How fast should you follow up on a new building permit?
A building permit is one of the few lead sources that comes with a timestamp. The city authorized the work on a specific date, the record is public, and every contractor in Chicago can see it. The only question is who acts on it first. Here's what "fast" realistically means — and a follow-up cadence you can actually keep.
What "fast" can actually mean
Let's be honest about the mechanics first, because the answer to "how fast" starts with what the data allows. The city stamps each permit with an issue date — the day the work was authorized. But you can't act on a permit until the record is published and you see it. Public portals publish on their own schedule, and there's often a gap between issuance and publication.
When we built LeadFiling, we made this distinction part of the product: our "detected" date is when our pipeline first saw the record, and we never backdate a detection to look faster than we were. Whoever you get permit data from — including us — ask which date they're showing you: the city's issue stamp, or the date the record was actually seen. The gap between those two dates is the part of "fast" you don't control.
The part you do control is what happens after you see it. And that part is where most contractors lose. The permit data is public, which means your competitors can see the same filings. A permit lead doesn't decay because the data goes bad — it decays because someone else calls first, the owner hires them, and the job leaves the market. Speed isn't about the data. It's about being the first conversation the owner has.
Why early contact wins (no statistics required)
You don't need a study to understand why calling early works. Think about it from the owner's side:
A permit means a decision has already been made. Nobody pulls a building permit idly — there's a fee, paperwork, and usually plans involved. By the time you see the filing, the owner has decided the work is happening. You're not persuading them to start a project. You're competing to do it.
Contractor decisions happen early and stick. In general, once an owner has a contractor they trust for a project, they stop shopping. The first credible contractor to have a real conversation about the job has a structural advantage over the third — not because they're better, but because they're earlier. Owners are busy. "Good enough, and already talking to me" beats "maybe better, calling me next week" most of the time.
Permits are public, so the window is shared. Every day you wait is a day another contractor might not wait. This isn't pressure tactics — it's the structure of a public lead source. The permit doesn't belong to you. It belongs to everyone who reads the feed.
None of that requires invented numbers. It's the plain logic of how owners hire: early, once, and then they move on to the hundred other things the project demands.
A cadence you can actually keep
The best follow-up schedule is the one you'll still be running in six months. Here's a reasonable starting point — adjust the speed to how you sell, but keep the structure:
Same day or next morning: strong matches in your territory
These are the permits where the work description names your trade directly — the strong matches in our preview. Call these the day you see them, or first thing the next morning. This is the pile where speed matters most, because the job is clearly defined and clearly yours to win or lose.
Within the week: possible matches
Adjacent work — new construction, additions, parapet jobs that might need your trade. These need a qualifying question first ("I saw the permit for the addition at 1234 W Division — is the roofing scope assigned yet?"), so they take more finesse and slightly less urgency. A weekly sweep keeps them warm without eating your mornings.
Monthly: the ones that went cold
Permits you called about where the owner said "not yet" or "we already have someone." One polite check-in a month later is cheap and occasionally well-timed — projects stall, contractors flake, scopes change. Don't chase; just stay visible.
The failure mode to avoid is the monthly binge: saving up four weeks of permits and "working the list" in one exhausting Saturday. Permit leads are perishable. A little every day — or at minimum, a real weekly sweep — beats heroic monthly effort every time. If you take one thing from this article, take that.
What to say on the first call
The permit gives you something cold calls almost never have: a specific, legitimate reason to call. Use it. Reference the permit number and the address in the first fifteen seconds, and you're not a telemarketer — you're a contractor who did their homework.
Here's a sample opener. It's an example we wrote, not a magic script — adapt it to how you actually talk:
"Hi, this is [name] with [company] — I'm a roofing contractor working in [neighborhood]. I saw the city issued a permit for roof work at [address], permit number [number], and I wanted to introduce myself in case you're still lining up the roofing. Would it be useful to take a look and give you a number?"
Why this works: it's specific (permit number, address), it's honest (you saw a public record — say so), it names your trade and territory (so the owner can place you), and it asks a low-pressure question. What it doesn't do: pretend you have inside information, pressure for a decision, or hide why you're calling. Owners can smell all three.
If the contractor field on the permit already names someone in your trade, adjust: you're either too late for this one, or you're calling to offer sub work. Read the record before you dial — our filtering walkthrough covers the contractor-field check in detail — so the call matches reality.
What not to do
Don't pretend the job is yours to lose. A permit is a head start, not a claim. The owner may have a contractor, a brother-in-law, or a firm "we're doing it ourselves." Your job on the first call is to find out which, politely.
Don't call the same permit five times in a week. One call, one follow-up, then move it to the monthly check-in pile. Persistence is a virtue; pestering is a reputation.
Don't skip the possible matches entirely. The strong-match pile is finite, and every roofer in the city can see it. The possible pile — the additions, the parapet work, the new construction — is where the less obvious jobs live. A qualifying question costs ninety seconds.
Speed is a system, not a sprint
The contractors who win with permit data aren't faster in the heroic sense. They don't have a secret. They have a system: new filings reviewed on a schedule, strong matches called the same day, possible matches swept weekly, cold ones checked monthly. Boring, repeatable, and — over a year — enormously productive.
The data is public and the window is shared. The only durable advantage is being the contractor with a system while everyone else is still waiting for the phone to ring.
That's the system LeadFiling runs for you: the city's permit feed checked on a schedule you choose — daily on Hammer, hourly on Foreman, in under 15 minutes on GC Pro — with only the new matches for your trade and territory in your inbox. Compare the speeds on the pricing page, or see what an alert looks like before you decide. The free Scout tier gets you a weekly digest to start; the 14-day Foreman trial shows you what same-day speed feels like.
One uncomfortable footnote to the speed story: if your "lead" was sold to multiple contractors at once, no follow-up system can make you faster than everyone else calling the same owner. The only real speed advantage is being the first contractor the owner hears from — which is what happens when you call off the public filing instead of a shared list. The job was public before it was ever a lead; stop arriving second. Sign up for LeadFiling and put the filing in your inbox the day it's published.