Monthly Memo
This month's memo is an epilogue to our data journey, the four proprietary building blocks Shovels now owns outright. It traces how we started with permits, expanded to contractors and their license data, acquired ReZone to add government decisions, and is now building nationwide Properties from tax assessor rolls across roughly 2,800 counties.
The payoff is a circular, self-enriching system where Permits, Decisions, and Properties each enrich the others in near real-time.
Ryan Buckley - CEO
Content Roundup
Following the BEAD Money: Where Texas Is Building Homes and Fiber at the Same Time
What Is a Certificate of Occupancy? When You Need One and How to Get It
Telecom is now a permit category
What Is Land Entitlement? The Real Estate Entitlement Process Explained
Map of the Month
Ever waited three months for a permit that your neighbor two states over got in a week? That's basically the story here. We dug into a year of new home construction permits (July 2025–June 2026), and the wait times are all over the map, literally.
July 2026 Release Notes
Our biggest permit release since March: +12,918,150 new permits, county coverage pushed past 87% (up more than 16 points), and a new telecom tag backfilled across the full permit history: 1,513,665 permits now carry it.
Around the Web
- Massive data center buildout poses latest inflation threat for consumers
- Structural Demand Outpacing Supply: Jobs-to-Permits Ratios Highlight Housing Gap
- GPT-5.6 Frontier intelligence that scales with your ambition
- New-Home Sales Tumble in May as Mortgage Rates Remain High
- Anthropic's Co-Founder and Top Economist on Doing Research at the AI Frontier
Shovels Sights & Sightings
Most of our commercial team are currently at the Esri user conference in San Diego. If there was a swag award, we think we'd be in the running.
Marko got married! Congrats to you and your beautiful bride. Where is the honeymoon?
Benjamin shared photos of a vacation bouncing around Mostar, Dubrovnik, Budva, Kotor and Kravica!
Keep an eye on our blog where we add all relevant information for data diggers like you.