Septic availability property analysis

[Chase Brumfield]

My wife and I are interested in leveraging a 2-10 acre single family property into a longer term RV park with 8-15 pads.

We've been in communication with the county.  Long story short, they recommend a process that basically looks like...

Soil scientist --> (septic engineer IF needed) --> site plan --> county approval...

We've spoken to a few soil scientists and they all quote 2k-5k to analyze the property for an appropriately sized septic system.  However, there's obviously no guarantee in what they'll find... so - how do folks mitigate the risk of the 2k-5k loss when looking to purchase a new property for a plan like this?

Also - is it appropriate to add a contingency related to this in an offer - specifically something like "earnest money will be returned if property soil is not found suitable to support 15 RV pads" sort of thing?  Or is this basically a guaranteed way to not get an offer accepted?

All advice and opinions welcome!!!

[Samuel Coronado]

Don't be held up by analysis paralysis. Do a site plan with the help of a civil engineer who may be able to do it in waves. I was quoted $2k, but it was a three phase thing with pre-perc, etc. Based on the pre-percolation test, he said the septic is basically good to go anywhere in the spots tested. He then drew up a site plan, the county health department perc'ed it themselves, and now we're just kind of waiting for me to get the financing the finish the job here. I'm hoping to build out 10-15 spots for mobile homes and another 8-10 for RVs in another part of the road frontage (I have two roads). Right now, I'm under contract for another park so everything is on hold. Don't over think it though! Like @Mario Dattilo said, sometimes you will sink money into something that you don't close on or buy. I've lost $2400 on a SFH that I never bought. That's nothing compared to all the issues I would have had to solve if I did do it. It's part of the game. On this property, I've paid $1500 for a partial survey and 2k on a civil engineer. I've already bought the property because I was afraid of rising rates (got a 3.4% thank goodness because they're literally in the 7s now), but it's still costing me 1800/month before construction starts. It'll probably be a couple more years because I keep going to other more lucrative short term projects, but I'll get there eventually.