July 6, 2026
Building Permit Data and Property Records: Where to Get Them in Bulk
Building permit data answers questions listings can't: who's renovating, which contractors are busy, where development money is flowing. This guide covers bulk permit exports plus the property-listing and auction sources that round out a real-estate data stack across the US, Japan, Brazil, Germany, and Singapore.
US building permit data: BuildZoom and the national aggregator
The BuildZoom scraper exports contractor profiles with their permit histories — 25+ fields including license registry data and recent permits with project addresses. The national building permits aggregator works jurisdiction-first: pull permits by city or county across participating US permit portals. Between them: contractor-side and geography-side views of the same activity.
NYC property records: DOB and HPD in one pull
The NYC DOB/HPD scraper exports New York City's building records — permits, violations, and property details from the Department of Buildings and Housing Preservation. The densest single-city property dataset in the US, queryable by address list.
US listings and auctions: Zillow rentals, Auction.com, commercial
Three listing-side sources: the Zillow rentals scraper exports rental listings by market; the Auction.com scraper covers foreclosure and REO auctions; and the commercial real estate scraper exports commercial listings — the segment where data otherwise hides behind broker logins.
Japan: SUUMO, akiya banks, and court auctions
Japan's market has three distinct data layers. The SUUMO scraper exports mainstream listings from the largest portal. The akiya bank scraper covers vacant-house listings — the abandoned-property niche international buyers hunt. The court auction scraper exports judicial foreclosure auctions (BIT system), and the Rakumachi and Kenbiya scrapers cover investment-property listings with yield data.
Germany and Brazil listings
The ImmoScout24 scraper exports Germany's dominant portal — listings with prices, sizes, and locations. The VivaReal/ZAP scraper covers Brazil's two biggest portals in one run.
Singapore: 99.co listings
The 99.co scraper exports Singapore listings — prices, PSF, tenure, and project details for one of the most data-hungry property markets anywhere.
Renovation demand signals: Houzz
The Houzz scraper exports professional profiles and project photos from the renovation platform — a demand-side signal that pairs with permit data: permits show what's approved, Houzz shows who's selling the work.
Source coverage at a glance
| Market | Source | Data |
|---|---|---|
| US permits | BuildZoom, national aggregator | Permits, contractors, licenses |
| NYC | DOB/HPD | Permits, violations, property |
| US rentals | Zillow rentals | Listings |
| US distressed | Auction.com | Foreclosure auctions |
| US commercial | CRE listings scraper | Commercial listings |
| Japan | SUUMO, akiya banks, BIT auctions, Rakumachi, Kenbiya | Listings, vacants, foreclosures, yields |
| Germany | ImmoScout24 | Listings |
| Brazil | VivaReal + ZAP | Listings |
| Singapore | 99.co | Listings, PSF |
The investor pipeline
The pattern our real-estate users converge on: permits or distressed listings as the signal layer, owner tracing as the contact layer, and listings as the comps layer. The first two steps are this guide plus skip tracing at scale; comps come from the listing scrapers above, rerun weekly. Everything prices per record — a county-sized permit sweep costs dollars, not a data-license negotiation.
Browse the full Real Estate catalog for architecture archives, license registries, and interior-design directories beyond the core stack.