FAQs - Builty

The permit filing process begins with contacting the local building department to determine the specific requirements for the project. The department will provide a list of necessary documents, which often include construction plans, property surveys, and proof of ownership. After gathering these documents, the applicant must submit the completed application along with any associated fees. The department will then schedule inspections throughout the construction phase to ensure compliance with building codes. Finally, upon successful completion of all inspections, final approval will be granted, allowing the project to be finished.

Builty covers 70% of the top 30 MSAs across the country. The best coverage reflects the most active real estate markets, both urban and suburban, residential and commercial.

Building permits are issued by over 20,000 local jurisdictions. Builty has developed a system that automatically searches the websites of various cities and counties, downloads the building permits, and extracts useful information from them. It consists of hundreds of automated scrapers that can harvest data from public sources that are not readily accessible by most downloading tools.

Builty has developed multi-step data processing and machine learning pipelines that classify and deconvolute information otherwise confined within disordered text. The culmination of these efforts is a data product that offers an ordered taxonomy of permit categories, and a standardized repository of a vast multitude of attribute types.

Oftentimes, building permits are not properly labeled by the original applicantsL for example, a project labeled as re-roofing also includes solar panel installation and electrical system upgrade. To provide more utility, Builty has developed language models in an attempt to correctly classify each permit. The algorithm is trained to generate a TRUE/FALSE outcome across many categories. In cases where the model confidence is below a certain threshold, those categories remain NULL. Due to the nature of construction projects with multiple work types, the categories are not mutually exclusive.

Builty does not currently collect data from jurisdictions that do not offer digital access to permitting systems.

Builty collects records as they are made available through the jurisdiction's online systems. Older records, sometimes labeled “history” or “legacy,” may be included if imported by the jurisdiction, but they do not rely on those as they often lack consistency.

The status_original field is your best resource. However, its values and granularity differ by jurisdiction.

Possibly, but this varies. If status_original doesn’t explicitly say “rejected,” then that status is likely not included.

Not reliably. Missing dates can result from incomplete uploads, data entry errors, or system limitations - not necessarily rejections.