This is an email to a client who had asked about using the Baldwin County Parcel Viewer Map.
The client was asking how to locate property surrounded by swampy wetlands. Finding properties like this isn’t difficult, but it is time consuming and it really involves going out and walking the property to see the lay of the land to confirm what the county maps are telling you.
The easiest way to look is using the Baldwin County GIS Map Viewer, which you’ll find here: http://isv.kcsgis.com/al.baldwin_revenue/
Load the page, click through the “I Agree” business, and you’re in. You can play around and get a feel for how it works, but for sake of illumination, I’ll give you a walk through on what I’d be looking for.
Over on the left pane, click “Go To Map” and that will show you the whole of Baldwin County. Easiest thing is to search by address, so in the “Address” box up at the top, type in “9072 Twin Beech Road Fairhope, AL 36532” since it’s the property we’re both familiar with. When you hit enter, the map will zoom in to view that parcel, and while there’s lots of stuff you can do from here, we’re looking for swampy areas, so let’s focus on that.
If you hit the “minus arrow” in the upper left hand corner of the map, it will zoom out two layers, and in the lower right hand corner of the window, you’ll see what the map identifies as “swampy”. In the picture below, the orange arrow is pointing to it.
From here, you can drag around the map to explore and find more swampy areas. When you find a piece of property for sale, you can search by address and see what’s around it.
You can also play around with the “Layers” in the pane on the left – my favorite is “Baldwin County Imagery 2013” which is a satellite view. While those images are getting long in the tooth, they’re still very helpful in identifying a particular piece of property.
Feel free to explore and if you’ve got any questions I’m happy to help!
When you decide that you’d like to start looking for property down the road and put this theoretical exercise into practice, let me know and I’ll set up some automated searches that notify you when properties that meet your criteria come on the market.
Many thanks,
Dave
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Dave Kirby
Realtor®, Urban Property |
I am trying to search by Parcel Number (not address) and it keeps showing “No Search Results”. Any idea how to search by parcel?
The parcel numbers are long and onerous with lots of spots to drop some leading zeros. Generally speaking, PPIN numbers are shorter and easier to work with. Email me the parcel number that you’re looking for and I’ll take a look and see if I can figure it out. [email protected]
Looking for a place in Summerdale to put a trailer on
Hi Dave,
How do I find out if a piece of property has marsh lands on it or if there is any portion of the piece of property that we are not able to build on because it is considered marsh land?
Thank you in advance,
Conner