Private forests in the Republic of Croatia cover about 595 thousand hectares, which is 23% of the total forests in the country. Occupying almost a quarter of the total forests, they represent a great potential that, despite the long tradition of forestry in Croatia, is still neglected. This paper analyses the structure of the selling, respectively requested selling price and the spatio-temporal distribution of private forests on the free market. Before the description of the research, a review of the available literature that has so far covered the area of private forests in Croatia was processed. However, few articles deal with the private forest market. The emphasis is mostly on state forests that hold a monopoly on the timber market. Data for this paper were collected from the leading advertising platform in Croatia - Njuškalo.hr. The dynamics of advertisements was monitored from April 2020 to April 2021, and then 170 advertisements were collected, and secondary data of advertisements for the eleven-year period from 2010 to 2021 - 751 advertisements were taken over. Among other things, a telephone survey of forest owners advertised for sale was conducted. Part of the results have already been published in an article for the WoodEMA conference in 2021 where the possibility of private forests to fill the lack of wood mass in the wood technology industry is explored. The results show a positive trend in the price of forest land and that prices are much higher at the seaside than on land, and most private forests are for sale in Istria.