US Tech Automations Research
30-Day Residential Construction Permit Activity Across 8 US Metros · Window: June 13 – July 12, 2026 · Edition #2
US Tech Automations Research publishes open, verifiable datasets built from public records. Every observation is collected on a fixed daily schedule from official city open-data portals and sealed into tamper-evident, content-hashed snapshots before outcomes are known — so every number in our reports can be traced to a specific sealed record, and history can never be quietly rewritten. The data is free to use under CC BY 4.0 with attribution.
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Editions in the archive: August 2026 · July 2026 · June 2026. Every past edition stays at its own permanent link.
Across the 8 metros USTA tracks daily, 6,456 residential permits were issued in the 30-day window, with a combined reported valuation of $747.7M across the 5,411 permits (84%) that carry a usable valuation. Austin's open-data feed publishes no usable project costs on residential permits, so Austin appears as counts only.
Scope: residential building permits only (single-family and small multi-family). All figures are computed directly from sealed snapshots of city open data — nothing is estimated or extrapolated. Counts are not comparable across cities (permit definitions and our per-city residential gates differ; see methodology).
| Metro | Permits | Total valuation | Median valuation | Valuation coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles, CA | 3,576 | $198,655,417 | $7,000 | 94.6% |
| San Francisco, CA | 752 | $54,429,779 | $20,000 | 100.0% |
| Chicago, IL | 555 | $134,618,422 | $29,334 | 82.5% |
| New York City, NY | 439 | $257,227,841 | $296,750 | 78.8% |
| Seattle, WA | 311 | $72,212,591 | $100,000 | 99.4% |
| Austin, TX | 610 | n/a | n/a | 0% |
| Cincinnati, OH | 140 | $7,344,882 | $16,000 | 84.3% |
| Scottsdale, AZ | 73 | $23,171,001 | $273,969 | 61.6% |
Medians are over permits with reported valuation > $0. Effective windows: Los Angeles data through 2026-07-11, San Francisco data through 2026-07-11, New York City data through 2026-07-10, Seattle data through 2026-07-11, Cincinnati data through 2026-07-10, Scottsdale data through 2026-07-10; all others through the window end. Los Angeles publishes in batches with lag historically up to ~16 days, so recent LA days may fill in further after publication.
Caveat: panel composition may change between editions — source feeds, gate rules, and effective windows can differ, and city portals backfill late records. Differences are raw, unadjusted observations, not measured trends.
| Metro | Permits (June 2026) | Permits (July 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles, CA | 4,042 | 3,576 |
| San Francisco, CA | 952 | 752 |
| Chicago, IL | 566 | 555 |
| New York City, NY | 430 | 439 |
| Seattle, WA | 438 | 311 |
| Austin, TX | 704 | 610 |
| Cincinnati, OH | 123 | 140 |
| Scottsdale, AZ | 79 | 73 |
Top categories: Bldg-Alter/Repair / 1 or 2 Family Dwelling (2280); Bldg-Addition / 1 or 2 Family Dwelling (344); Bldg-New / 1 or 2 Family Dwelling (293). Largest permit of the window: $3,500,000 — Bldg-New / 1 or 2 Family Dwelling at 522 N ERSKINE DR (90272), issued 2026-06-24. The City of LA publishes permits in batches with a lag historically observed up to ~16 days; the most recent days in any LA window may fill in further after publication.
Top categories: otc alterations permit (675); additions alterations or repairs (51); permit (22). Largest permit of the window: $3,000,000 — otc alterations permit at 2350 Broadway (94123), issued 2026-06-18. SF's volume is overwhelmingly over-the-counter alteration permits, which pulls the median down; the top of the distribution is large whole-home renovations.
Top categories: PERMIT - RENOVATION/ALTERATION (136); PERMIT – EXPRESS PERMIT PROGRAM / Nonstructural Interior Work (99); PERMIT – EXPRESS PERMIT PROGRAM / Fire Alarm System (95). Largest permit of the window: $50,000,000 — PERMIT - RENOVATION/ALTERATION at 19 S LA SALLE ST, issued 2026-06-22. Coverage note: Chicago's open data has no structured residential flag, so our residential gate is keyword-based on the work description. Permits that don't self-describe as residential are excluded — Chicago counts are conservative by design.
Top categories: General Construction / Initial Permit (255); Structural / Initial Permit (54); Foundation / Initial Permit (51). Largest permit of the window: $88,791,360 — General Construction / Initial Permit at 100 WILLIAM STREET (10038), issued 2026-06-23. Coverage note: sourced from DOB NOW; the residential gate is description-based and intentionally conservative, and renewal permits without changes are excluded. NYC counts here are a deliberately narrow residential slice, not citywide DOB volume.
Top categories: Building / Addition/Alteration (193); Building / New (78); Demolition / Demolition (18). Largest permit of the window: $2,000,000 — Demolition / Demolition at 3011 NE 103RD ST (98125), issued 2026-07-02. Note: Seattle's largest line items are often demolition permits whose reported value appears to reflect the full project value of the redevelopment, not the teardown itself — a quirk of how applicants report value on Seattle demolition permits.
Top categories: R- 435 Renovations/Remodel / Repair (198); R- 101 Single Family Houses / New (169); R- 434 Addition & Alterations / Addition and Remodel (92). Austin's open-data feed publishes $0 or blank project costs on the residential permits we track; we normalize those to "missing" rather than report a literal $0, so no valuation aggregates are given.
Top categories: Building / Existing (110); Misc. Structures / Existing (20); Building / New (6). Largest permit of the window: $1,151,279 — Building / New at 2921 THREE OAKS LN (45209), issued 2026-07-06. Coverage note: Cincinnati volume is genuinely small in our residential slice (the gate is the RCO/Residential Code of Ohio classification, and many reported costs are $0 and treated as missing). Treat Cincinnati figures as directional.
Top categories: NATIVE PLANT (9); SFR-SINGLE FAMILY ATTACHED (8); SFR-CUSTOM IN SUBDIVISION (8). Largest permit of the window: $3,715,278 — CAPITAL PROJECT at 8417 E UNION HILLS DR, issued 2026-06-25. Scottsdale's mix skews to new custom single-family construction rather than small alterations, which drives the panel's highest median permit valuation.
Free to use, share, and republish — including commercially — under CC BY 4.0, with attribution to US Tech Automations Research and a link to permits.ustechautomations.com/research.
Suggested citation: US Tech Automations Research, “USTA Permit Pulse — July 2026: 30-Day Residential Construction Permit Activity Across 8 US Metros,” July 2026.
US Tech Automations runs the daily collection and sealing that produces this report. The same sealed archive powers what we sell to people who need the changes rather than the snapshot: an auditor-ready close file (one-time), a verified deadline watch, and an interconnection queue sentinel (weekly change reports across the ISO queues we collect). Cities and ISOs republish their files in place and keep no archive; we keep the history and the diff, which is the part nobody can re-fetch later. Every figure we hand you carries its source and the time we retrieved it; anything the record does not support is marked unknown rather than estimated.
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