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Prior to excavation, you should prepare the dig site and call 311 before you sign anything.

To get your site ready for excavation, you should move anything in the area that isn’t affixed to the land. You can save money on the excavation by removing hardscaping, including walkways, decks, concrete patios, and paver patios.

Before you carry out any digging, you should call 311 to confirm that there are no utility lines running through your excavation site. Skipping this step could lead to severe injury and property damage if your excavator hits a water, sewage, or gas line.

You should always calculate real estate development costs on a case-by-case basis, so there’s no specific formula to estimate your total. You should speak with a local construction manager to see what you’ll need to do in terms of clearing and leveling the land, connecting utilities, and pulling permits for construction. A professional will be able to get you an accurate estimate for land development.

Land surveying costs about $530 for the average homeowner. However, your total cost could range anywhere from $200 to $1,000 or more. Factors like the size of your property play a significant role in what you pay, but other things like the survey type and the time of year can also impact the final cost. 

For example, if you’re looking for a simple boundary survey, you can expect to pay between $100 and $600. However, if you want a more in-depth survey that depicts the elevations of your hills and trees, you can expect to pay between $500 and $1,200 for a topographic survey.

You can’t build on undeveloped land without preparing it for construction, which involves running utilities to the site or accounting for private utilities like wells and septic systems and grading and compacting the soil for safe construction. Once you prepare the land, you can build on it as long as the project abides by local zoning regulations.