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The less expensive the tract, the less they think you should charge
Posted by holy-cow on January 17, 2021 at 4:04 pmA prime example of such thinking came up a few days ago. The numbers are fictitious but you’ll get the idea.
A fellow calls me to see about doing a survey for a four-sided tract that is to follow three existing fences and one section line. The tract is around 12 acres, he thinks. His mother-in-law has quite a bit of land and is now around 80. She offers to sell up to 15 acres to each of her several children and they get to pick the location. Say the land is worth $2500 per acre. She will let them buy it for $500 per acre. The fellow wants a fixed price right now. So I say $1200. He thinks that is outrageous and can’t believe anyone would want to charge so much when he’s only paying about $6000 for the land. The land is going to cost him 20 percent more than he thought just because some surveyor needs to buy fuel for his yacht.
peter-lothian replied 3 years, 2 months ago 12 Members · 25 Replies- 25 Replies
- Posted by: @holy-cow
The fellow wants a fixed price right now. So I say $1200.
I got a call from a guy that just wanted 1 line “surveyed” and that it is only about 100′ long. When I told him it would be $2,600, he told me that in Illinois; that would be highway robber!
He never called me back…
I hope everyone has a great day; I know I will! So, let’s get this straight. You bought an old car, for 100$. And, can’t figure out why fixing the body work will cost $3500.
N
Many years ago I did a survey for a fellow that purchased a large metes and bounds tract inside a city limit at a tax sale for the grand price of $10. He immediately listed most of it for sale with a real estate office. They had a fixed minimum fee. He wanted to keep part of it, so needed a survey. My expense and the real estate sales expense plus $10 purchase added up to a fair amount more than the listing price of the part he wanted to sell off. He was happy. He still had what he wanted for an inexpensive price. Most people would have either kept the whole tract or would have had a higher asking price on the part for sale. He was the exception to the rule. He was not concerned about losing a little money so long as he ended up with what he wanted.
and a corollary: If the parcel is vacant they think it should be cheaper to survey. ummm. no.
And even when you tell them to look at their deed description, with no distances, let alone bearings, with calls just to adjoiners with names like Ezekiel Smith and Josiah Brown, people no one today has heard of, they still don’t get why we can’t just plug their lot into our GPS and survey it for $200.
@dougie
in Seattle metro area, you are below market with that quote!
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong.If it is vacant and I can see across it, it might be cheaper! 🙂
(Sets up in the middle with one traverse point and sets all the corners and needs to locate zero occupation.)
But, that is never what a vacant lot means around here!
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong.1. Fixed price means I have to judge about 50% higher than I think it will actually cost.
2. Cheaper for low priced land should mean more expensive for valuable land…I would be fine with the fixed price scheme the realtors perpetrate. 6% of the appraised value would be great!
3. This brings us back to value pricing…and it means that the real question is, “How much do you have to spend, what is your budget?” If I bring in a beater car to the mechanic, that is part of the conversation. At that point, we then we have a different mode of communication. Sometimes we need to get them into that mode.
4. In extreme cases where they really need my help, but cannot fathom the price is fair (so they don’t just hang up), I have kindly invited them to come by the office (come in and get coffee, pre COVID). Take a look in our parking lot, see the cars we drive, walk around our offices: “Does it look like we are getting rich?”
(And BTW drive by your fence builder and painter and see their fancy pickup trucks…)
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong.This guy was a house flipper in Graham (New Methico) and he even said that if I did a good job; he promised to give me all of his work!
The only reason he wanted just that one line; the county GIS shows the neighbors house over the line…
I hope everyone has a great day; I know I will!@dougie
And if it is in a plat and the monuments are there, $2500 might even be excessive. I was just saying that the guy isn’t in Kansas (or Illinois) anymore.
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong.I told a developer once, I am just billing you for the work I did, I am not trying to pay for a new boat.
He said “why not, isn’t that why we are all in business?”
I love that guy!
$2600 is below market anywhere in any recording state.
This door swings both ways. Many times people have argued in favor of basing fees on the value of the property to the upside. Certainly the pucker factor goes up when the land is valued by the square foot.
I couldn’t start the truck for $1200 around here. When the land value is only hundreds of dollars per acre you understand why people write their own descriptions and rely on practical locations. But that is their problem, not mine.
@norman-oklahoma
I don’t include the costs to record the survey…
I hope everyone has a great day; I know I will!@dougie
Still tough to profit at that price. That is why I have come to prefer commercial site development, construction staking, public agency work, etc. Homeowners are skinflints. I aught to know, I am one.
@norman-oklahoma
+My overhead was extremely low; well, at least it was…
I hope everyone has a great day; I know I will!@dougie
And having a job that takes half a day in the field is more valuable than sending a team home for the day.
I find it takes all sorts of different jobs for most of us to make it happen.
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong.@norman-oklahoma
And, while land is cheap, using it isn’t. The cost of fuel, seed, fertilizer, equipment, etc that is required to work a parcel of land for a year might exceed the underlying value in many parts of this country. A survey is part of the cost of using the land. 1 gallon of fuel costs the same if you are mowing your front yard in Seattle or in the middle of Okanagan County, even though the land doesn’t cost the same.
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong.
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