PermitIQ — US Building Permit Intelligence API

PermitIQ is the only building permit actor with ZIP-level market trend analysis and month-over-month hotspot scoring. Query official government APIs across Chicago, Austin, NYC, Los Angeles, and San Francisco — get urgency-scored contractor leads, market trend data by ZIP code, or raw permit records for AI pipelines. No scraping, no browser automation, no proxies. Direct Socrata API access. MCP-ready for Claude, Cursor, and any AI agent.

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What it does

PermitIQ returns structured building permit data in three output modes tuned for different buyers:

Mode	Use case	Output
leads	Contractor outreach, sales prospecting	Urgency-scored permits sorted by opportunity value
trends	Market research, territory planning	ZIP-level hotspot scores + month-over-month volume delta
raw	Data pipelines, AI agents, custom analysis	Normalized records with explicit nulls, MCP-ready

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Quick start

Input

Parameter	Required	Description
cities	✅	chicago, austin, nyc, los_angeles, san_francisco
outputMode	—	leads (default), trends, or raw
permitType	—	all (default), roofing, hvac, plumbing, electrical, new_construction, remodel, solar, adu
daysBack	—	Days of history to retrieve (default: 30, max: 365)
maxResults	—	Record cap (default: 100)
minEstimatedCost	—	Filter by minimum project value in USD
zipCode	—	Restrict to a single ZIP code
budgetUsd	—	Spend cap based on $0.01/record PPE pricing

Example: roofing leads in Chicago, last 7 days

{
  "cities": ["chicago"],
  "outputMode": "leads",
  "permitType": "roofing",
  "daysBack": 7,
  "maxResults": 50
}

Example: ADU permits in Los Angeles and San Francisco

{
  "cities": ["los_angeles", "san_francisco"],
  "outputMode": "leads",
  "permitType": "adu",
  "daysBack": 30
}

Example: market trend analysis across California cities

{
  "cities": ["los_angeles", "san_francisco"],
  "outputMode": "trends",
  "daysBack": 90
}

Example: all 5 cities, raw mode for AI pipeline

{
  "cities": ["chicago", "austin", "nyc", "los_angeles", "san_francisco"],
  "outputMode": "raw",
  "daysBack": 7,
  "maxResults": 500
}

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Output fields

Leads mode

• permitId, cityId, issueDate, address, zip, lat, lng
• normalizedType — normalized category (roofing, hvac, solar, adu, etc.)
• description — original permit work description
• permitStatus — issued | pending | approved | expired | void
• estimatedCost — project value in USD (see costType)
• contractor, contractorConfidence
• urgencyScore (1–100) — recency + value + type demand
• urgencyLabel — hot | warm | cool | low

Trends mode

• zipCode, city, permitCount, totalEstimatedValue
• hotspotScore (0–100) — volume + value + growth composite
• momDelta — month-over-month % change in permit volume

Raw mode

All fields above plus rawPermitType, applicationDate, expirationDate, costType, propertyType. Explicit null on missing fields (no undefined).

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ADU opportunity — California 2026

Los Angeles and San Francisco are the highest-volume ADU markets in the US. New 2026 California laws (SB 79, AB 462, SB 543) mandate faster ADU approvals statewide. San Francisco's dataset includes a native adu boolean field — the most reliable ADU signal available anywhere.

Target buyers: ADU contractors and builders, solar installers, permit expediting firms, real estate investors tracking density.

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Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.01 per record. Set budgetUsd to cap spend. No monthly subscription.

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Use with AI agents (MCP)

PermitIQ is available as a tool through the Apify MCP server at https://mcp.apify.com. Any MCP-compatible AI agent (Claude, Cursor, VS Code Copilot, custom LangGraph agents) can call PermitIQ directly without writing API code.

Dedicated tool URL (recommended)

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=actors,Midwest_United/permitiq

Connect from Claude Desktop

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN"
      }
    }
  }
}

Then ask Claude:

"Use PermitIQ to find hot roofing leads in Chicago from the last 7 days"

"Show me ZIP-level permit trends in Los Angeles for the last 90 days"

"Find ADU permits in San Francisco and Los Angeles from the last 30 days"

"Get raw permit records for NYC electrical permits this month"

Connect from Cursor or VS Code

Add to .cursor/mcp.json or your VS Code MCP settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN"
      }
    }
  }
}

Call via Apify API

const response = await fetch(
  'https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/Midwest_United~permitiq/run-sync-get-dataset-items',
  {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: {
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
      'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN'
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      cities: ['los_angeles', 'san_francisco'],
      outputMode: 'leads',
      permitType: 'adu',
      daysBack: 30
    })
  }
);
const leads = await response.json();

Use in an AI pipeline

The raw output mode is designed for AI pipeline ingestion:

• All fields present with explicit null — no undefined surprises
• Consistent schema across all five cities
• normalizedType is always a normalized enum, never free text
• issueDate is always ISO 8601 or null — no date parsing needed

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Technical notes

Data sources. All data comes from official city Socrata open data portals:

• Chicago: data.cityofchicago.org (dataset ydr8-5enu) — daily
• Austin: data.austintexas.gov (dataset 3syk-w9eu) — daily
• NYC: data.cityofnewyork.us — merged from DOB NOW + historical datasets, daily
• Los Angeles: data.lacity.org (dataset pi9x-tg5x) — daily
• San Francisco: data.sfgov.org (dataset i98e-djp9) — weekly

NYC dataset merge. NYC building permits are split across two Socrata datasets. PermitIQ fetches both and merges by permit number so you get complete records.

SF update frequency. San Francisco's DBI uploads permit data weekly. Use daysBack: 30 or greater for SF to ensure records are returned.

SF native ADU field. San Francisco's dataset includes a dedicated adu boolean field. PermitIQ uses this as a high-confidence override — SF ADU permits are the most reliably identified of any city.

Date validation. All dates are validated with UTC round-trip checking. Invalid dates are rejected rather than silently rolled forward.

SoQL query building. Query strings are built manually (no URLSearchParams) to preserve Socrata's $ prefixed operators ($where, $limit, etc.).

Budget cap. If budgetUsd is set, the actor estimates spend before pushing records and exits cleanly if the cap would be exceeded.

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Supported cities

City	Dataset	Update frequency	Coordinates	Contractor
Chicago, IL	Socrata ydr8-5enu	Daily	❌	Via contact scan
Austin, TX	Socrata 3syk-w9eu	Daily	✅	Direct field
New York City, NY	Socrata (2 datasets merged)	Daily	Partial	Low confidence
Los Angeles, CA	Socrata pi9x-tg5x	Daily	✅	❌ Not in dataset
San Francisco, CA	Socrata i98e-djp9	Weekly	✅	❌ Separate dataset

Want your city added? Open an issue — any city publishing permits on a Socrata open data portal can be added.