Old surveys, Any value?

Absolutely. You just have to find another surveyor who could use them.

I see little value to anyone else for dated products even though they may technically still be correct. It's like selling a newspaper dated a year ago. A 50-year old newspaper would have some value, though.

> Is there any value of old/previous (mortgage) surveys?

Possibly some value to another mortgage surveyor in your area. Those other people you mentioned won't give you a dime.

The release of a confidential report to any unknown third party even with the permission of the original client is misleading to all except another professional surveyor who may use it as background information of historical interest in retracing a boundary.

I know there are those who do however.

Their logic path in doing so is that of the albedo of a two watt bulb having lost an opportunity to be a professional and do a time sensitive opinion correctly.

But then there are Spitzers who get on CNN !

YOS

DGG

Eh?

Are you referring to surveys or maps? There is a huge difference...

Eh?

Old surveys are valuable when doing newer work. I just look in the County Surveyor's records, then get copy's of the pertinent surveys I need. They show the history of evidence found and set by those who have gone before. I would never think about going to the field to look for evidence without looking in the record first.
jud

Seeing that it is difficult for a surveyor to charge a proper fee to survey those properties, it is certain that they would not pay for an old survey they feel should be free.

The value of old surveys is to another surveyor for research information and that would be piece by piece at copy price values.

😐

Are they recorded? If not, I would think they would have value to other surveyors that work in the area.

I know of a survey company in Houston that actively seeks such records. Now that the title companies will accept old surveys to eliminate the survey exception, there is a market for them. I think they charge $150 for copies of the original or they will re-survey them at their normal rate.

>
> I literally have tens of thousands of single lot surveys, albeit mostly mortgage surveys. I can not help but believe that there is not a market for these.

If you have 10's of thousands of these 'surveys' you must have been around a block or two. A guy like you that is able to do so many of these 'surveys' must have an idea what they are worth? You must be a good businessman to be able to secure enough work to conduct ten of thousands of these surveys.

What do you think they are worth??

Yes, they have value. And, yes, you can sell them. They won't fetch much of a price sold as a set to one individual or company, but think outside the box for a moment...

Marketing... come up with a way to electronically catalog all of the surveys, then georeference them to the individual site they go with. Set up an on-line system where a user can easily google an address, zoom to a place on a map, pick on a marker and download an electronic copy of the map, say for $1.00 (the price of a song, sans dance). Now you've tapped not a single buyer, but surveyors, title companies, landowners, neighbors, architects, landscapers, etc. who can access the system whenever they want and take "$10's of thousands" of copies at will. Make it cheap, and make it easy. You can market them 24/7 with a copyright attached and a bit of free advertising for your firm on each copy.

JBS

(by the way, if anyone perfects this idea, they can pay me a royalty of $10 cents a copy)

JBS U would make even more money selling those $10 cents !!

LOL

Seriously Perhaps Wendell should consider setting up a site where surveyors could supply e copies to a server. So have section for each state then slowly build up each county or what ever you call your districts.

Wendell I'll just be happy with a modest $1 cent per copy......

RADU

JBS U would make even more money selling those $10 cents !!

I really didn't want to take the time to find a cent symbol on a character map. The symbol doesn't exist on a modern keyboard. Just for you, though, RADU... 10¢

My 2¢ worth...

;o)
JBS

JBS U would make even more money selling those $10 cents !!

I was picking up on the $ sign..

like 10 dollar cents.......

RADU

JBS U would make even more money selling those $10 cents !!

The statement is actually getting closer to the truth than some might think. The last I heard, the copper in a penny is worth more than 1¢ from my understanding.

(we'll see if that worked. I used [alt]+0162 and it makes the "cent" sign in MSWord.)

San Diego County has done a GIS based map system but it costs $4 a sheet to download a TIF file.