Things change!
This is a new newsletter format and a new place for my monthly memo.
When I started writing these about two years ago, I did it because I didn't have a really deep understanding of the construction data industry. To be honest, I still don't. It's hard for me to write something new about the construction industry, but I can write about business and entrepreneurship all freaking day.
That's what tickles me, when I hear that you actually like my newsletters. You tell me that they are different and they are interesting and you like seeing and maybe even feeling what it's like to build a business. That's cool, and I'll keep doing this, but we can also do more.
We've grown up in the last two years. We've hired domain experts and real writers, people with actual insights! You should hear from them too.
My ramblings will still be written (I can't help it) but they'll be set appropriately aside, an appetizer to the main dish. Just a click away. You can read it here. It's about having a bad month.
Yes, I'll keep writing. That's one thing that won't change.
Ryan Buckley - CEO
Content Roundup
The Roof Age Problem: What Permit Data Reveals About America's Rooftops
Who's Building America? The Top 25 National Homebuilders by Permit Activity
CRE Daily feature: Nationwide CRE New Construction Permits Fell 16% in Q1 2026
Florida Wants to Make Building ADUs Easier. Here's Where Things Stand.
Thesis Driven feature: What's Happening in Local Land Use | Q1 2026
How Changing Energy Policies Are Transforming California Homes
Map of the Month
Florida owns the 2025 HVAC leaderboard 🌴, with four of the top 10 counties and Sarasota on top at 39.3 permits per 1K housing units.
May 2026 Release Notes
Plenty of fresh coverage in our May 2nd release. We added 7.5M new permits and 32 new jurisdictions — Portland (OR), Orlando (FL), and a strong cluster of Twin Cities suburbs lead the way. +131K contractors were added too. Total permits grew by +7.19M (+5.4%). Our mid-May release added 223 new jurisdictions - our largest expansion yet.
Full Shovels release notes →
Around the Web
- NAHB Debuts New Resource That Estimates Quarterly Remodeling Spending by State
- Total Cost of Ownership: Where Lower Operating Costs Offset the New-Construction Price Premium
- A New Housing Affordability Index that Reflects the True Cost of Ownership
- Thumbtack Delivers Home Services Experience in Anthropic's Claude
- CEO of QXO discusses the $17B purchase of TopBuild. Spotify / Apple Pod
Shovels Sights & Sightings
We have a new co-working office in Concord, CA and decked it out with a neon sign!
Luka shares a sunset picture during his vacation boating in Uvala Paladinica, Croatia.
Betty attempts logo latte art with the Shovels icon logo. Not bad... not bad at all.
Permits Update
This release marks a milestone: Shovels is now powered entirely by our own data pipeline. We've transitioned away from a third-party provider that previously licensed building permit data to Shovels. Going forward, this new approach gives full end-to-end ownership over permit and contractor data, enrichment, and refresh cycles. Each future release will continue as a full snapshot, growing as we expand our coverage. For data delivered through Shovels-hosted AWS buckets, updated releases will automatically include the current Shovels pipeline.
To ensure that you have the latest data, we need you to delete prior downloads of Building Permit data in your possession that you received from Shovels prior to March 15 (the "Old Building Permit Data"). Then we can provide you the most recent Shovels data.
Additionally, you were not able to sublicense or redistribute the Old Building Permit Data. And your license to the Old Building Permit Data has now expired.
Keep an eye on our blog where we add all relevant information for data diggers like you.