For a raw 12 acre parcel, is drone footage doing anything a plat map isn't?
I'm getting ready to list a piece of vacant land, gently rolling, mostly cleared, a seasonal creek along one edge. Nothing on it. No structures, no driveway, one gate.
A local shooter quoted me $340 for aerials with a boundary line drawn on top, plus a short video that flies the perimeter. A plat map and a county parcel viewer screenshot are free, and honestly they show the shape more clearly than a photo does.
So the beginner question I'm sitting with: what does the drone actually add for a buyer who is looking at bare ground? The case for paying is that a buyer can see topography, tree cover, how the creek sits, and what the neighboring properties look like, none of which a flat line drawing tells you. The case against is that land buyers I've talked to say they drive it themselves before they get serious, so the media is only doing the job of getting them to drive out, and a good written description plus the parcel map might do that for free.
Quick definitions for anyone as new as me: a plat map is the recorded drawing that shows the parcel lines and dimensions. A boundary overlay is when the photographer draws those lines onto an aerial photo so you can see where the property ends against real ground.
What land people do in practice varies a lot from what I expected, so I'd rather see the split than get one answer.
Marketing a raw parcel with nothing on it: what would you actually pay for?
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