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SCANTHEBLOCK

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

The sections that earn their keep

What is standing on itThe city's own building footprints for the parcel: how many buildings, what kind, how many storeys, how much ground each covers, and the name it goes by. The county roll carries no year built, no floor area and no storey count, so this is that half of the record.
What was reported on the blockPolice incident reports, 311 service requests and parking citations within the radius, by year and category, each against what an average Oakland area of the same size records.
Pest and infestation noticesRodent, cockroach and bedbug citations, split from general sanitation — the same signal, for a different trade.
The ground under it, and the fire above itLiquefaction and landslide susceptibility, the state's fire hazard severity zone, the wildland urban interface, the NEHRP soil class and mapped serpentine — six of the city's own layers, read at the address. A layer that maps no zone here says so, and one that did not answer is marked unread rather than counted as clear.
The permit record, in fullEvery filing on the parcel, dated, with what it declared and whether it closed.

Written for you

Why there are no permits in an Oakland reportThe city runs its permits through a portal that answers one typed address at a time and publishes no dataset. Where to look instead, and what the report gives you in place of it.What Oakland files every dayEleven lists from two feeds, because two feeds is what this city publishes with a date and a place on it. What each is, and what none of them is.How to read an Oakland reportWhat the city publishes, what the county publishes instead, and the one section every other city has that this one cannot.What seven roll years show that one does notAlameda County publishes its secured roll one fiscal year at a time, back to 2019-20. Read together they are the staircase Proposition 13 builds, and the step where the building sold.

See it on a real address

Run any Oakland 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