How do I find new and busy contractors from building permits in Austin, Chicago, Cincinnati, New Orleans or Mesa?
TL;DR: City Signals Data turns each city's official permit feed into one weekly file per metro with the contractor business on every permit. Contractors with no permits in that city in the prior 12 months are flagged new, and high-volume ones are flagged busy. $150 per month or $490 per year for one metro, or $0.004 per permit on Apify.
Which metros are covered?
Austin TX, Chicago IL, Cincinnati OH, New Orleans LA and Mesa AZ, read from each city's official open-data permit portal.
What does the new contractor flag mean?
A contractor business is flagged new when it has no permits in that city in the prior 12 months. A busy flag marks contractors pulling many permits that week.
What is on each permit row?
Permit number, type, work description, stated job value, issue date, status, expiration date, job street address, the contractor business name and trade, the flags and the government source link. Job ZIP is included only where the city publishes it, which today is Austin and Cincinnati.
Why does Chicago show more contractors than permits?
A Chicago permit lists every trade contractor on the job, so one permit can name several businesses. An Austin permit names one contractor.
Are job values reliable?
Job values are what the applicant wrote. Many permits leave the value blank, and blank means not published, never zero.
How much does it cost?
$150 per month or $490 per year for one metro, with a file every Monday. If you would rather run it yourself, Contractor Permit Signals on Apify costs $0.004 per permit.
Does it include homeowner names or phone numbers?
No. The file holds business and property data only: no owner names, phone numbers or email addresses.
Where to go next
Full dataset page: weekly building permits and contractor activityContractor Permit Signals on Apify ($0.004 per permit)Order monthly by email ($150)Order yearly by email ($490)Free weekly counts (Google Sheet)
Questions: hello@citysignalsdata.com. Use is governed by our Terms and Data use rules.