Hi Guider. In every video I either pay for a survey or reference getting one. There is a common theme on this Channel that Surveyors are perfect, and every year I read at least 10 Survey's with multiple errors on them. No one is perfect. So I think it's good for consumers to have many options.

And headaches and unnecessary expenses for landowners… Owners, you are dealing with what may be your largest investment. Do no trust an app to identify the boundaries. Hire a professional land surveyor.

My thought exactly. If the linework on these apps comes from a county GIS (and where else would it come from?), then it is unreliable and prone to errors. Speaking from 35 yrs of experience. That said, the app may get you close enough to start looking with a metal detector and shovel. Even that does not prove the location of a found marker in relation to the adjoiners or subdivision it is part of.

I have personally surveyed , start to finish, over 11,000 properties (tracts of land). There are simply too many variables to make the survey process something the non surveyor can do. This is why a four year degree and four years of experience are required to be eligible to take the two 8 hours exams you must pass in order to be licensed.

....but....if people want to do it themselves, have at it.

Correct Lisa. When consumers decide it's worth over $1,000 and 3 weeks of their time, getting a Survey is usually the best way to go.

​@MarkTheRealtor Better than a lawsuit. Hopefully, folks don't follow your advice.

@@claytond6898 You mean, this advice? "Disclaimer: If you are buying/selling land/property ALWAYS hire and pay a land surveyor to get them exact."

True that. My lot isn't your standard rectangular shape and I've always questioned the plot diagrams that are available online since it shows I own my neighbors whole front driveway. I suspect for most homeowners, they wouldn't have the same issue i have because of my odd lot shape. I finally went down to city hall after watching this and pulled the property lines they had on record and did the overlay as described here. They were way different than the online crud. They said the GIS maps available online may be a little off and were they. Off by over 20 feet. I was lucky enough that my neighbor on the backside had his lot surveyed when i moved in 15 years ago. Hence I was able to locate my 2 back corners accurately and then overlay the city plot map over this. As it turns out I do own a bit of my neighbors front driveway, but only about 1ft and not 10 lol. All this being said, one concern I noticed after getting the original hand drawn lots from the city is that their plot drawings are off too...... I had to recreate all the plots of my house and my neighbors in CAD because something wasn't adding up right on one of the lengths of my property line. Sure enough, one of my property edges dimensions was noted what I have to say is wrong and off by 4ft. Not really sure if I hired a surveyor how they would figure out my boundaries if my plot map has the wrong dimensions on it....

Awesome, thanks snazzy for the high five

Yes, good point and well received.

Sorry to hear that Nate. Sounds like the County where you live may or may not have a GIS mapping Department. Landglide and other Apps like it, get their parcel data from the 3,000+ Counties. And sadly when the County data is bad, so are the Apps.

@@MarkTheRealtor yes. The county data was pretty far off as well. The lot is still usable but will cost me a second perc test.

@@natehendricksen3338 Sorry to hear that Nate. Thank you for participating in this content.

@@MarkTheRealtor You sound good, the Videography as in Photographic Editing is Certainly a pleasure to watch. But as much as possible a producer has to be Accurate, and Not loose w/ their words. The last that I heard is that there are 192 Nations on the earth.

@@Crayfish- Thank you for the feedback Crayfish.

Thank you for watching @sunoh.

Great comment Ralphae. Hope it works out smoothly.

@@MarkTheRealtor thank you, so do I.

Thanks Meaty for sharing.

That is awesome TRCass. Good work.

Yes, excellent. If it is a very rural area, hopefully your County's GIS Mapping Dept has done a good job with the parcel maps too.

Hi Bill. The accuracy of these Apps is also highly dependent upon the GIS Mapping Dept for your County. The Apps also tend to be more accurate in flat areas rather than hilly ones.

I'll bet that if these tests were repeated the flags for each app would vary depending on time of day, satellite position, the particular gps chip in the phone and a whole host of other factors. So bottom line is there's really no difference between these apps apart from the user interface.

@@robertmontgomery3892 Oh, good idea for a future video. Thanks Robert.

You also need to understand that GPS accuracy on phones is only good for +/- 5 meters at best and even survey grade GPS units need to "bake" in a spot for hours to get a true GPS reading. I think the takeaway with your video is to show that the apps get you in a good "ballpark" of the area.

Thank you Abbie for the comment. Well said.

@AbbieHoffmansGhost I can't believe that your neighbor was able to build a garage right up to the edge (and beyond on that one corner) of his boundary lines! I guess there were no setback restrictions in his county, or setback reqt's with his building code people??

@@kebo57 Thanks Abbie for participating.

Not sure when the garage was built but I bought the adjoining house and property in 1981 and it was in central N.H. and our town had some very sketchy town government which is probably why the town manager, a native of that town, went to the state prison for, what they called, misappropriation of funds. @@kebo57

Water over the damn now. My wife and I divorced and sold the house and the neighbor died. @@dchall8

Glad you enjoyed it!

I review 60 surveys a year and 10% are often wrong in someway. And, being transparent, Surveyors are usually quite accurate.

Hi Victory. Before the Apps people would wonder and argue because they would not know with 20'-30'. With the Apps if they know within 3' then to most, that is much better. The two choices before was either 1. Not Knowing or 2. Hiring a surveyor for over $1,000. Now there is a 3rd choice.

​@@MarkTheRealtorActually sounds like a different version of not knowing.

@@TexasVernon Okay Vernon. Sounds like 3' of accuracy is "not knowing". So you would be a perfect person to order a survey and pay nearly $2,000 for that last 3' of "knowing". For those who want "absolute" a Survey is usually, not always, your best option.

3' is actually pretty good for a "free" app. Keep in mind that gps is mostly used by cities to know which side of the street their water line is or to find closest fire hydrant in case of a fire. Our expensive surveying equipment get us within half an inch. People have literally been killed for flying on restricted areas before the US government decided to give our gps signals for free in the 90's. We (U.S. taxpayers) pay about 2 millions dollars per day for GPS which is available for free to the entire world.

@@MarkTheRealtorthat’s ridiculous. A survey is always the best option, aside from just having an unreliable idea of where your corners are. Surveyors are the only one licensed to tell you where you property is. Realtors are not

Good points Canopus. Well received and thank your for sharing.

I've seen heavy steel angles used as corner markers.

Hire a pro! Period

@@Sevendeucegroup For everyone reading this, SevenDeuceGroup wants everyone to go spend $1,000 on a survey. Even if you want to know where to rake your leaves. Is that a smart decision?

​@@Sevendeucegroup Professionals can cost thousands and take many months to get to your site. Depends on how many surveyors are available in your area and how busy they are... The size and makeup of your property, such as how easy it is to walk the lines and how many men they need to do the work... A very large expense... Even if you find out, then you might need to sue your neighbors if they have encroached or built on your property. Even then, if they have been using your property for a number of years, even if you didn't know about it, your SOL ... No matter what the deed says... Fighting any of this adds many thousands to the cost... That's why people generally go by existing fence lines...

Thanks 123. This video took some effort.

Hi Cody. I order, pay, and review 60 survey's a year. 6-10 of those survey's are wrong. I mean, dead wrong. It's been difficult to get any type of post-survey communication, with Surveyor's. And when I do, the survey problems are always someone else's fault. And in every video I discuss how survey's are the most accurate resource. Thanks for opening up to us.

@@MarkTheRealtoryou should turn in those surveyors to the state board. Submit a formal complaint.

@@caasinauj I would never submit a formal complaint against a surveyor. They are very important. AND, I think home owners have the rights to know where their approximate boundaries are located. BOTH.

Hi BR. Thanks for the comment. The County GIS data can either be accurate or sadly very inaccurate. Then once you get the County Data on paper or screen shot, how do people know where they are out in the field? These Apps have a colored dot which represents their GPS location. Which I think is the key. GIS without GPS usually is hard to decipher out in the field.

“Within 2 feet”? That’s a pretty lenient tolerance. The surveyors I’ve worked with typically pin property corners to within about a tenth of a foot and building corners to a couple hundredths.

@@racker7855 He clearly stated in the video that a professional survey was required for action on structures, landscaping changes, fences, etc. These apps are reviewed as useful tools to help landowners have a reasonably good idea about their property boundaries with the use of county GIS data. Depending on there needs each can decide to seek professional surveys. This is your second denigrating comment that hasn't added to the conversation. What's up?

@@lindahathaway3519 He is a pro surveyor that's going to lose money due to videos like this, that's what I suspect. I know that I will not pay a surveyor thousands of dollars and wait weeks/months unless absolutely necessary.

Hi Lynn. Thanks for the note. That sound sounds great when the County gets involved with field accuracy for the benefit of all.

Good idea. Yes. Use the Apps to often get very close. Then use a metal detector under $50 to locate the pins underground.

Thank you Sidha. More to come!

Good points Donald. Well received.

"but certainly wouldn’t rely on it to build fences or something like that." Well,like in my case using GPS and the county assessor's map which has a measuring tool, and google maps I found my corners and lines pretty accurately, even if it was off 3 feet, I'd put a fence like 2 feet further back on my property to be sure

Thank you Wooley. This video did take some time to produce.

Thank you Hundred. I too use it everyday and in my area is very accurate.

Very observant Liew and thanks for noticing. On the video I walked in, paused for only 2 seconds and walked out. In reality, off camera, I spent 10-mins at each corner with a tripod. YOU are right, slowing down really helped the results. Especially in the back corners next to that 20' tall concrete wall.

Thanks for sharing

That's ridiculous. By that reasoning, if you want to put up a fence and your neighbor wants to put up a fence there must be TWO FEET between the fences??? It makes more sense to share the fence.

WHY WOULD THEY BOTH PUT UP A FENCE ILLOGICAL ?@@kennethhalleck4279

What happens to that 12" of land?

@@CelticYeil IT's a measurement error. Nothing happens and property lines will not be adjusted because of it.

Great tip Joe. Thank you for the idea.

Good points Tim. Well received.

Good points Steve. Not usually good for building a fence. Unless you want to keep the fence well within the property lines.

Thanks Gerge.

Hi Nick. I agree 100% with your comments, but there are a group of people commenting on this channel that believe you can even rake leaves in your yard with getting a survey first.

Yes, Bobby. Correct. This video is Version 3. If you have time look up Version 2 of this video and I did demonstrate how to do that. Hope it helps.

Finding a metal stake does not mean it's your corner. It takes much more than that to determine if it is your property corner.

@@racker7855 I was referring to Version 2 of this video. I found 4 pins and they were confirmed to be Lot corners.

@@tumadre50 I was referring to Version 2 of this video. I found 4 metal pins and they were all Survey confirmed to be the actual lot corners.

Well, if it's right within a couple or three feet near the EXPECTED corner and there's nothing else around it, it's fair to say thats the CORNER pin. @@tumadre50

Hi John. Good points for those interested in easements and encroachments. If someone purely wants an approximation of their property lines, then often they choose the Apps.

Thanks David for watching that. It was a little longer than I wanted.

Hi Chad. Oh, I love OnX too. I have produced a video being released in 2 days on GPS and techniques to leverage its strengths. Hopefully KZfaq will send it do you once there is a link.

Thank you for the note.

Over time those concrete markers will move. Especially in areas where the ground freezes and thaws annually.

@@cmerton Good points. IN our area we don't see many concrete markers.

we had markers in the concrete sidewalk & our new neighbors, who had a landscaping business (should have known better) decided that they would cut down a tree on my property & install a wall. His girlfriend was visiting & called the cops on ME weeding a garden 4 ' from the property line. Resulted in a lawyer, surveyor, etc. My husband & I got divorced within a year bc he blamed ME. NO one would listen to me that the markers were there-not even the cop.

@@lovly2cu725 Sorry to hear about those problems. Ugh. It is sad to me how many neighbors have issues with property lines. They are a source of big problems.

Thank you David. More coming soon.

Thank you H for the positive feedback.

Good points Q. Thanks for sharing.

Good idea wyldanimal2. Appreciate the thought.

well this map data is never THAT accurate anyway

@@sebastianusami Hello Sebastian. The plat map data for your County comes from its own GIS Mapping Dept. Some Counties are very accurate while others, not so much. Sometimes the Apps are only as good as your Counties GIS Dept. Especially in some hilly regions, the maps can be less accurate.

Commercial cellphones do not have guaranteed 1 meter GPS accuracy. It varies with latitude. Accuracy is further reduced without announcement during times of heightened national security alerts, done by having the members of a satellite constellation offset their signal by differing amounts from the fixed time base. It's also possible to bias a location by rebroadcasting some signals at a stronger level.

@@MarkTheRealtor right, so you cant count on them.

Thank you for sharing Stephen. Yes, it can be a mess. Sorry to hear about all that.

Glad it was helpful! IN the next few days I am uploading a video on finding your property corners using GPS. Please look for it too.

That is a good point Gatsby. Well received.

Thanks for thar well reasoned reality check

Correct!

"The total property width/length has nothing to do with accuracy." Exactly. We're trying to locate a specific point whose location is not based on its relationship to any other point.

Hi Matthew. So I wanted to know where my side property line was so I could put my trash cans out by the street in my yard. Would you suggest I call a surveyor so I know where to put my trash cans? Matthew, I want to know approximately where my property line is so I know where to cut my grass. Would you suggest I call a surveyor? Sure, surveyors are accurate but at $1,280 and waiting 3 weeks for results is not always the best solution.

@@MarkTheRealtor I have been called out to do surveys over the very scenarios you have mentioned, after the fact. And I can tell you that when its all said and done, survey fees, attorney's letters back and forth, etc. it's way more than $1,280.. Not to mention when you and that neighbor meet at the mail box or happen to be picking up the morning newspaper in the driveway at the same time you don't even speak because your pissed off at each other.

Thank you Luis for watching this content.

Oh no Brett. That does sound like a mess. Sorry to hear that.

Glad it helped

Correct Jer for anything Legal, hire a Surveyor. For EVERYTHING not legal, use the Apps.

I like that Ozzie. Thank you for the positive comment.

Great points Tx. Metal detectors can be a big help. If the pins are already in the ground.

Thanks DanO

Yes, Abiseid. As said in nearly every video and description I produce. These tools are not for a land purchase, they are for pre-purchase evaluation. They are also helpful to current property owners who are not transacting a parcel of real estate.

Great note John. Very well said.

The survey costs what it does since there's time and effort into it. We can't just find two monuments and automatically stake a line between them. We have to research, to make sure the subject lot and adjoiners' fit together without conflict - or in the case of conflict, try to resolve it. Take field measurements to see how the field locations fit with the plan/deed calls. Along with that is the liability - so we need to be sure that we're right So, as we say, it's not necessarily staking the line that costs so much, but figuring out where to stake it. Sometimes it is the staking, though, on large acreage lots, and can get into the 10's of thousands of dollars I do find it funny that you and others look to compare survey costs with fence or other costs. When land was cheap, I guess - but now, if you have a $300k-500k property, it sounds a bit foolish to not know what you own, and that $2600 is too expensive to find out what you actually bought for that kind of money

Thanks for the note JD.

Thank you Paula J. Hope it helps.

In every video I say that. And it's in the description. In this video I even hired a Professional survey team as an accuracy datum. Hey "User" did you even watch this whole video?

😂 he is trying to save homeowners money because city and states ripping people off.

Hi Hayden. I have actually worked for a Surveying Company. And please consider how to spell the word "Realator" before offering your expertise to the community of home-owners.

@@MarkTheRealtorand while we’re at it, we could mention that it’s etc. …not ect….😉😆

@@cynthiadebeau4230 Well there we have it. Now I'm corrected.

@@MarkTheRealtor❤ 😊👍🏻 ... lol

@@MarkTheRealtorAnd your (you’re) is also misspelled! 😊

Again this year I will review over 60 survey's and 6 of them will have errors or something incomplete about them. And to be fair, often it's not the Surveyors fault, it's a problem with the Title or how some easement was recorded incorrectly. Garbage in .....Garbage out.

another problem sometimes is that someone wrote a boxed number or the one who wrote the deed transcribed the numbers wrong. another problem is that it could be 2 separate subdivisions and they overlap where they come together. another problem I've come across is a shortage in the subdivision that the last lot may say 100 foot frontage but may be short. The laws in the state relative to land surveying shall govern how to deal with these problems.@@MarkTheRealtor

@@costafamily4941 Okay, makes sense. Thank you for sharing.

Thank Ukepa. There was an internet signal booster on the pole right over it. I think there was some interference sure. All of the reading were more accurate when I would stand there for 3-mins and let the GPS chip acclimate. But for the video I had to walk in frame, place the flag, and walk back out of frame in 15 seconds.

Great advice SLH. Yes, get a surveyor. Since you are informing consumers, then advise them on who is going to pay for it? Surveyors have written me back over 500 times in the last year "Get A Surveyor, this guys an idiot". Okay, who is going to pay $1,000 and wait 3 weeks for an official survey? If Survey's are so great they why will only 20% of all home buyers order and pay for a survey?

Thank you Trent. In a sea of judgement and anger, your comment is well received.

Hi Jim. Some good points here. In nearly every video I recommend hiring a surveyor. And on every video viewers comment back saying "You're giving bad advice, get a Surveyor".

Thank you VVT for watching and understanding. Many watch 2 mins of it, get offended, and fire back.

Thank you John R. I hope this helps.

Good points GuyG. Thank you for sharing. If you are interested my Property Lines video Version 2 demonstrates how to use a metal detector to locate those metal pins.

Hi Mary. Thanks for the note. Yes, homeowners who care about their property, are good at learning about it. Smiles.

Thanks Ron for watching. Cheers.

Yes, thank you. Sorry to hear that. I walked a lot yesterday where the neighbors widened their driveway by 15' because they thought their land went to the light pole. Oops.

@MarkTheRealtor I tried using Regrid but it wouldn't allow me to walk the property and show me the way. I did, however, obtain my lots measurements.

... and canceled my subscription

@@thesentimentalsoul3683 Glad it helped. Confirming I don't work for any of the App companies or get paid one penny by them.

Oh Cynthia. Yes, very observant. At the time the best device in the market.

@@MarkTheRealtor Indeed. I have several HP RPN calculators now, and I still use them! I just wish HP still catered to that market.

@@Cynthia_Cantrell Oh me too. Yes, Reverse Pol Notation. No "equals" sign. I miss those days too Cynthia.

Thank you for doing it grayeagle. AND, the more I let the equipment acclimate, the more accurate it became.

We need more bees in our community too.

Great points Trevor. So fun.

Hi Jon. Not sure on the cell affect on accuracy. I do have a comment though on OnX. When the points are off by 15' it's not an OnX problem, it's the GIS Data being fed into OnX from the County where that parcel is. Does that make sense? I am releasing another video in the next month to explain this further.

Well okay then. There you have it.

and your music.

Thanks for the note John. Well received. The surveyors I was with had special equipment that they said costs over $30,000. He said it was accurate within 1 cm. Impressive.

The GPS equipment used in surveying is different, uses different signals, and is accurate to as little as 1/8". It's also obscenely expensive and requires a hefty subscription. And trained operator with tape and transit can get measurements that are accurate to 1/2 inch.

@@joelee2371 Thank you for the feedback JL. Agreed, very valuable equipment and experience is needed. There is a gap between what home owners want as far as corner locations and what it costs them to acquire the info. Within that gap all these other partial solutions are growing. I like Survey's. But we all realize many property owners will not spend the money to hire them.

Fences should never be installed on the property line even when there is no question about its accuracy. Fences installed on a property line become the shared legal responsibility of both properties. You could, for example, sell your house, and if the fence is dilapidated, the new owner could sue the neighbor for half the cost of repairing the fence.

@@tycox8704 And yet 9 out of every 10 fences in our area are installed right on the property line. Our Fence companies demand a pre-survey, snap a line, and start building.

There were no App flags in when the Surveying team did their survey. I did measure some between the survey pins when they were done. In Version 4 of this video just uploaded I discuss some of those readings.

Hi Patrick. Very observant. There were some tall metal post the owner put up to keep the neighbor off their property during construction. A few others were holding up trees that were leaning. The owner got them from the hardware store and hammered them into the ground.

Glad it was helpful!

Thank you Joe for the comment. Good points, those cross hairs can be a big help. Also please keep in mind that many States have something called Street Creep. Our streets in St. Louis are shifting and moving with thermal expansion and erosion downhill.

Thanks for sharing Tanyia.

Good day Orlando. With Wifi at your house consider opening up LandGlide and getting all the maps connected in your device. Then when you go out into the field, the map should open, and the GPS satellites will take over the location of the blue dot. When you walk towards corners or boundaries, please take your time and let the location acclimate slowly off of GPS triangulation.

Good points Ferd.

Thank you Seahorse for trying. Sorry the results were poor. Ugh.

Hello Lt. One of the best comments in the history of this video. Very well said !!!!

Sorry to hear about these challenges. Ugh. You are not along with thousands of property disputes each year.

Hi John. I would say 30% of the properties I walk have metal pins buried. For the rest consumers can either use these Apps for an approximation, of if they need to know the exact boundaries then usually a Survey is best.

Hi Robt. That is so impressive. Correct the Apps can't touch that kind of accuracy.

I am advocating that homeowners here have Rights. And a fundamental right of home ownership, is the right to take measurements on their own property. There is a video on my Channel of 15 uses cases. There are 5 situations where I absolutely recommend getting a Survey. And 10 other situations where I think a Survey is overkill.

Oh, good question. Yes, the surveys can also have GPS coordinates on them. In the next few days I will be releasing a long expected video on locating your Property corners using GPS.

Hi. Thanks for trying it. It sounds like the Boundary overlay from your County's GIS Dept might be 10' off center. Sorry, I do see that occurring sometimes. The data starts with your County and the ReGrid uploads it.

Hi Steven. You might be on to something. One other viewer told me that too. I just went into GoogleMaps and could not find parcel data. Asking if the plat maps are in Settings? Or, how did you get them to show up?

Hi Patrick. Thanks for the comment. I have an idea for you. Millions of parcels have been Surveyed prior and have metal pins in the ground. On my channel is Version 2 of this video. It uses the Apps to get within a meter. And then a metal detector to find the pins from years prior. Maybe try that? kzfaq.info/get/bejne/e-BpgJOrv8q7pI0.htmlsi=67EM4OknLi14Kcwu