High Desert Land Part 4

Finding the location of a home is easy, you just lookup the address on a map. Try looking for parcels of vacant land without an street address. Even if you have a street and cross-street, to find High Desert land you need a plat map and a good understanding of townships to find the parcel location on a street map.

Let's say you found the parcel of land on the steet map. Now drive to the location. In a developed area parcels can be easy to locate, but in rural area with no markers it can difficult. If the parcel is in a rural area on dirt roads and no neighbors. Dirt roads may not be surveyed, so how do you really know where the High Desert land parcel is located. In many cases, people guess or someone tells them. How do these people know? Someone else told them. See the problem, now let's learn how GPS can help locate parcels of vacant land.

For Centuries man has used the stars and a compass to navigate the world. Surveyors also use navigation tools to identify parcels of High Desert land. When buying land surveying can be expensive, so most people skip the survey and just assume the location of the parcel. Unfortunately, many times the parcel of land is not where they were told the parcel is located. GPS is a modern navigation tool that can help locate parcels of vacant land.

GPS is short for Global Positioning System. This is a $10 billion satellite worldwide radio-navigation system that was developed by the US Department of Defense, primary for military purposes. GPS is a group of 27 satellites that orbit the earth twice a day each one transmitting precise time and it's position (latitude, longitude and altitude). Using a GPS receiver, any person can determine their location anywhere on the Earth.

With a plat map and basic knowledge about townships, most land buyers can locate parcels on street maps. The problem is driving to see the physical location. People get lost on unmarked dirt roads because some dirt roads look alike. Or they found the right road, but can't find the parcel of High Desert land. Without any property markers, anyone can be off by several hundred feet. Unfortunately, this also includes real estate signs if the agent has not verified the parcel location. This is why we use GPS to help verify parcels of land for buyers and sellers.

Basically, land has no use until someone improves the property. This means no one knows what issues that may effect putting a building on High Desert land. Since building requirements change over the years it's impractical to file building permits until the owner is ready to build. So unimproved property should be review visually for possible issues that could effect it's future value. Some items to look for are possible low areas (flooding), washes (drainage areas), yucca trees, topography (hillsides slopes), access and so on. A visual inspection the property is very important to help determine the property value. It's important to see the parcel of land, not just the general area.

Every parcel has a legal description to identify the High Desert land parcel. Using the legal description, we developed a system using a computer to outline the parcel on a map. We cross-check the township information and re-verifies the location of the parcel on the map. From this information, we update our handheld GPS receiver with the parcel location. Then using the GPS receiver, we can drive right to the parcel location. It's easy and simple.

From experience, we have found that many parcels of High Desert land offered for sale are not physically located as described. It's not the owner or agent trying to mislead the buyer, these people are just telling what they believe is true. Or sometimes the agent offering the property for sale says they have never seen the parcel. How do they expect to sell land without doing agent required due diligence?

Our GPS system is not a substitute for a professional, certified licensed surveyor. It is a violation of state law to survey property, for any purpose, without a valid state surveyor's license. We are NOT a licensed surveyor and is NOT providing a survey. We use USGS maps which disclaims the maps may be inaccurate. The GPS satellite system disclaims it's public use can have a 16 foot variation. If necessary, it's the sellers and/or buyers responsibility to hire a licensed surveyor to determine property boundary and/or corner markers of High Desert land. We use the GPS system for general information only.