Got a call today for a survey on 44 acres. No problem! Let me take a look at your deed and I will get back to says my business partner. Looks it up and it is a bounds only deed( and mighty old as you can imagine). CRAP!! We come up with a price call her back and she already had somebody who said they could do it for.........get this.........$2000. I can't compete with that, and I won't. That is RIDICULOUS!!!!!!
What are those guys charging down there these days? That's got to be less than 50 cents per foot around the tract! Heck man, we can't survey a 2 acre lot for that!
It is less we calced it at 7000' of just our subject's perimeter and then used .65/ft, which is too cheap if you ask me, but we are still trying to stay in business also. He charged her .25/ft. I don't even know what to say.
I was contacted the first of the year on a 141ac with 2,000ft of creek meander. Mixed timber, ell shaped and had 1/4mi of highway that cut into 2 tracts that needed to be closed by the 16th of January.
They had someone to survey it for $1,800 and really wanted me to do their survey and for the same money.
Told them that I can't afford to pay for their surveys and that I was in business to make a profit. Buying a #250,000 property and only want to know how many acres inside the fences.
We had a great one. Guy comes in with a retracement / subdivision. We quote $5k a lot. He goes elsewhere and gets a quote for $5k for the entire thing. We told him to get an ironclad contract.
Six months later he returns. They left a clause to adjust their contract price and were up to $70k or $80k in change work orders. He asked me how much it would be for us to complete their work.
$5k per lot.
The underbidding is getting bad out there. I know people are hungry for work, but we really need to get these underbidders out of the profession. They usually cause more harm than good.
We have a lot of flat land and open sky here. Depending on the controlling monuments, we can do the field work in a couple hours. Depends on if we can drive from corner to corner as we set them. I've been able to (best case) survey a few acre tract out of a quarter section by lunch. Doesn't cost very much.
We've also had some meets and bounds, only needing 2 section corners. Done in 2-3 hours tops.
In an area such as yours I could understand that, but in GA when the land had probably never been surveyed, it's half wooded, and even if it was wide open you are not guaranteed to find all necessary monuments.
never heard...
...of charging people by the linear foot for a boundary survey. Seems odd, but if that is what the client wants, I guess I could figure it out.
Hopefully it's hilly country so I'd go with slope distance for billing, and horizontal for mapping/describing. Ya, that's what I'd do.
I have had realtor types ask me how much per monument. So I figure a price, then they want every other lot surveyed. duh... my turnip truck got a flat so I didn't fall off it yet.....
per foot
It's just another statistic to estimate, track, etc. I've never used it as the sole basis for a quote, but it will give you a good idea of the ballpark you should be playing in.
25 cents a foot is just ridiculous. 55 cents a foot was the average back in the late 90's. It should be quite a bit more than that now.
never heard...
I do it all the time. We have so many odd shaped tracts, you can't go by acreage alone, or you'll get burned. It must be nice to work where everything is square.
Just finished a job for a new client.
A Re-plat of 2 large acreage (100 acres) tracts in a newer fancy recorded subdivision.
My price was fair but on the high end since they needed it quick.
The owner of the subdivision said that my price was almost 3 times what he was used to paying, but since the other firm was out of business now, he was fine with it and stated he was not happy with the quality of their work anyway.
I remember in 2008 a flyer from some surveyor that was forwarded to me by a local title company that stated they had a 2 for 1 special.... Give me 2 surveys and one is free, I know for a fact that this guy is out of business now and has lost his license, talk about a bad business strategy.
From 2007 until maybe the end of last year my working area was inundated by these hungry surveyors, they are almost all gone now, maybe out of business, maybe they got busy in their own working area, don't know, all I have to say is GOOD RIDDANCE.
Randy
He probably plans on using his VRS GPS Receiver and not cut out any lines. If he doesn't find a corner, he just places a new one where the GPS says to put it. 😉
> Just finished a job for a new client.
>
> A Re-plat of 2 large acreage (100 acres) tracts in a newer fancy recorded subdivision.
>
> My price was fair but on the high end since they needed it quick.
>
> The owner of the subdivision said that my price was almost 3 times what he was used to paying, but since the other firm was out of business now, he was fine with it and stated he was not happy with the quality of their work anyway.
>
> I remember in 2008 a flyer from some surveyor that was forwarded to me by a local title company that stated they had a 2 for 1 special.... Give me 2 surveys and one is free, I know for a fact that this guy is out of business now and has lost his license, talk about a bad business strategy.
>
> From 2007 until maybe the end of last year my working area was inundated by these hungry surveyors, they are almost all gone now, maybe out of business, maybe they got busy in their own working area, don't know, all I have to say is GOOD RIDDANCE.
>
>
> Randy
:good:
The only thing that I can figure is that he has already surveyed an adjoiner or something common to the lines of their property & he is using GPS. Personally I hope he looses his butt. I can't figure out even if they could charge that little amount but what about liablility? Are we not quasi-judicially liable for every property we survey. We have several surveyors in our area that are still stuck in the 50's including their prices, I just wish they would go away already!!
I wonder if..
Attorneys cry and moan over a low bidder..
Maybe they say stuff like...
"I hope he gets disbarred" or "I hope he loses his Rolex defending that guy"
Maybe..
That makes a huge difference. I spent 15 years in the NW woods. A Survey we can do for 500 very easily in Kansas, would be between 2-5k there. GPS doesn't work well in 200' trees. Running lines on foot cutting brush all day takes time.
I wonder if..
Those people are called paralegals. Not official lawyers. They take up lawyers slack with fundamental filings and such.
Lawyers may have different rates but they all charge more than surveyors.
I do not think so Paul
People want the BEST attorney they can get for the money. No one wants the cheapest attorney , they want the best they can afford. The public ought to want the BEST surveyor they can afford but I suppose surveyors have not positioned themselves in the market that way.
We had a situation where we had to hire a $250 an hour attorney to go up against a $600 an hour attorney, we won but we were fighting in a political arena and the local pols were on our side.
I do not think so Paul
Nor do I Dane. How do you think the general public views surveyor posts that whine and cry over losing a job to the infamous low bidder?
FWIW My OP was [sarcasm] to the max [/sarcasm]
I would not put much worry to this one. The survey is going to be done by her Brother-in-law. She thanked me for my bid and told me that for the prices she was getting, she was going to have her brother-in-law do it. We were around 50 cents. I think she was shopping around with his price to see if she could get lower.
