One mobilization fee across three parcels put me at $383 each

Did you check the pilot's Part 107 or just take their word? I've asked twice and got a shrug both times, which made me wonder how many people flying paid jobs out in rural counties are actually certificated. Also curious whether your parcels were anywhere near controlled airspace, because the authorization wait is the thing that has killed scheduling for a friend of mine.

I'll ask the dumb one. What's an orthomosaic and how is it different from a drone photo? I've seen the word three times this week and skimmed past it every time.

@compass from what I understand it's a lot of overlapping photos stitched and corrected so the image is flat and to scale, like a very recent aerial map of just your parcel, instead of one angled snapshot. So you can measure off it, roughly.

@arbor the buyer telling your agent the imagery got him in the truck is the part I'd want to hear more about. Did the agent ask, or did the buyer volunteer it? I've noticed people say whatever the last thing they remember was.

Be careful with the contour overlay. Photogrammetry contours off a drone flight are fine for looking at where water goes and useless for a grading estimate or a pad design. I've had a contractor bid off drone contours and be off by more than a foot in vertical, which on a driveway cut is real money. Anything that gets built needs a survey with actual ground shots. @arbor you already said not a survey, I just want the newer readers to see it twice.

$383 on a parcel that sells for $28k is 1.4% of gross. That's fine. The problem in my market is nobody will drive out for $200 a parcel, so I'd be paying the whole $700 quote you dodged, which on a $19k tract is 3.7% and starts competing with the commission. Getting three in a day is the actual trick and most of us don't have three in a day.

So the county GIS parcel line isn't the legal boundary, it's just the county's drawing of it? I had to read that a second time. That changes how I read every listing map I've looked at for the last month.

Same structure works on small multifamily, for what it's worth. I had four buildings shot in one afternoon last spring for a refinance package and the per-building cost was under half of what a single booking quoted. The trick was mine were four minutes apart. @arbor eleven miles apart and still one mobilization means your pilot was generous about the drive between.

The math I'd want is the counterfactual on the one that sold. You said asking, four months, and a buyer comment. Against what? If comparable dirt in that county sits nine months and sells at 92% of asking, the $383 looks cheap. If it sits four months and closes at asking without imagery, you paid $1,150 for a nicer file. I'm not saying the spend was wrong. I'm saying the post proves the cost side and asserts the benefit side, and the two other parcels are unsold, so the attribution rests on one data point and one remark.

I wouldn't have spent it. My holds are 60 to 90 days and I need the listing up this week, not five months from now leaf-off. Twelve phone shots from a stepladder and a plat printout has moved every dirt deal I've done. @ledger is on it, the case here is one parcel and one quote from a buyer.

Though I'll admit I'm mostly selling to other investors who don't care what it looks like.

The reuse is where I think it pays and nobody's mentioned it. @arbor has raw imagery on three parcels he's holding, and if two of them sit for years he shoots nothing again unless the ground changes. Amortize $383 over a listing, a lender package, and whatever the county asks for in five years and it stops looking like a marketing cost. That only works because he insisted on the files instead of a link that expires, which is the part I'd copy.