How fresh is Houston violation data?

Houston code enforcement violations refresh on the city's posting cadence (typically weekly for new citations, daily for status changes on open cases).

Why don't you have full Houston permit coverage?

Houston's permit data via HCAD is published as an HTML portal rather than a bulk REST API. Programmatic ingestion requires HTML scraping with per-permit detail page fetches (similar to the Tampa Accela pattern). It's on the roadmap but currently the platform leans on violation data for Houston coverage. Restoration as a persona benefits from this since violations are higher-signal than permits anyway.

Do you have contractor phone numbers for Houston restoration firms?

Texas has no bulk state contractor license database, so phone enrichment runs via DDG web search. Coverage on contractor records is ~10-20%. For restoration this matters less — the lead workflow is direct-to-homeowner via violation address, not contractor outreach.

Can I filter to specific damage types?

Violation categories include WATER-DAMAGE / STRUCTURAL / ROOF / FIRE / MOLD / SEWER / ELECTRICAL specifically. Filter to your specialty (water mitigation, fire restoration, mold remediation) to receive only relevant addresses.

What about smaller Texas markets — Galveston, Beaumont, Port Arthur?

Houston coverage extends throughout Harris County. Galveston, Beaumont, and Port Arthur are separate jurisdictions not currently wired. They're on the queue for cities with hurricane-prone coastal restoration potential, but Harris County Houston is the priority market today.

Houston Insurance Restoration Leads from Permit Data

Published 2026-05-04 · 7 min read · Audience: Insurance restoration contractors in Houston

Houston is the largest insurance restoration market in the United States. Hurricane belt landfall, Gulf Coast humidity-driven mold remediation, and a population of 7.3M in the metro produce a property-damage claim volume that exceeds Miami, New Orleans, and Tampa combined. State Farm, Allstate, USAA, Farmers, and Liberty Mutual all run large Houston catastrophe operations. The restoration contractors who win in Houston aren't the ones with the biggest trucks — they're the ones who get to the damaged property first.

The traditional restoration playbook is storm-chasing: door-to-door canvass after a named-storm landfall, hope the homeowner hasn't already signed with a chaser from out of state, talk them through the assignment-of-benefits process. The economics are brutal. CRM costs are huge, conversion rates under 4%, and out-of-state chasers undercut local pricing. Permit data inverts that.

What Houston restoration contractors get from PermitGrab

83,000+ Houston code enforcement violation records — properties under city pressure for unpermitted repair work, structural concerns, or substandard housing conditions are restoration-eligible by definition
Houston permit feed with REROOF / STRUCTURAL / WATER-DAMAGE / FIRE-REPAIR filters where wired
Daily refresh — same-day visibility on every new code citation and permit filing
Address-level data — drive routes pre-cluster by ZIP, neighborhood, or tract
Violation date + permit date timeline — properties with a violation but no follow-up permit are the highest-value cold-outreach targets

Important note on Houston coverage: Houston's permit data feed via HCAD is HTML-only (REST endpoint not currently exposed for bulk pull). PermitGrab's Houston offering centers on code enforcement violations and is supplemented by Harris County assessor data when wired. Compared to Phoenix or Miami where we have full permit + owner + violation coverage, Houston's product is violation-heavy. Restoration is the persona where this is actually optimal — violations are the cleanest restoration lead signal.

The "violation without follow-up permit" play (highest-converting tactic)

Houston issues roughly 8K code enforcement citations per month. Of those, only 30-40% result in a follow-up permit within 90 days. The remaining 60-70% are properties where the owner is either unaware of remediation requirements, financially constrained, or actively avoiding the issue. Those are restoration's gold-tier leads. Outreach with a script like "I noticed your property at [address] received a code citation for [issue] on [date] and the city follows up at 90 days — most homeowners don't realize their insurance carrier may cover this. I can pull your policy details and tell you in 10 minutes whether you have coverage" closes at 12-18% vs cold-canvass close rates of 2-4%.

The hurricane-season multiplier

Houston's named-storm risk window runs June 1 - November 30. Permit and violation activity spike 3-5x in the 60 days following a Category 1+ landfall. PermitGrab's historical data view lets you build a pre-storm baseline list of high-claim-probability properties (older roofs, prior code violations, low-elevation tracts) so you can begin outreach the day FEMA declares a disaster, not 3 weeks later when the chasers have arrived.

Houston vs Tampa vs Miami for restoration

Tampa restoration is fragmented across Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco counties (3 separate permit jurisdictions, none with full PermitGrab coverage). Miami-Dade restoration is concentrated but tightly competed by 200+ local restoration firms post-Surfside. Houston has the largest absolute claim volume of any US restoration market and lower local-firm density per claim than Miami, making it the highest-margin major-metro for restoration GCs willing to put boots on the ground.

$149/mo unlimited Houston + Harris County violation access. 14-day free trial. Restoration contractor onboarding →