Scan the Block · for contractor or trade

What the city already knows, before you price the job.

What the city already knows about the building, before you price the job. Every permit filed on the parcel and what each was for, the code-enforcement cases it holds open, and the five trades this city records separately — HVAC, plumbing, fire protection, elevator and excavation — so you can see your own work on a street rather than everybody's.

The questions it answers

What permits are already open on this building?
What fire-protection permits have been filed on this building?
What has the city opened against this building?
Has this building been ordered boarded up?
Who pulled the last permit here, and what was it for?
What has been filed against this building in the last year?

The sections that earn their keep

Open permitsBuilding, electrical and plumbing, filed and not yet closed out — the obligation a job can quietly inherit.

Fire protection permitsSprinklers, standpipes and alarm systems, filed as their own permit type — the work the fire code demands before a building opens.

Code enforcement on the buildingCases the city opened against it, under its own categories, with the date each was entered.

What is being demolishedWrecking permits around the address. On a block about to change, the demolition is usually the first thing filed.

The permit record, in fullEvery filing on the parcel, dated, with what it declared and whether it closed.

Written for you

How to read a Cincinnati reportWho keeps which record here, what the county's market value is and is not, and the one number this city publishes that most cities will not.The county's value, and the price it actually sold forHamilton County reappraises on a cycle rather than on sale, and Ohio discloses what a building sold for. Both facts change how you read the top of the report.What Cincinnati files, and under what nameThirteen filing types worth watching, including five trades this city records separately and one category that means a building has just been boarded up.Cincinnati's record, word by wordAuditor, market value, board of revision, barricading, STARS — what each means here, and which body writes it down.

See it on a real address

Run any Cincinnati address and the report reads that city's portal live, at the moment you ask. Trade — the bid-focused plan — starts at $19 a month; full plans start at $49, and re-reading a report you have run is always free.

See the plans Try an address

Also written for: buying a home · renting · owner or landlord · agent or broker · investor · developer or builder · lender or underwriter · insurance · hoa or property management · attorney or other professional