public read on that pressure.
The premium over minimum is the competitive-heat gauge. A sale that clears far above its appraised minimum means several mills genuinely wanted the wood; a market of minimum-bid awards means one buyer showed up. The timber board ranks recent results on exactly that premium, and a rising median premium usually precedes a rising average price.
The offer mix matters as much as the market. A month heavy in high-quality Douglas-fir tracts prints a higher average than a month of hemlock thinnings even in an unchanged market, which is why this page's direction call runs on a rolling 3-month volume-weighted average rather than any single month's results.
Fewer no-bids confirm the turn. When tracts that would have passed quietly start selling, and the no-bid tracker thins out, demand is reaching down the quality ladder — the breadth signal behind a durable rally rather than one hot sale.
The falling twin of this page covers the same factors running in reverse.