Thought I got in with a local company a few weeks back. Person was nice, didn't appear to be very knowledgeable with surveying. Asked for a boundary/topo on the east half of the block. That was fine, did some research, gave her a proposal. There was a meeting with her supervisor and that supervisor's supervisor, that she didn't make. The engineer was there also, and the team decided this was the new plan and area. That area grew to the whole block and some extra work. I gave her another proposal. Everything seemed fine, she sent me a signed contract. But then she called again afterward, said she wanted to know why the price was way more! I was like, hey, the area grew. She seemed very angry and said she would have to get 2 more proposals.
At any rate, you can do your best to explain things in a very thoughtful proposal, but you can't help that some don't have any idea of what surveying is and what takes place. Arrrggggg!
I hear ya Ken, I just did a nice proposal and breakdown of fees for an ALTA survey on a property that is about 500 feet from our office. Big commercial lot, lots of optional table A items, and I was informed the winning bid was 5k lower than mine.
Yep. I heard by a guy from Indianapolis that does hundreds of ALTAs a year. He said he had heard of a company from California that does aerial mapping for ALTAs, even near boundary lines. He said he heard they won a lot of these types of ALTAs, but recently surveyors are cheaper than the aerial mapping company, which was sad he said. Many will have a lot of explaining to do when times get better and they try to tell the same client that the ALTA is no longer $1200 but more like $4k.
My bid was 8, it went for 3.