What's the Surveying situation like outside Australia?
In southern Australia we went through a boom early 2000s and things are slowly getting back into balance since the gfc but still not the same. My old boss showed me his schedule of fees from the mid 80s and considering inflation things certainly are less affluent now. Gone are the days that Surveyors were the respected professionals. Architects and engineers seem to have been able to hold onto this but not so the humble surveyor.
I go to a mechanic and the invoice is double the quote and it is paid. My surveying invoice comes in at $20 more than quote and clients kick up a stink. We seem to have gone wrong somewhere here in Australia over the last couple of decades. Is it much the same elsewhere?
I think it's pretty much the same all over. I pay more hourly for a journeyman plumber or electrician to come to my home than I charge for a two man crew in some cases. And I think we (surveyors) are all collectively guilty of either not charging enough, or reducing an invoice if a client squawks.
Up here I believe the demon to be what the client actually perceives as our task. He sees a couple of guys walk around with their 'thingy' and dig holes for the best part of a day. Maybe a week later they show up and set some pins and leave. Then he gets a bill for $2500.
What I have found works best over the years is to make sure the client understands the work (field, research and office) involved and the cost of maintaining equipment and employees. If I run into something that is going to extend the amount of time I spend on a project, the client is the first one I contact. I'm always up front with them and I never under sell myself. I am definitely not the cheapest guy around and I still have a back log.
The environment in which land surveyors practice in Texas is mostly shaped by:
-- consumers having less money in real dollars,
-- the nationalization of lending,
-- the triumph of the actuarial model in land title insurance,
-- the marketing reach of the internet,
-- the hobbling of the licensing board by diversion of operating funds to the general fund, and
-- the rise of high-volume El Cheapo Rapido firms.
When you combine
-- consumers with less real money to spend buying property
-- financed by a lender in some other state,
-- the title to which is insured by a national insurance company without the means to do the level of research that was once the standard,
-- fingers walking through the internet today in search of a surveyor to provide a map for a closing tomorrow,
-- a licensing board that is grossly underfunded because of diversion of licensing fees to the general revenue stream, and
-- land surveying firms using contract crews to perform field work with minimal preparation over large geographic areas without anything approaching the level of professional supervision that standards require and issuing maps under the seal and signature of some licensee who for all practical purposes could be sitting on a beach in Hawaii all day
what you get is a situation in which grossly substandard work is so commonplace in some segments of the market for services that it becomes the new normal.
Kent McMillan, post: 386958, member: 3 wrote: ...what you get is a situation in which grossly substandard work is so commonplace in some segments of the market for services that it becomes the new normal.
so; what should we do about it?
- We start with the path to licensure; A state license, based on the minimum amount of knowledge needed, is the first ingredient in a recipe for disaster.
- The bureaucratic quagmire needs to go. A private group of: surveyors, abstractors and title attorney's; working together to insure title is the only way to go.
- I'm not sure what to do about the lenders; that isn't a boundary or title problem. It's a greed problem and will be extremely difficult, but not impossible, to fix.
I could be wrong, though; it seems to me that this is how Australia does it and the OP is complaining...
RADAR, post: 386970, member: 413 wrote: so; what should we do about it?
- We start with the path to licensure; A state license, based on the minimum amount of knowledge needed, is the first ingredient in a recipe for disaster.
- The bureaucratic quagmire needs to go. A private group of: surveyors, abstractors and title attorney's; working together to insure title is the only way to go.
- I'm not sure what to do about the lenders; that isn't a boundary or title problem. It's a greed problem and will be extremely difficult, but not impossible, to fix.
Well, as I analyze the situation, the connecting thread in all of the elements is the outsize influence that various corporate entities exercise in shaping an environment to suit their desires, rather than the other way around.
-- consumers having less money in real dollars? Large corporations can take credit for that.
-- the nationalization of lending? Corporations.
-- the triumph of the actuarial model in land title insurance? Corporations
-- the marketing reach of the internet? Possibly only an indirect effect of the information environment that various corporations have created.
-- the hobbling of the licensing board by diversion of operating funds to the general fund? I'd lay that at the feet of corporate lobbyists.
-- the rise of high-volume El Cheapo Rapido firms? Mostly operating as corporations to insulate owners from liabilities.
Kent McMillan, post: 386975, member: 3 wrote: blah blah blah.
I'm still not hearing your solution...
I've got 100 problems and 99 of them; people complain about; but do nothing about.
RADAR, post: 386977, member: 413 wrote: I'm still not hearing your solution...
So, you can't possibly imagine any solution to a situation that has been created by the oversize influence of corporations?
Kent McMillan, post: 386978, member: 3 wrote: So, you can't possibly imagine any solution to a situation that has been created by the oversize influence of corporations?
No, I can.
You can't?
Well, isn't the obvious answer one of regulating corporate activities instead of expecting land surveyors to somehow fight them off?
Wow. It seems to be exactly the same overseas. That is depressing and ironically comforting at the same time. Atleast we are not the only ones in this situation.
I was talking about this just yesterday (to be honest, pretty much everyday) with some fellow Surveyors. It seems these days that less and less graduates are given the opportunity to learn under a seasoned r surveyor and instead are handed a gnss or robotic already preloaded with a DXF and told to listen to the magic machine and just set out the points. They dont have the opportunity to learn what they are actually doing and more concerning they don't have the experience of another surveyor with them to guide them. It has become very monkey see, monkey do, which is fine as long as nothing is going wrong.
I have heard of field crews (crews of 2 Surveyors of very limited experience, sometimes a crew of 2 with no formal qualifications) being costed out at 2/3rds of what i would charge for just me. Ok I have a license and want to make a good go of this but this is what I'm competing with. These crews are doing 60+ hours a week. I want to work say 45 hours a week. Charge more per unit, therefore need to do less units.
Another situation is a firm that will have a crew (of one recent graduate) pump out 6 contour surveys a day. I have been asked to quote against this company and don't stand a chance. I can do 1 to 2 of these Standard house block contour surveys a day. This is because of the time (and detail) I put into them. I don't want to provide a budget product. This means more time which must equate to more dollars. While other firms are abusing this it is perhaps little wonder that the consumer goes with their wallet.
Just like cheap mass imported goods was the death of the local retail store, making way for Cosco, Aldi and Walmart, i fear the same is happening in surveying.
Kent McMillan, post: 386975, member: 3 wrote:
-- the triumph of the actuarial model in land title insurance? Corporations
What is the actuarial model in land title insurance?
MathTeacher, post: 386988, member: 7674 wrote: What is the actuarial model in land title insurance?
The actuarial model, as I use the term, refers to a mainly statistical model of risk assessment. This is a much different approach than the classical title insurance model of investigating the title sufficiently well to determine that the risk was very nearly zero. The old saying that "if you can buy title insurance, chances are you don't need it" is hardly true any more.
Wow Kent and Radar, yall make it sound like surveying is a terrible industry to get into. I went into surveying because of how great I think it is and it has certainly treated me well. I for-see surveyors earning an even higher salary than they do now in the future and I hope I can take advantage of it. This link http://www.becomeatexassurveyor.com/students/ shows surveyors making an average salary of $90,000, and those numbers are 7 years old. I am confident that the average salary has almost certainly gone up and will continue to rise. I generally hear about how surveyors used to be paid much less than engineers and now we are on the same pay scale if not over what an engineer earns (civil engineers that is). I have been out of college for about 4.5 years now and I can say that, compared to many of my friends, I have a much higher paying and much more rewarding job than they were able to land after college.
Maybe I am an exception, I don't know, but I do know that the surveying industry has treated me well and I expect it to continue to serve me well. My main complaint is how long it takes the board to get someone from college graduate to RPLS, that could certainly be fixed.
I hear you, Kent. The insurance holding company that I worked for more than 20 years ago had a title insurance subsidiary. Its president was a lawyer and the whole company wasn't much more than him and a secretary. Their agents were law firms who researched properties to death before they issued a policy.
In my 26 years with the company, I can remember only 2 claims. One was fraud and the other involved disputed Indian land.
I was surprised to see that now title claims are about 10% of title premiums. We would have shut down a title operation with that kind of loss ratio. It's a very disappointing situation.
Of course, they can stand a 50% loss ratio if they charge high enough premiums. That doesn't serve the public, though.
BrandonA, post: 386993, member: 11837 wrote: Wow Kent and Radar, yall make it sound like surveying is a terrible industry to get into.
Actually, surveying is a great profession that is being reduced by people who consider it an "industry".
Kent McMillan, post: 386996, member: 3 wrote: Actually, surveying is a great profession that is being reduced by people who consider it an "industry".
Semantics.
BrandonA, post: 386999, member: 11837 wrote: Semantics.
Not really. The two have completely different focuses. If surveying is just an industry, then the conversation is mostly shallow economics: costs, revenue, markets, labor. If surveying is actually a profession, the inquiry is wider and deeper.
Kent McMillan, post: 387000, member: 3 wrote: Not really. The two have completely different focuses. If surveying is just an industry, then the conversation is mostly shallow economics: costs, revenue, markets, labor. If surveying is actually a profession, the inquiry is wider and deeper.
Regardless of you wanting to call it a profession or an industry, I still believe it holds great opportunity and the salaries being offered support that belief. I agree with many of the points you mentioned previously, I only feel that you have painted it much darker than it actually is.
BrandonA, post: 386999, member: 11837 wrote: Semantics.
I was on the 2007 State Conference Committee; I used the word Convention and was quickly corrected. The head of the committee said: Shriner's go to Conventions; Surveyor's go to Conferences...
Is it called the Doctoring Industry?
Is it called the Lawyering Industry?
RADAR, post: 387002, member: 413 wrote: I was on the 2007 State Conference Committee; I used the word Convention and was quickly corrected. The head of the committee said: Shriner's go to Conventions; Surveyor's go to Conferences...
Is it called the Doctoring Industry?
Is it called the Lawyering Industry?
I concede... please substitute the word "industry" in my previous statements with profession. No way we could refer to surveying as an industry, or a medical industry, or law industry. Since the use of that word has so much to do with the state of surveying which everyone on this thread seems to think is in terrible condition and I seem to think otherwise. You know there used to be a time when doctor's did not advertise, now I hear ads run all day for the local walk in clinics, does that make it a medical industry or is it still a profession?
