and a corollary: If the parcel is vacant they think it should be cheaper to survey. ummm. no.
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!
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.
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...)
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!
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.
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.
