Building permit leads are a signal, not an open job
Published October 17, 2026 by the Job Start List team. Sources are linked in the text and listed at the end.
A building permit tells you that a city approved work at an address on a date. It does not tell you that the job is still open, that nobody has been hired, or that the work will ever start. This guide covers what a permit record can and cannot tell a contractor, and how to check a permit lead in a few minutes before you pick up the phone.
What a permit record actually says
Most city permit feeds give an address, a permit type, an issue date and a short work description. Many also give a declared project value, and some name the contractor of record. Cities differ a lot: Austin, for example, does not publish project value, and some cities leave out ZIP codes or write one-line descriptions. What each of our 14 cities publishes, how fresh it is today and which fields are missing is on our data sources page.
Five ways a permit and the real job disagree
Scout Data, a company that sells roofing lists, describes five ways a permit-dated record misleads roofers (Why roofing permit data misses re-roofs, October 13, 2026; they disclose that they sell lists). The same gaps apply to most trades:
Work done without a permit. The permit file cannot see it at all.
Work that needs no permit. Seattle's building department states that "a permit is not required for re-roof work at one- and two-family homes and townhouses if no changes are made to the building envelope other than adding or replacing insulation" (Seattle SDCI, Re-Roof Permit, read October 17, 2026). Seattle is one of our cities, so a Seattle roofing list built from permits, ours included, will miss most house re-roofs there.
A permit pulled for a job that never happens. A homeowner gets several bids, one contractor pulls the permit early, and the homeowner hires someone else or nobody. Scout Data notes that under section R105.5 of the International Residential Code a permit becomes invalid if work does not start within 180 days of issue. Until then it looks like any other new permit.
A repair filed under the same permit type as a full job. Permit types are often broad or free text, so a partial repair can sit in the same bucket as a full replacement. The description is the only way to tell.
An overlay instead of a tear-off. New shingles over old ones produce a real permit date, but the next job on that house is a heavier two-layer tear-off.
The permit's own trade is often already taken
Many permits are filed by the contractor who was already hired for that work. So the best opening is often not the trade on the permit but the trades that usually come next: a new house needs fencing, landscaping, gutters and flooring later; a pool usually needs a fence and landscaping; a re-roof can lead to gutters or solar. That is why every job in Job Start List is labeled either Direct (the permit names your trade) or Usually leads to (an earlier-stage job that typically comes before your work).
What Job Start List does with permits, and how accurate it is
Merges permits at the same address into one job, so you don't call the same house three times.
Drops paperwork-only permits such as revisions, extensions, signs, temporary tents and contractor changes.
Ranks jobs by declared value, freshness and how clear the description is (how scoring works).
Never includes owner names or phone numbers.
Permits are messy, and so is matching them to trades. In our first accuracy audit on October 16, 2026 we drew 20 jobs at random from that week's Top 5 lists and checked each by hand: 9 of 20 (45%) were clearly relevant to the labeled trade, well below our 90% target. The raw sample, what went wrong and what we changed are on our accuracy page, and we publish every new audit there. If a job looks wrong in your dashboard, tap Not a fit and tell us why.
Check a permit lead in five minutes
Read the description, not just the permit type. "Alteration" can mean a new kitchen or an office fit-out.
Check the issue date and status. Where your city shows inspections, a permit with recent inspections is a stronger sign the work is real than one that has sat untouched for months.
Look at the address. A street view or a drive-by shows whether work has started and whether it fits your crew.
See who is on the permit. If a contractor in your trade is already listed, look at the next trade instead of competing for a job that is taken.
Ask, don't tell. Scout Data suggests asking a homeowner "When was the roof last done?" instead of quoting a date from a file. The same works for any trade: ask whether they are still getting bids rather than assuming they are.
Questions to ask any permit lead vendor
Adapted from Scout Data's vendor questions: Which cities do you cover, and since when? Do you count a permit when it is issued or only after final inspection? How do you tell a repair from a full job? What do you show where the work needs no permit? How often is the data refreshed, and what is missing? Our own answers, city by city, are on the data sources page and the status page.
Job Start List accuracy audit #1, October 16, 2026: /help#accuracy
Job Start List data sources by city (live): /sources
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