Building Permit & Project Intelligence Tracker

Monitor building permit applications and approvals across major US city open-data portals. Returns structured permit records ideal for B2B lead generation in construction, real estate, and related industries.

What It Does

Connects to official municipal open-data APIs (primarily Socrata-based city portals) and returns permit records including:

• Contractor name — identify active contractors bidding on new work
• Owner/applicant — track who is building or renovating
• Address — geographic filtering and territory management
• Permit type — new construction, addition, renovation, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, and more
• Estimated valuation — filter by project size
• Permit status — applied, approved, inspection, final

Who Uses This

Customer	Use Case
General contractors	Find bidding opportunities before public announcement
Subcontractors (electrical, plumbing, HVAC)	Discover new project leads by trade type
Building materials suppliers	Anticipate future material demand
Real estate developers	Track competitive construction activity
Architecture firms	Monitor market activity and competitor projects
Insurance companies	Identify new construction for underwriting leads

Supported Cities

City	State	Data Source
Chicago	IL	City of Chicago Open Data
Houston	TX	Houston Open Data
Phoenix	AZ	Phoenix Open Data
Philadelphia	PA	CARTO / City of Philadelphia
San Antonio	TX	San Antonio Open Data
Dallas	TX	Dallas Open Data
San Jose	CA	San Jose Open Data
Austin	TX	Austin Open Data
Seattle	WA	Seattle Open Data
Denver	CO	Denver Open Data
Portland	OR	Portland Open Data

Input Parameters

{
    "cities": ["chicago", "houston", "phoenix", "philadelphia", "san antonio"],
    "permitTypes": [],
    "minValuation": 0,
    "daysBack": 7
}

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
cities	array	5 major cities	City names to scan (lowercase)
permitTypes	array	[] (all)	Filter by type: new_construction, addition, renovation, alteration, demolition, electrical, plumbing, hvac, roofing, fence, pool, sign
minValuation	integer	0	Minimum estimated project value in USD
daysBack	integer	7	How many days back to scan

Output Format

Each permit record:

{
    "permitNumber": "B2024-01234",
    "city": "Chicago, IL",
    "cityKey": "chicago",
    "address": "123 W Michigan Ave",
    "permitType": "new_construction",
    "permitTypeRaw": "NEW CONSTRUCTION - COMMERCIAL",
    "workDescription": "New 5-story mixed-use building with retail on ground floor",
    "contractor": "ABC Construction LLC",
    "owner": "Midwest Development Corp",
    "valuation": 2500000,
    "status": "permit issued",
    "latitude": 41.8826,
    "longitude": -87.6226,
    "scrapedAt": "2024-01-15T10:30:00.000Z",
    "sourceUrl": "https://data.cityofchicago.org/resource/ydr8-ztqk.json"
}

The final record in each run is a _type: "digest" summary:

{
    "_type": "digest",
    "generatedAt": "2024-01-15T10:35:00.000Z",
    "parameters": { "cities": ["chicago", "houston"], "permitTypes": [], "minValuation": 50000, "daysBack": 7 },
    "summary": {
        "citiesScanned": 2,
        "totalPermits": 847,
        "byCity": { "Chicago, IL": 412, "Houston, TX": 435 },
        "byType": { "new_construction": 89, "renovation": 312, "electrical": 201, "plumbing": 245 }
    }
}

Example Run: New Construction Leads, $500K+

Input:

{
    "cities": ["chicago", "houston", "phoenix", "dallas", "austin"],
    "permitTypes": ["new_construction", "addition"],
    "minValuation": 500000,
    "daysBack": 7
}

Sample output record:

{
    "permitNumber": "H2024-089341",
    "city": "Houston, TX",
    "address": "4400 Post Oak Pkwy",
    "permitType": "new_construction",
    "workDescription": "New commercial office building, 12 stories, 180,000 sqft",
    "contractor": "Turner Construction Company",
    "owner": "Post Oak Development Partners LLC",
    "valuation": 45000000,
    "status": "approved",
    "scrapedAt": "2024-01-15T10:31:22.000Z"
}

Example Run: HVAC/Mechanical Contractor Leads

Input:

{
    "cities": ["chicago", "philadelphia", "seattle", "portland", "denver"],
    "permitTypes": ["hvac", "mechanical", "electrical"],
    "minValuation": 10000,
    "daysBack": 14
}

Pricing

This actor uses Pay-Per-Event (PPE) billing:

Event	Price
Per municipality scanned	$1.25
Per permit record extracted	$0.10
Per city weekly digest	$2.50

A typical run scanning 5 cities returning 500 permits costs approximately $6.25 + $50.00 = ~$56.25.

Notes

• Data is sourced from official city open-data portals. Availability and freshness vary by city.
• Some cities update permit data daily; others weekly. The daysBack parameter ensures you capture all recent activity regardless of exact update cadence.
• Contractor and owner names are normalized (whitespace, common suffixes) but not deduplicated across records.
• valuation is the owner-reported estimated project cost, which may differ from final construction cost.