When is it Appropriate to Survey Land (LA 1546)
When is it Appropriate to Survey Land (LA 1546)
Transcript:
Steven J Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Hello.
Steven J Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven J Butala:
Today Jill and I talk about when is it appropriate to survey land?
Jill DeWit:
There are times it is, and there are times it is not. So does everybody hear that? There are times it is not appropriate, like most of the time. Don’t give it away.
Steven J Butala:
I’m going to interview Jill, and I’m going to ask her when it’s appropriate and when it’s not.
Jill DeWit:
I can tell you, because some people think you do it on every time, and that is not the case, unless you want to give away a lot of money. Thank you.
Steven J Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free. If you’re already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit:
Okie-dokie. Chuck wrote, which is this the Chuck that I’m thinking of or is this a different Chuck?
Steven J Butala:
I don’t know. There’s two.
Jill DeWit:
All right. “I’ve run into a weird problem with DataTree. In the last two batches of records that I purchased, between one-third and one-half of each list did not have a situs zip code. The zip codes for the mailing addresses were there, but the situs was missing. This is a problem because in both counties, my intention is to make offers based on the zip code values, which I’ve computed. The price per acre varies greatly between zip codes in these counties. It looks like the missing zip codes are for properties that do not have a street address, which is a lot of them, by the way. In all cases, the parcel numbers are there, as are the long/lat numbers. And the county CAD shows the situs zip codes. I would think there would be enough info for DataTree to be able to produce a zip code. Has anyone run into this with DataTree? I’m thinking of just mailing those with zip codes so I can price them reasonably. That would eliminate though almost half the properties. Thanks.”
Steven J Butala:
This is an incredibly intelligent question, and luckily I have the solution. It’s something I’ve been working on for a while. You take the data set that you have, and it sounds like you’ve taken it all the way to the point where you’re stuck with this. So, I’ll directly answer your question. DataTree was nice enough to include longitude and latitude numbers, and it’s pretty easy for a computer to convert long/lat to zip codes in America. We use a website called geocod.io. It’s G-I-O-C-O-D, without an E, dot io. For a very nominal price, and I mean like $2 or $3, you can take a massive dataset, drop the long/lat numbers in, and it’s going to convert the long/lat to an American zip code. And as a bonus, it tells you how accurate that is.
Steven J Butala:
So they’ll tell you it’s 100% accurate. We know exactly where this property is or-
Jill DeWit:
Because of the long/lat.
Steven J Butala:
Yeah, because, well their database is limited. So it’s still a work in progress. But what you do is then copy and paste the results of that into the back end of the zip code area, and you can then be on your merry way. Concierge pricing, which is a product that Jill and I launched very recently, does all this for you. And in Land Academy 3.0, which I’m filming right now, in this actual module that addresses this will be released before, because it’s such a popular topic, will be released long before … It will be really soon, very soon, within days I’m told, or at least this month. It’s in post production. I recorded it and they’re just trying to make it perfect, my team is.
Jill DeWit:
This is for Land Academy members, have access.
Steven J Butala:
Yeah. This is what makes DataTree so superior, in my opinion, to RealQuest and to Black Knight.
Jill DeWit:
Can anyone use concierge pricing? Is it open to the public currently?
Steven J Butala:
I don’t know.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, I’m not sure. Please call if you’re interested. Cut to the chase, I know there’s a lot of people, I’m one of those people. Can I just pay someone to do this for me? I know what I need to do. I pick the county. I’m going to come in and tweak it at the end, but I need somebody to do that work in the middle, that’s concierge pricing, by the way. This will take all of this off your plate.
Steven J Butala:
We do the scraping. We do the geocoding. We do it all. We actually get you to the point where, we get you to the five yard line, where you have by zip code. This is not a commercial for concierge pricing. It just happens to be where Chuck’s brought it to the 10 yard line.
Jill DeWit:
Found an issue, yeah.
Steven J Butala:
So, we’ll take it. We get it right there to a point where you have all the retail price per acres properties based on zip code and you just have to decide how you want to price it.
Jill DeWit:
Yep.
Steven J Butala:
Great question. Today’s topic, when is it appropriate to survey land? This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. My official answer is, you ready for this one? Only when required.
Steven J Butala:
I love that answer.
Jill DeWit:
That’s it. That’s it. Show’s over, done. I’m just kidding. And why might it be required? Because I’m doing something to the property, like creating new APNs and doing a split.
Steven J Butala:
Yay, Jill.
Jill DeWit:
Then the county says, “Somebody’s going to pay for this and it’s not going to be us.” So that’s going to be me. And that’s when I would do a land survey. So it’s got to be something like that. So let me back up even too. I have a lot to say. This is kind of my show a little bit today, if that’s okay.
Steven J Butala:
I have very little to say.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, good. What is a survey? What are you talking about? A survey, because we’re talking about finding these properties. We don’t have an address. I don’t know where the line ends. Is the corner here or here? Even if I’m standing on my phone, looking at that, it’s somebody going out and really doing that. You’ve seen the guys with the orange vest and they got the thing, they’ve got the tripod.
Steven J Butala:
The tripod.
Jill DeWit:
The guy stands there with a stick and they put a stick in the ground. It’s really outlining the exact boundaries of the property.
Steven J Butala:
It’s verifying lot lines.
Jill DeWit:
Right. It is, most of the time for what we need and what we do, not necessary at our level. I don’t need to do this. It’s for when somebody is going to take it and do something with the property. That’s why. They’re going to start building. They’re going to start putting in a driveway. They need to make sure their driveway goes in the right spot. Things like that. They need to make sure … And they could take it to another level too, and if there’s utilities and things like that, they’ll pull all that in and figure out, hey, don’t do anything here because this is where the power is or the phone lines or something like that. So that’s-
Steven J Butala:
This is hot.
Jill DeWit:
Oh.
Steven J Butala:
You’re hot.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, thank you. Because I know this stuff?
Steven J Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you. Oh, I appreciate that. That’s good. I’ll start more technical with you later on tonight. Cool. But that’s what the survey is. And the point, like I was saying for us, we’re doing one right now. It’s only because I’m dividing up the property. Now what about these … So, okay Jill, that’s great, but what if I have a buyer who needs a survey? Maybe I have that property, and they are going to put a driveway. They’re buying all this stuff. Is it my responsibility to answer? No. Usually how it goes is, say it’s a commercial property and they’re going to, I don’t know, build a Starbucks there or a strip mall or something like that. It’s right on a corner. It’s perfect for that. Here’s typically how it goes. When they present the offer to you, included in the offer is an extra time for due diligence for them to complete all this stuff. They’re going to say, “All right. We need a 90 day close of escrow because we have to do this, this, this, and this to make sure it checks all our boxes.”
Jill DeWit:
And you go, typically I’ll say, “Okay.” I still want some earnest money down because I’m tying up my property now for a period of time, while you complete all your due diligence. And then the question is, well who pays? Guess what? They do. This is part of their thing that they would do after, but they want to do before they buy the property, which I totally understand, to make sure that my driveway is going to be big enough, I have the proper setbacks. I know where I can put my Starbucks. I know where the drive-through can go. I have all that stuff ahead of time figured out while we’re going through escrow. So after the 90 days or whatever period is everybody agrees upon, and it’s a rational time. It’s usually not six months. It’s usually something like that for them to do their due diligence. Then we close. They know it’s the perfect property for them. You get paid. They’ve paid all their fees. Everybody goes their merry way.
Jill DeWit:
What’s interesting is I have people saying, “Don’t I need this for everybody?” No. When you bought the property, did you say, “Hey, Mr. Jones, do you have a survey for me? And when are you going to get it?” No, you knew and you had enough information and it’s 20 acres, you know what you could do to buy that property. And by the way too, with things like ParcelFact and NeighborScoop, we can get down in there, man. We can really get good. We know the GPS points. What we don’t have is the tripod and the orange vest and a guy with a stick. But if you really wanted to learn that, I’m sure you could.
Steven J Butala:
It’s easy to learn and you can get all that stuff on Amazon.
Jill DeWit:
So you could actually go out there and do it yourself, if you will. But there’s companies that you hire to do this, by the way. A survey too is not you going … That would be kind of funny. I haven’t finished my survey school classes. So when I get my survey school classes then, and I get my official vest, then I could do this. No. But yeah, you could go out and do it, put your own-
Steven J Butala:
We’re making light of it, but it’s tough.
Jill DeWit:
It is. I don’t want to do it.
Steven J Butala:
It’s tough to get to these properties. We’re in the rural land business. It’s tough to get there sometimes.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. You’re going to spend anywhere from, I don’t know, 600 bucks to a couple thousand bucks depending how big the property is and what’s involved.
Steven J Butala:
We just paid 4,000, but go ahead.
Jill DeWit:
So yeah. Well, and it depends too on what the survey company does. So let me just give you a tip. On the one that we’re splitting, how did I find them? I called the county and said, “Who is the best in the area to get this done?” They said, “Well, Bob Smith with Smith Survey and Company.” Awesome. They like each other. They work together. Bob is apparently fast. Great.
Steven J Butala:
And accurate.
Jill DeWit:
I call Bob Smith. And by the way, some companies, like this one that we’re using, they will do all the forms for you and everything. It’s not just putting the stakes in the ground and saying, “Here you go.” They did the survey. They drew up the whole new map. They mailed us this big, beautiful new plat map. I should have had it-
Steven J Butala:
I’m framing it.
Jill DeWit:
Wish I had it to show.
Steven J Butala:
Darn, yeah, that’d have been cool.
Jill DeWit:
Shoot, I don’t have it with me right now, but another time I’ll show you what it looks like. So they send it to you, and then they write in the easements. They’re doing all the paperwork for you, making the new deeds for you, all that work, and submitting them to the county to be recorded. So that’s part of the service that I’m paying for, and I’m happy to pay for that. I don’t want to do all that.
Steven J Butala:
I could not be more happy with this survey team.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. So I think this comes up because every once in a while people get weird rogue buyers that say, “Oh, I need a survey. Don’t I need a survey?” And the answer is, well, technically no/ however, here’s how you handle this. You’re running along. You bought this great property. You had this neat buyer. He read all this stuff about the property. He read how to buy a property and thinks you need a survey because it’s rural vacant land and it’s over here. What I do is I very politely describe to them the cost savings of them doing it later on at their leisure. I’m providing you with everything. Here’s the exact GPS coordinates. Here’s everything. Here’s all that good stuff. So, you know, we all know with where the property is. If you want someone to go walk the property and put the pretty sticks in the ground with the orange flags on it, I could do that.
Jill DeWit:
It’s going to take a little bit, a few weeks to do this, number one, and I’m going to take a fee on top of that because I’m going to do the work of putting it in and hiring the guy and paying the guy and getting it out there. Or Mr. Buyer, let me tell you, this is typically what it costs and here’s who you call and you could do it yourself at any time. They’re like, “Oh, so what you’re saying Jill is the purchase price is going to go up $3,000 because you’re doing the work, or I can do it myself for 1200 later on?” Yeah, yeah, pretty much. Well, done. That’s a no-brainer.
Steven J Butala:
And by the way, the new person’s buying and doing a survey on property they don’t own. So in a lot of cases, in Jill’s due diligence case. So if somebody calls you on the phone and says, “Hey, you know what I’ve got? You got this property over here for sale and I’d love to buy it, but I need a survey,” I can tell you exactly what their age is. It’s not 20, it’s not 30, it’s not 40. It’s probably not in their 50s. This is an information show. I don’t care if you’re 40 or 400 or 12. It doesn’t matter to me at all. But surveys are before the internet, where really the only way to verify-
Jill DeWit:
True.
Steven J Butala:
… where the lot lines were because it’s satellite driven and it’s actually … We’re making light of it, but it’s complicated. And it’s great to know where lot lines are. Why? Who cares where a lot line is?
Jill DeWit:
I care if I’m doing something.
Steven J Butala:
Lenders. Lenders care.
Jill DeWit:
I’m building … Yeah.
Steven J Butala:
Lenders and developers and contractors really need to know where they can place footings. When they can get corner points on a property, then they can actually measure and start to go down the path of putting footings in and pouring foundations and getting utilities in and constructing things. That’s really what this is all about. It’s not about rural vacant land and buying for six and selling for 12, even buying for 16 and selling for 20.
Jill DeWit:
Think about that-
Steven J Butala:
Here’s the other thing, if you’re buying a 10 or 20 acre property and you’re going to put something on it, and especially in rural counties, like let’s say a mobile home, you don’t need it. On an existing property without splits and stuff, your setbacks are so not, they just don’t matter anymore because you’re in the middle of 10 acres. Because on a property, you usually have 10, 20, 30 foot setbacks where they want, they don’t want everybody on top of each other. So, acreage solves surveys often. Surveys are really required when you’re in a subdivision, in an entitled subdivision.
Jill DeWit:
Right. A lot of my buyers too, they’re using them for recreational purposes. They don’t flipping care where the flag is. The flag is going to be overgrown in six weeks or months or whatever it is. They don’t really care.
Steven J Butala:
When development and lenders are involved, they’re going to require a survey.
Jill DeWit:
Right. And then again, they pay for it. So don’t worry about it.
Steven J Butala:
Not just because you want one.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find us right here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven J Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode, well on the Land Academy Show, it’s Jack Thursday and it’s called this, should agricultural land be included in your mailer? You are not alone in your real estate ambition. And if you don’t feel like listening to the show tomorrow, which I completely understand, yes, you should include agricultural land in your mailer.
Jill DeWit:
I would listen because ag land’s expensive. It’s pretty valuable. I get it.
Steven J Butala:
Absolutely.
Jill DeWit:
I’ll be here.
Steven J Butala:
It’s a chance for you to hit a home run, and I’ll tell you some stories.
Jill DeWit:
There you go. If you need any sort of ownership or property details, including owner phone numbers and FEMA flood map overlays, check out neighborscoop.com or parcelfact.com, created by investors, that’s us, for investors like you. We are Steve and Jill.
Steven J Butala:
We are Steve and Jill. Information.
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven J Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in Apple Podcasts . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on Apple Podcasts. My staff and I read each and every one.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steven@BuWit.com.
The BuWit Family of Companies include:
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
