The City of San Diego publishes every building permit as free open data, daily. Most of the rows are contractors' paperwork. A small share are filed by an individual at their own property with no contractor named on the record. This page shows how to read those rows yourself, and what we do with them.
Two CSV files, no login, updated every day: data.sandiego.gov/datasets/development-permits — approvals_created and approvals_issued. The columns that matter are the address, the approval type and status, the scope, the valuation where the City captured one, and APPROVAL_PERMIT_HOLDER: who the City recorded as the permit holder.
The holder field is a name. When it is a company — a contractor, a solar installer, a permit-running service — a licensed business already holds the job. When it is a person, the permit was filed in an individual's name. That is the whole signal, and it is narrower than it sounds. A permit records that a fee was paid and that a field is empty. It does not say whether the owner has already spoken to a contractor. So we say exactly what the record supports — an individual, one property, no contractor named on the permit — and nothing about who they have or have not called.
The first version of this feed trusted the name shape, and sold contractors' permits as homeowners': a person-shaped name that appears at 529 different addresses across the year is a company, however it is spelled. So the working rule is one holder, one address: any holder found at more than one distinct property in the year's file is dropped. That removed 60–76% of what looked owner-pulled, and every genuine homeowner in the sample sat at exactly one address. Then keep only Opened / Issued — a permit at Inspection Followup is work already underway.
Do that by hand and it is an 18 MB spreadsheet every Monday. We do it every Monday and email the result by trade.
Real permits, filed this week by an individual at their own property. Quote any permit number to SD Development Services and you will see the same record we read — before you give us anything.
TORREY PINES: Combination Building Permit for proposed remodel of (E) 2-story SDU along with (N) roof covering & revisions to exterior facade. RS-1-1, MSCP, SV, VHFSZ
Holder on file (name on the paid feed) — an individual, one property, no contractor named on the permit.
RANCHO PENASQUITOS- Combination building permit for an addition/remodel to a one-story single dwelling unit with an attached garage and patio enclosure. The scope of work…
Holder on file (name on the paid feed) — an individual, one property, no contractor named on the permit.
MIRA MESA: Combination Building Permit; For the proposed Remodel/Addition to an existing two-story SFR with attached 2 car garage and new covered second floor terrace RS…
Holder on file (name on the paid feed) — an individual, one property, no contractor named on the permit.
INDIVIDUAL, ONE PROPERTY — each line is an individual, one property, no contractor named on the permit.
Holder on file — name on the paid sheet. Quote any permit number to SD Development Services and read the same record we did.
5 more qualified this week. Free gets three every Monday; $39/mo gets every one, with the holder's name and, where we can get it, the owner's number.
Measured 2026-09-16 from the City's file. A job can match more than one trade, so the trades can sum past the total. Real counts, not projections.
The same rows a paying subscriber gets, three per week, with the address, scope, valuation and permit number — quote the number to the City and check us. The full list for a trade is $39/mo, every qualifying job, every Monday.
Free never includes the holder's name or any contact detail. And on any tier we will not claim anything about who the owner has or has not already called — a permit cannot tell you that.
The same owner-pulled permits paying subscribers get, three per week, free. No card, no call, unsubscribe in one click. See the quality, then decide.
Chad Vasquez · Groundwork, a Prompt Flow LLC company · San Diego, CA
A small San Diego operation, not a lead-gen call centre. Day job's a fireman; this is the side business. Cancel anytime in one click — no retention script, no website upsell. Billing is Stripe; the Monday email goes out through Resend.