“Jack” Pot

Our realtor and lawyer recommended a few local surveyors and perc testing companies; but even with leads in hand, this next step proved more difficult and time consuming than anticipated. The few vendors that actually answered our calls informed us that the sheer volume of home and land purchases during the year had outpaced all their resources. One contributing factor was most towns were operating with restricted hours and limited staffing and the process of filing paperwork was stretching all timelines many months out.

Persistence paid off and we heard back from two surveyors, both needed the property tax ID to do research so to provide quotes and possible time lines for mapping. In the meantime, we budgeted the cost of the survey (based on our realtor’s estimates and our own research) to be between 3-5k dollars. Comfortable with our thinking, we were very eager to hear back from the surveyors as winter was fast approaching, but when we finally did hear back – we were blindsided. Both quotes estimated the cost of the survey to be between 8-10 thousand dollars or about $135 per acre! 

When doing research for the costs of surveying, most of what you’ll read will be based on the US average lot size, specifically residential. In reality, it depends on plot, terrain and age of last survey and if you need a simple or a detailed survey which can change the price significantly. We were finding ourselves at a dead end looking at both timing and cost, we again needed to remind ourselves we’re not alone and we weren’t asking for help and that maybe we should.

We decided to reach out to family friends Karen & Jason. Karen and Jason were neighbors of ours when we lived Upstate and our respective parents have been connected since before we were born. Karen’s dad had worked for NYS for much of his years as an engineer and is deeply connected to the local community. The entire family came through for us! Jack called the next day and told us that he found a local company he was familiar with and discovered that they had inherited a trove of maps from a former surveyor Jack once knew. In addition, the company had completed surveys for 2 of the neighboring properties’ boundaries a few years earlier which allowed them, and us, much more details to work with and from. 

This was the news we needed. Thanks to Jack we hit the jackpot, literally; having access to the other property lines saved time, saved more than half the money vs. previous quotes, would keep us on track, and weather permitting, we would accomplish at least one contingency before closing.

We now had our land surveyor, and despite heavy snow which slowed down the survey progress, Dave Weiss from WA Wiley Land Surveying came through. He was communicative, thorough and filed the needed paper work with both the bank and county, and in turn made it much easier for us back in NJ. Thank you Dave!! 

In late January I drove up to meet with Dave and we walked the entire boundary line together, and for the first time I got a very clear picture of the entire property. A few details really stood out to us:  the farmers were pretty accurate – the stone walls on 2 sides of the property, while not straight are pretty close to true; and the view was going to be amazing – until that moment we had no idea how far back the property went and we now knew that the entire ridge line and beyond was well within our boundary.

The walk covered 2 miles in circumference through a light falling snow… and at the end of that walk, all of the reality of this investment was beginning to set in and I was keen to get back to share the news.