Dirt Flight is not a drone photography service. To get aerial photos of a California parcel, enter the county and the APN. The boundary is drawn from county assessor parcel data and the pack renders in about ten minutes: an outlined top down, four cardinal 3D views, an 18 second orbit video and a contour map showing slope and access. Nobody flies out, so there is no travel charge, and all 58 counties render.
- Coverage
- Statewide, from county records
- Turnaround
- About 10 minutes
- Travel charge
- None, ever
- Imagery age
- One to three years
Cheap land here is remote, and remote means unphotographed.
California vacant land is mostly not coastal. It is high desert in Kern and San Bernardino, sage and juniper in Modoc and Lassen, foothill oak in Tehama. These are the parcels that sell by mail, and the ones no pilot will drive four hours to shoot for a small commission.
County assessor parcel data is what the boundary is drawn from, so coverage here is complete rather than partial. Slope, fire access and whether a graded road actually reaches the line are the questions buyers ask, and the 3D views with the contour map answer them without a site visit.
Boundaries are approximate, from public parcel data, and are not a survey.
One APN. Everything below.
One parcel, one APN, everything below. Juniper and sage, a graded road along the north line, and a ridge climbing off the back.
Everything in the pack
This is the whole California delivery.
Every view below came back from one parcel number, in about ten minutes, with no pilot and no site visit.
Where California land actually trades.
These are the ones land buyers ask for most, each with its own page.
Do not see your county? Every one of the 58 renders. Send the APN and it comes back the same ten minutes.
Asked by people selling California ground.
Which California counties can you do?
Send the county and the APN and we go straight to that county's own parcel records. Coverage varies: some states publish one statewide layer, others leave it county by county. If yours is one where the records are not public, you hear it from us before anything is charged.
How much does a drone photographer cost for a rural California listing?
Dirt Flight is not a drone photography service, so this is not our fee. A California pilot quotes the shoot plus the drive, and the drive to a forty in Modoc or eastern San Bernardino County can be most of a day each way. Dirt Flight renders the parcel from licensed aerial imagery and public elevation data instead of sending anyone up in the air, so there is no travel charge, no scheduling and no weather day.
Does the imagery show slope and access on foothill or desert parcels?
Yes. The four 3D views show the climb the way a buyer would see it walking in, and the contour map puts numbers on it. Graded road, two track and the point where the road stops all read in the access view.
Can you outline one lot in a subdivided desert tract?
Yes. Where hundreds of identical lots sit side by side, a boundary drawn from assessor data is the only thing that tells one from another, and the context map shows what is actually built around it.
How recent is the imagery on a California parcel?
Somewhere between one and three years for most California ground, dated on the pack. A burn scar or a new access cut from this season may not appear until the next flight. Contour data behind the elevation views refreshes separately.
What exactly comes back for a California APN?
An outlined top down, four cardinal 3D views, an 18 second orbit video, a contour map, a context map and a parcel info sheet. Paydirt adds road frontage views, infrared, a social kit and the full resolution files. California buyers look at the contour map and the access view first. California buyers look at the contour map and the access view first.
Got a California parcel under contract?
Send the county and the APN. If your invite is not open yet we will still look at the first one by hand.