Building Permit & Project Intelligence Tracker

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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

Supported Cities

Input Parameters

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

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:

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.