Scan the Block · for contractor or trade

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

A bid is a bet on what a wall is hiding. The permit history, the open obligations and the notices an inspector already filed are public record before you ever pick up a phone — read the parcel in seconds, and know what a prior contractor left open before you inherit it.

The questions it answers

What permits are already open on this building?
Are there fire-suppression or sprinkler violations on file?
What has 311 recorded around this address?
Where is shoring or scaffolding being permitted nearby?
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-suppression violationsSprinkler and standpipe citations specifically, split from alarms and exits — a customer an inspector already flagged.

Pest and infestation noticesRodent, cockroach and bedbug citations, split from general sanitation — the same signal, for a different trade.

What the lot has been permitted forEvery permit issued against the square, suffix and lot, with the subtype that says what the work actually is and the zoning district each carries.

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 Washington reportWho keeps which record in the District, why an address here needs a quadrant, and the pair of numbers this city publishes that most cities do not.Why the District asks which quadrant1st Street exists four times over. The quadrant is not decoration on a Washington address, it is part of it, and a report cannot be run without one.This year's assessment, and last year's beside itThe District publishes the current assessment and the prior one on the same row. That pair answers a question a single number cannot.What Washington files, and under what nameThe permit type column does not say what the permit is for. The subtype does, and knowing that is the difference between finding a demolition and finding nothing.

See it on a real address

Run any Washington, D.C. 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