This article seems to give fairly decent information on GIS inaccuracies, lack of knowledge during the home buying process, what surveyors offer, price, and related aspects. I think that we're all accustomed to seeing articles with comically wild inaccuracies so nice to have a decent article to reference and kudos to the author for researching accurate information.
https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/ct-real-estate-property-line-disputes-18192334.php
Not a bad article, all things considered.
I've never seen one where they actually talked to a surveyor, though.
I don't care for the articles title. It's not the boundaries that are inaccurate, it's the GIS! In my opinion, they don't do enough to clarify that little factoid.
and of course the realtors and title companies don't want surveys.. they would slow down the money train and open the title company up to liability. I suppose as long as the banks writing the big checks don't care, only the buyers are getting screwed over.
and of course the realtors and title companies don't want surveys.. they would slow down the money train and open the title company up to liability. I suppose as long as the banks writing the big checks don't care, only the buyers are getting screwed over.
and the survey professional community because they keep telling people a survey only costs 3 to 500 dollars
...
Had a guy recently accuse us of running a land grabbing operation because he relied on the county GIS lines when he bought the place but sadly our survey showed his line in fact does not run through the middle of his new neighbors house. Fun stuff
@andy-j That is a very true statement. Slow down the money train. Last year a realtor that also was a investor was getting a commercial piece of property he owned ready to sell. Great guy. We were re marking the property and setting some new points as the parking lot had been re done so many times and underground pipe rcp had been dug out over the years and updated to hold more water the pin was out. Any way. It was a cold day and he asked us to come in for a coffee break and he said i know i am paying by the hour and i don’t care come in get warmed up. At about that time I received a text message from my boss saying do whatever he wants if he takes you to lunch dinner or whatever its all on him and don’t worry. So we went in. Now he was a elderly gentleman and full of stories. As we were drinking coffee one of his younger realtors had a client in and the client was buying a house. He was reviewing all the paperwork and asked did he need a survey. The young lady realtor said no it would just slow everything down and not necessary. The old man stood up as gracious as he could and said sir i am sorry my realtor Miss spoke you most definitely need a survey. In the big scheme of things its the smallest price to pay for the best insurance you can have when buying. He told his worker to grab some map off his desk and find the land surveyor for that area he has used in the past. He had documented every house or lot or commercial building he had ever sold and the surveyors he had used in his career. He said we can take care of this at our expense this time as we made the mistake. She never said a word. So all realtors are not bad he was one of the good ones. I was actually impressed at his respect for the profession. The client left and he told her nicely we always always recommend a survey. Never ever do we not for no reason. She said i was taught it was not necessary in school. He said forget what they taught you we will do it the right way.
"Unless you're talking about a very high-end property, most people buying a house aren’t trying to fork out an additional $2,000."
Yeah, because spending 2K to verify what you're buying for 300-400K is just dumb money management.
They talk about skipping a survey like they're declining the $25 extended warranty on some $100 best buy gadget.
Hard to feel sorry for people that are so brutally cheap.
Pretty good article as it pertains to urban and suburban housing lots. I've worked in many rural and edge of suburbia areas where the local govt GIS was off a few dozen, or even several hundred feet.
$2000 might be a reasonable rate when working in a somewhat recent subdivision with fairly good monumentation, but that's pretty much the starting point in the areas I've worked in over the past 20 years. (Maybe 20 years ago, $1000 or $1200 would have been the starting point). Still, more realistic than most articles or sites like Angi, where they typically tell people to expect to pay between $200 and $700.
Is there any place where one could even get a cheap mortgage report for that little anymore? I'm talking about the usual type of MR that carries a cert that boils down to "this survey is not a survey". I realize there are a couple of states where a mortgage survey is more like a high-end ALTA. I'm not referring to those.
