# Turn a Building Permit List Into a Door-Knocking Route (Free, From the County CSV) | InstaMaps Blog > Permit lead vendors charge hundreds a month for data your county publishes free. Here is the full free workflow: download the permit CSV, geocode it, order the stops, and drive it as one Google Maps route with check-offs. Source: https://get-instamaps.com/blog/building-permit-list-to-route [InstaMaps](/) [← Blog](/blog)[ Get Started Free ](https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/instamaps/103204565785?utm%5Fsource=get-instamaps&utm%5Fmedium=site&utm%5Fcampaign=slug) [Blog](/blog)→Guides # Turn a Building Permit List Into a Door-Knocking Route (Free, From the County CSV) 19 July 2026·7 min read Every roofing permit filed in your county is public record: address, work description, valuation, date. An entire industry exists to sell you this data, permit-lead platforms run from tens to hundreds of dollars a month, and nearly all of it originates from open-data portals your county operates for free. The vendors add real convenience: cleaning, contact-matching, daily delivery. But the core workflow, permits this week, near my jobs, as a drivable route, takes about fifteen minutes from the raw county CSV with free tools. If you're a two-truck operation, that fifteen minutes is the difference between paying for leads and reading the county's own ledger. Here is the whole method. TL;DR * →Building permits are public records, and most counties publish them as free CSV downloads on open-data portals — the same data permit-lead vendors resell for hundreds per month. * →A permit filed on your trade's work (roof, HVAC, electrical) is the strongest proximity signal in the business: money already committed, neighbours already primed. * →The free workflow: download the county CSV, filter to your trade and date range, geocode the address column, and =ROUTE\_LINK turns the week's permits into one drive-ready Google Maps route. * →The neighbours are the real prize: the permit address is taken, but the eight houses around a re-roof are your warmest cold doors. Map the permits, knock the radius. * →Track the knocking with a check-off logbook: door answered, quoted, follow-up — with notes flowing back into the sheet, so the second pass is smarter than the first. [No install, no signupPlan a route from your spreadsheetUpload a CSV or paste rows from Excel or Google Sheets. Up to 100 stops in the best order. Free.Try it now →](/tools/route-planner-from-spreadsheet) ## Step 1: Find your county's permit feed Search '_\[your county\] building permits open data_', most US metros publish on Socrata or ArcGIS portals with a Download CSV button and filters for date and permit type. (Chicago, Austin, LA, Seattle and hundreds of smaller counties all do; UK readers: your council's planning register plays the same role.) Filter before downloading: your trade's permit class, issued in the last 7–30 days, and your working radius if the portal supports geography filters. A week of roofing permits in one metro is typically 30–150 rows, one drivable list, not a database project. ## Step 2: Geocode the address column Permit CSVs carry addresses, not coordinates (or carry them in a projection your tools won't read). Paste the address column into the free bulk geocoder linked below: coordinates for every row, first 100 free, enriched CSV back. In Sheets, `=GEOCODE(B2)` down the column does the same, live. Coordinates matter for the next step: ordering stops by drive sequence needs points, and permit addresses occasionally geocode approximate (new construction, lot numbers), the tool grades each row so you can spot the two that need a manual look. ## Step 3: Order the stops and build one route link In the sheet: `=VISIT_ORDER(D2:E60)` orders the permits into an efficient visiting sequence from your first stop, and `=ROUTE_LINK(D2:E60)` compresses the day into a single Google Maps link, open it on your phone and the whole run is loaded, up to 100 stops (the undocumented ceiling we tested). Print nothing, retype nothing: the same link goes to a second truck with the list split by `FILTER()`, north-side permits to one crew, south to the other. ## Step 4: The neighbours are the actual leads The permit address already hired someone. The houses around it are the play: a street that just watched a re-roof go up is the warmest cold-knock in the trade, and storm-damage clusters make it stronger, one approved claim on a street re-prices every adjacent roof. Work the radius, not the pin: at each permit stop, knock the six to ten nearest doors. 'We're doing the roof at number 23' is an opener with built-in proof sitting visibly up the street. ## Step 5: Check off the doors so the second pass is smarter Publish the permit list as a live map and open its logbook on your phone: each address is one tap, answered / no answer / quoted, with notes ('dog', 'owner back Thursday', 'wants gutters too') and photos. Every knock is timestamped and signed, and `=LOGBOOK(map_id)` pulls the whole history back into the sheet. The compounding asset is the notes layer: next month's permit run through the same neighbourhood starts from what you learned this month, which is precisely the mechanism the lead-vendor subscription can never sell you. Try it free Map your Salesforce accounts in under 5 minutes — no admin setup. [ Install Free → ](https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/instamaps/103204565785?utm%5Fsource=get-instamaps&utm%5Fmedium=site&utm%5Fcampaign=slug) Sources * [Shovels — the permit-data vendor category leader (for contrast)](https://www.shovels.ai/permit-database) * [City of Chicago building permits open dataset (example county feed)](https://data.cityofchicago.org/Buildings/Building-Permits/ydr8-5enu) Route this week's permits now Paste the permit addresses into the free geocoder, then =VISIT\_ORDER and =ROUTE\_LINK build the drive. First 100 rows free, no login. [Open the free bulk geocoder](/tools/geocoder) Free tools for this [Plan a route from your spreadsheetUpload a CSV or paste rows from Excel or Google Sheets. Up to 100 stops in the best order. Free.](/tools/route-planner-from-spreadsheet)[Plan a 100-stop route right nowGoogle Maps caps you at 10 stops. Paste up to 100 here — best visiting order plus ONE link that loads the whole route. Free.](/tools/multi-stop-route-planner) Related Reading [Real EstateThe Complete Driving for Dollars Guide + Free Spreadsheet System](/blog/driving-for-dollars-guide)[ResearchHow to Add 100 Stops to a Google Maps Route (Yes, Really)](/blog/add-100-stops-google-maps)[Sales OpsSales Route Planning: How to Build Optimised Field Routes in Google Sheets](/blog/sales-route-planning) [InstaMaps](/) [Blog](/blog)[Privacy](/privacy)[Terms](/terms)