# US Building Permit Leads — Multi-City (`carranza-tech/us-building-permit-leads`) Actor

Fresh, normalized building-permit leads across NYC, SF, Chicago, Austin & Seattle. Filter by city, date, cost, keyword, ZIP. One unified schema.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/carranza-tech/us-building-permit-leads.md
- **Developed by:** [Alfredo Carranza](https://apify.com/carranza-tech) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, Real estate
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$4.00 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## US Building Permit Leads — Multi-City

Fresh, normalized **building-permit leads** from five major US cities in one unified schema. Filter by city, issue date, job cost, work-description keyword, and ZIP. Built for contractors, roofers, solar installers, materials suppliers, and lead-gen agencies who want a clean, current feed of who just pulled a permit — and for what.

### Cities covered

| City | Source | Cost filter | Owner name | Contractor name |
|------|--------|:-----------:|:----------:|:---------------:|
| New York City | DOB NOW: Build – Approved Permits | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| San Francisco | DBI Building Permits | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Chicago | Building Permits | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ (contact 1) |
| Austin | Issued Construction Permits | ❌ (not published) | ❌ | ❌ |
| Seattle | Built Environment Permits | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |

All sources are official **open-data (Socrata) APIs** — no login, no CAPTCHA, no proxies. Data is refreshed by the cities themselves, so maintenance is minimal.

### Input

| Field | Type | Description |
|-------|------|-------------|
| `cities` | array | Which cities to pull (default: all five). |
| `since` | string | Only permits issued on/after `YYYY-MM-DD`. |
| `minCost` | integer | Minimum estimated job cost (USD). |
| `keyword` | string | Case-insensitive substring on the work description (e.g. `roof`, `solar`, `pool`). |
| `zipFilter` | array | Restrict to specific 5-digit ZIPs. |
| `maxResultsPerCity` | integer | Cap per city (default 1000). |

### Output — normalized lead schema

```
city, permit_id, permit_type, work_description, status,
issue_date, applied_date, estimated_cost,
address, zip, latitude, longitude,
owner_name, contractor_name, contractor_phone, source_url
```

### Known limitations (read before buying)

- **Field coverage varies by city** (see table). Not every city publishes cost, owner, or contractor. Fields are `null` where the source doesn't provide them — never fabricated.
- **Austin has no job cost** in its public dataset. If you set `minCost`, Austin leads are excluded (can't verify the threshold).
- **`contractor_phone`** is not available in the current public datasets for any city; the field exists for schema stability and forward compatibility.
- **Date semantics** = permit *issued* date. "Applied" date is included where available.
- These are **public records**. The product's value is unification, filtering, freshness, and delivery — not exclusive data.

### Pricing

Pay-per-event: one **`permit-lead`** event per delivered lead. Configure the price in the Apify Console → Publication → Monetization.

### Local development

```bash
python3.11 -m venv .venv
./.venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt
## edit storage/key_value_stores/default/INPUT.json
APIFY_LOCAL_STORAGE_DIR=./storage ./.venv/bin/python -m src
```

Pure-stdlib fetch engine (`src/engine.py`, `src/cities.py`) is import-safe and testable without the SDK via `test_local.py`.

### Roadmap

- Fix `contractor_phone` sourcing where a secondary dataset exposes it.
- Add cities weekly (LA needs an app token; Boston, Seattle county, Denver, Portland are candidates) — each new city widens the lead over single-city competitors.

# Actor input Schema

## `cities` (type: `array`):

Which cities to pull permit leads from.

## `since` (type: `string`):

Only return permits issued on or after this date. Leave empty for no date filter.

## `minCost` (type: `integer`):

Only return permits with an estimated/reported job cost at or above this value. Note: Austin does not publish job cost, so an Austin lead is excluded when this filter is set.

## `keyword` (type: `string`):

Case-insensitive substring match against the permit's work description (e.g. 'roof', 'solar', 'pool', 'kitchen').

## `zipFilter` (type: `array`):

Restrict results to these 5-digit ZIP codes. Leave empty for all ZIPs.

## `maxResultsPerCity` (type: `integer`):

Cap on how many leads to return per city.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "cities": [
    "nyc",
    "sf",
    "chicago",
    "austin",
    "seattle",
    "los_angeles",
    "mesa",
    "cambridge"
  ],
  "since": "2026-06-01",
  "minCost": 10000,
  "keyword": "roof",
  "zipFilter": [
    "94118",
    "94132"
  ],
  "maxResultsPerCity": 1000
}
```

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("carranza-tech/us-building-permit-leads").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("carranza-tech/us-building-permit-leads").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{}' |
apify call carranza-tech/us-building-permit-leads --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=carranza-tech/us-building-permit-leads",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/46AUayfTY3aYvaob3/builds/W8JqSvrNJKOOkEYWD/openapi.json