Hire a Land Appraiser, not a regular real estate appraiser. The Land Appraiser should be able to give you some answers to your question.

Kudos to you for contributing to more deforestation. Why do you hate trees? :)

Keep as many big trees as possible. Thin out small junk trees that are competing with the better trees. If you want to clear a building envelope choose the best site and keep it as small as possible. Beyond that I don't see how clearing more trees will increase value. I just bought 112 acres of forest because I want to preserve it as forest. It is a rather magical place.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

I disagree. I thought that when I built a lakehouse on a heavily wooded lot. When one fell on the house during a hurricane last year, I realized I wanted them cleared around the house. I have taken down a dozen trees and it is much better. There are still lots of trees, just not around the house.

If it hasn't already been done hire and pay for a land survey to check the lot. In order to make sure it is appropriate to build homes/structures on. You don't want to find out the hard way it isn't safe enough to lay a solid foundation on your land. I knew a guy who was a realtor at the time and he bought 10 acres of land hoping to develop it to have a bunch of homes built there (to increase value and sell it off). When he finally got a survey the results showed just only about 1 acre was suitable for building. The rest was too swampy in order to safely allow a foundation to settle and he wouldn't be able to get build permits unless a lot of money was spent to do whatever is done to swampy soil that is required.

I wouldn't expect any increase in value for clearing a few trees honestly. You could rent out the space for hunters to setup their stands for deer hunting season prior to building something on it (assuming it is a decent area for hunting and it is allowed). That way you can make a few extra bucks while the land is unoccupied.

I posted in the stump thread about a neighbor who cleared trees on his property by himself. Besides the mess , annoyance with some neighbors, arguments and cops showing up he ran into the following situation.

After the cops were called and they told him he was within his rights he went to the township muni offices to check to see if he was ok on what he was doing because he was also putting in a patio. I believe the patio was already approved. Township employee told him he was good to go. Went as far as saying tell your neighbors to mind their own business. He had cut down probably 20 or more trees. Week later another local official shows up after the patio was put in. Told him he disturbed too much soil and had to now starting planting trees. Gave him a deadline of two weeks to submit plan and the trees had to be a certain size and type. Which ended up costing him about 10K. Point being I would check with local officials before starting.

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"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "

Same thing happened to me. We had to get permits to cut down a few trees on our property. We cut a few too many and the city said we needed to replant. Cost me about 3k in trees.

The state had no trouble however when they cut down my citrus trees because of "Greening".

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"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." Jimi Hendrix

Good point.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Not much of a hurricane threat in Columbus though ;)

Its only an acre, I'm only clearing the minimum I need to and the dead/dying and the sad part is, the front of the lot is pretty clear, but I cant build there, setback requiremenrs

But there are Tornados and high winds like we had last week (grove city), but too close for comfort as the warning extended to where the land is as well

That would be fine to remove more as warranted for safety clearance if/when there's a house eventually built there, (whether by current owner or new owner), but the value of the lot won't be increased by cutting them any sooner that necessary. Leave that to the new owner's discretion whether they want to have more trees or not; if you cut it now and it turns out they would've wanted more trees, then you've taken that option away. Plus it affords them the opportunity to profit from the resulting lumber if it offsets/exceeds the cost of additional cutting (again speaking of the larger trees and not the scrubbier undergrowth; not sure how big we're talking about here, but that can be a valuable asset above & beyond the simple acreage value, which can be saved and harvested/liquidated later on).

I'm only really thinking of doing it now in my spare time and so that when we go to break ground I dont have to pay someone to do it in a timely manner so we can break ground at a reasonable time.

You'd think, but Hurricane Ike in 2008 knocked the shit out of us. I had friends without power for almost 2 weeks due to downed trees. My office building had no power for over a week.

https://en.wikipedia.org/...ca#Ohio_and_Michigan

But yeah, that was a pretty freaky once or twice in a lifetime kind of thing. Never would have guessed it could happen here.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.