Texas salaries

I don't believe there is a consistent rate of compensation for professional surveyors and survey personnel across Texas. It varies significantly depending upon the organization, the locality, and specific demand.

When the boom economy that parts of urban Texas have been having collapses, it's a safe bet that the aftermath won't be pretty. Generally, certain types of survey projects continue well after new construction starts tail off and these are not evenly distributed across the spectrum of surveying offices.

Kent McMillan, post: 395337, member: 3 wrote: I don't believe there is a consistent rate of compensation for professional surveyors and survey personnel across Texas. It varies significantly depending upon the organization, the locality, and specific demand.

When the boom economy that parts of urban Texas have been having collapses, it's a safe bet that the aftermath won't be pretty. Generally, certain types of survey projects continue well after new construction starts tail off and these are not evenly distributed across the spectrum of surveying offices.

:gammon:

cost of living in austin is comparable to certain urban areas on the pacific coast. I could move to anywhere over probably 95% of the state's land area and live better off half the salary I earn now. (For instance- because we have no state income tax, I just this year had the honor of joining the $5000 property tax club. And I own a 900 s.f. house in the floodplain.)

Likewise, if I wanted to focus on layout around here I could probably double what I make now.

There's lots of guys in the past couple years hunting for jobs at pennies on the dollar compared to what they were making doing pipeline work that no longer exists.

flyin solo, post: 395342, member: 8089 wrote: For instance- because we have no state income tax, I just this year had the honor of joining the $5000 property tax club. And I own a 900 s.f. house in the floodplain.

I'd trade you property tax bills any time. I'm looking at one for over $10,000 this year on my 1958-vintage house.

TSPS has done salary surveys in the past. Not sure if they have a recent one but you might check there.

Kent McMillan, post: 395354, member: 3 wrote: I'd trade you property tax bills any time. I'm looking at one for over $10,000 this year on my 1958-vintage house.

That's just wrong. If we ever managed to get some actual form of government ( I know, I know) the tax burden could be rightly shifted to the swarm of lackluster ghouls who dot the landscape with some of the butt-ugliest / cheap building you've laid your eyes on.
In Houston there exists quite a few neighborhoods that exemplify period architecture, and even a small percentage of new construction that give communities some appeal. Then there's the entrepreneurs who can't see past the next triple pulled pork sandwich, and we get stuck looking at their greed.
/rant

Kent McMillan, post: 395354, member: 3 wrote: I'd trade you property tax bills any time. I'm looking at one for over $10,000 this year on my 1958-vintage house.

$10,000 would probably garner you a mansion...in Oklahoma.

Alan Cook, post: 395429, member: 43 wrote: $10,000 would garner you a mansion...in Oklahoma.

Would that include the wheels and tires as well?

Kent McMillan, post: 395430, member: 3 wrote: Would that include the wheels and tires as well?

Most likely but sans the tongue hitch.

Alan Cook, post: 395431, member: 43 wrote: Most likely but sans the tongue hitch.

And I guess a person would have to provide the skirting, too? But I suppose it wouldn't really be necessary if one were far enough North of the Red River.

Kent McMillan, post: 395354, member: 3 wrote: I'd trade you property tax bills any time. I'm looking at one for over $10,000 this year on my 1958-vintage house.

Just FYI, my property tax broke $900 this year and I was pissed.

Oh, and we don't actually have ad valorem tax on houses with wheels and skirting...we purchase tags for them like autos. 'Trailer houses' in Okiehomie are personal property and not real estate. 😉

In 1974 my sister and her family moved to Huntsville, Arkansas. Rental rates and house sale prices were about 40 percent of what they faced here.

BTW, I will happily sell my home to anyone offering upwards of $600,000 for it so they can then pay $10,000 per year on real estate taxes. Meanwhile, I'll buy a bunch of other houses at the normal prices.

You see, we tend to believe in small government around here, so there aren't nearly as many wasteful things to pay taxes to support.

paden cash, post: 395435, member: 20 wrote: Just FYI, my property tax broke $900 this year and I was pissed.

Yes, I'd gladly trade an Oklahoma-style 5.25% State income tax for the property taxes I pay. The myth that Texas is a low tax state is fairly delusional when you figure in the actual property taxes assessed in the big cites like Austin where property values are stratospheric.

Kent McMillan, post: 395441, member: 3 wrote: Yes, I'd gladly trade an Oklahoma-style 5.25% State income tax for the property taxes I pay. The myth that Texas is a low tax state is fairly delusional when you figure in the actual property taxes assessed in the big cites like Austin where property values are stratospheric.

We run a pretty tight ship round here...yessiree. Our state budget just quivered and died because of dropping oil and gas revenues and state agencies are closing their doors. But yet we were able to come up with half a mil to litigate whether or not we could keep a granite copy of the ten commandments on state property (we can't). In three weeks we vote to increase sales tax to attempt to pay for teachers' raises...just to keep us 48th. in the nation when it comes to student comprehension.

But we proudly boast our Oklahoma contributions to this great society; childhood obesity, teen pregnancy, school dropouts, meth addiction, the largest number of uninsured drivers and the highest per capita number of incarcerated citizens...which btw, are actually mostly females. Most state prisons in Oklahoma actually staff a maternity ward.

Is this a Great State or what?

paden cash, post: 395444, member: 20 wrote: We run a pretty tight ship round here...yessiree. Our state budget just quivered and died because of dropping oil and gas revenues and state agencies are closing their doors.

The downside to paying for schools through property taxes is that as it is implemented in Texas, the benchmark is "fair market value", i.e. what a piece of real estate could actually be sold for in an arms-length transaction. What that translates to is that the folks like Michael Dell who spend $30 million or so on a house and associated buildings then turn around and argue that the real estate they just paid $30 mil for is only worth, say, $7 mil because there isn't anyone who would actually pay $30 mil for it.

The wealthy land owners manage to game the system quite effectively and the burden is shifted to the rest of us.

I lived in Austin in the early 80s. Things were starting to heat up but the wages were lagging. I moved back north where my income more than doubled and my house payment dropped. Had I been more established it would have paid to stay. Most of the RPLS folks I knew were doing well.
Over the decades since I've discovered an important truth. You can make your own opportunity well outside both ends of the normal 'Surveyor salary' spectrum. Figure out where you want to live and make it happen. I've been fortunate to Survey in a dozen or so States and as many Countries (living in many of them). My next adventure is 12 years out but it's already planned. It doesn't pencil out in any traditional sense, but I WANT to live there and it will happen.
Best of luck, Tom

thebionicman, post: 395449, member: 8136 wrote: Over the decades since I've discovered an important truth. You can make your own opportunity well outside both ends of the normal 'Surveyor salary' spectrum.

This.

I know surveyors who make $60,000 a year and surveyors who make $200,000 a year whose offices are within a half hours drive of each other. And I'm pretty sure neither of them would trade jobs with the other.

Kent McMillan, post: 395446, member: 3 wrote: the benchmark is "fair market value", i.e. what a piece of real estate could actually be sold for in an arms-length transaction.

That's what it says here, too. But when I bought my first house from someone I wasn't acquainted with, the assessor rejected my appeal to lower the assessed value to what I paid. They said they evaluate market value by comparison to other houses in the neighborhood, regardless of what you paid. Huh?

Bill93, post: 395457, member: 87 wrote: That's what it says here, too. But when I bought my first house from someone I wasn't acquainted with, the assessor rejected my appeal to lower the assessed value to what I paid. They said they evaluate market value by comparison to other houses in the neighborhood, regardless of what you paid. Huh?

As the assessed value of our house has jumped up, each year I've contested the valuation before the appraisal review board who rely upon an inherently flawed methodology for valuing valuable lots with old houses that have a nearly 100% chance of being gutted to the framing or partially torn down to add square feet. The only success I had was one year when we actually had the house listed with MLS, actively offered for sale on January 1, and had no offers at that price. That did establish that it's market value was less than the offering price.

I left high tax bracket property in 1987 and returned to rural NE Texas outside the bounds of city hands to complicate for a couple acres with an excellent water well.
I've plumbed with hot water pvc and all new faucets and drains and remodeled with new ceiling, lighting fixtures, ceiling fans and laminated floors, bleached and polished the wood paneling and added new steel exterior doors and wired the entire house for multi media in every room plus three different wifi systems and changed over to 110ft of 14in sock lined sewer lines resting in gravel.
Kept the Sandford and Sons front exterior for the taxman to take pictures of and remain in the $500å± property tax bracket.
Soon the land will appraise more value than the house.