Construction data for investment research

Why construction activity is an early indicator

A building permit comes before the spending on labor, equipment and materials that the work requires. Early project signals can come months or years before that permit, which gives researchers an earlier view of demand than sales figures or reported earnings.

You can follow activity by location, project type and trade to see where money is about to be spent. A permit does not prove that work has started, and an early signal does not guarantee that a project will be built, so we show the stage each project has reached.

Private equity and contractor roll-ups

For teams buying HVAC, plumbing, roofing, electrical, pool and other trade businesses, permit activity gives a view of a target's work that does not depend on its own reports. You can see its recorded job volume, how that volume has grown and its share of permitted work by county. Permit types and descriptions show its customer mix, such as residential against commercial work and new construction against replacement.

The same data helps you find add-on candidates among contractors active in the markets and trades you want to enter, and compare their work with your platform company's footprint to see overlap and gaps. In diligence, it lets you test claims about growth and market position. Permitted work is not a complete account of a contractor's business and declared values are not revenue, so it works best alongside the target's own financial and operating records.

Public equities

Permits are leading indicators for home improvement, pools, HVAC replacement, roofing and residential solar. Comparing activity across markets and periods lets you test a thesis against recorded projects before the results show up in a company's reports.

Permits for new stores can show a retailer's opening pipeline market by market. Treat them as evidence of planned work, not as confirmed openings or a direct measure of future sales.

Real estate funds

Real estate funds can see new supply of apartments, self-storage, industrial space and other property types in a market before it is built. Early signals and later permits show how each competing project is progressing, long before it opens.

Project stage, location and declared value feed underwriting and site selection. You can review the pipeline next to existing supply and separate proposed projects from permitted ones, since neither stage on its own confirms a completion date.

Infrastructure and energy funds

Infrastructure and energy funds can find large energy, grid, industrial and data center projects from their early signals, months or years before a building permit, while the scope and the team may still be changing.

Each project has a timeline that links its early signals with later permits, with its stage and the owners, developers, applicants and contractors involved as they become known. Change alerts tell your team when a project's record changes.

What research teams need and what we provide

Research needs history. Permits can be studied by issue date, with multi-year history in many markets, deepening as our collection continues. Each permit carries its address, permit type and issue date, plus the declared value and contractor wherever the office records them.

Research also needs to know what was known when. We track changes to records from the date we began tracking, and every record carries the date we first saw it, so analysts can separate when a record became known from when the permit was issued and avoid look-ahead bias. We document our coverage over time, so newly added coverage is not mistaken for growth in construction activity.

Daily bulk files load straight into your data warehouse, and the API answers ad hoc questions.

Forecasts and estimates (early access)

We are working on estimated project value, expected approval time, construction activity forecasts by market and properties likely due for major system replacement. Ask about early access.

How to engage

Research licenses are priced annually. Talk to us at [email protected] about your markets, your research questions and how you want the data delivered.