Question 1

What stages of the real estate development pipeline do these datasets measure?

Accepted Answer

All of them. Entitlement (units authorized by permits, by place, county, metro and state), construction (authorized-but-not-started, started, under construction, completed, plus dollar value put in place), absorption (new homes sold and for sale with prices and inventory), the standing market (vacancy, homeownership, asking rent) and exit valuation (repeat-sales price indexes to census-tract level).

Question 2

How far back does the historical record go?

Accepted Answer

Decades at every stage: permit trend series reach to 1960, housing starts run monthly from January 1959, new-home sales begin in 1963, vacancy rates start in 1956, homeownership rates in 1964, median asking rent in 1988, and the FHFA repeat-sales indexes begin in 1975.

Question 3

Can I get building permit data at city or county level?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The Building Permits Survey reports monthly, year-to-date and annual counts for individual permitting places, counties, metros and states, split into 1-unit, 2-unit, 3-4 unit and 5-plus structures with authorized valuation. Chicago's open permit record goes further: one row per issued permit, about 845,000 rows across 122 columns, geocoded to address with tract, ward and community-area keys.

Question 4

Is house price data available below the metro level?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The FHFA House Price Index master file carries more than 90,000 observations computed at national, division, state, metro, county, ZIP3, ZIP5 and census-tract levels, in purchase-only, all-transactions and expanded-data flavors, with seasonally adjusted and unadjusted values side by side. Tract-level annual indexes run from 1998.

Question 5

Does any dataset identify individual properties or households?

Accepted Answer

Two work at record level. Survey of Construction microdata describes individually sampled buildings from 1999 onward, and the American Housing Survey publishes household-level public-use microdata - 55,669 household records and 16,834 mortgage records in the 2023 national file - keyed by a CONTROL identifier, with metropolitan extracts for selected areas.

Question 6

What fields does a permit record contain?

Accepted Answer

Survey date, state, county, place and MSA codes, the place name, and buildings-units-value triplets for each structure-size class, with valuation expressed in thousands of dollars. The Chicago record adds permit type and status, fee breakdowns, reported costs, work descriptions, geocoded location and up to fifteen associated contact records per permit.

Question 7

How is real estate development data delivered?

Accepted Answer

API, files, or your warehouse - daily, weekly, or hourly, your call. Field names stay stable whichever channel and cadence you choose, so moving a market report from weekly to hourly is configuration rather than migration. Annual programs like the AHS arrive on the same contract as the monthly indicators.

Question 8

What does a Datadory sample include?

Accepted Answer

Real rows, not screenshots: permit extracts cut to the jurisdictions you name, stage-gate series at your chosen frequency with the dictionary attached, an HPI slice limited to your pricing geography, or a parcel-level climate file sized to load in your environment. Coverage statements and samples are yours to keep whether or not you continue.

Real Estate Development Data: Permits, Starts, Prices and Parcel Risk

The manifest

US Census Building Permits Survey (BPS)

Census New Residential Construction — Housing Starts, Completions & Sales

US Census New Residential Sales

US Census Characteristics of New Housing

US Census Survey of Construction (SOC) Program Hub

FHFA House Price Index (HPI)

The lay of the water

Pick your catch

US Census Building Permits Survey (BPS)

Census New Residential Construction — Housing Starts, Completions & Sales

US Census New Residential Sales

US Census Characteristics of New Housing

US Census Survey of Construction (SOC) Program Hub

FHFA House Price Index (HPI)

American Housing Survey (AHS) National Microdata

US Census CPS/HVS Historical Tables

FRED Economic Data (Housing Starts & Construction Series)

Value of Construction Put in Place (VIP)

Chicago Building Permits

NAHB Housing Economics — HMI, Starts & Market Data

First Street Foundation Climate Risk Data

Eurostat Construction Statistics & Building Permits

Frequently asked questions

See the rows before you commit

The sample tray

Start here — the deepest field dictionaries in the catalog

Wyoming Statewide Time-Stamped Oil and Gas Activity, 1900-2020

BTS T-100 Data Tables Query Interface

Open Payments (Physician Payments Sunshine Act)

USAJOBS API Data

Steel Plates Faults (UCI)

AviationStack Flight & Airport API