Resources
What a permit tells you about project size
Units, stories and job descriptions as size signals, and where each one misleads.
The city doesn't publish a contract value you can trust. The estimated cost on a filing is often a placeholder. So size has to be read from other fields.
Dwelling units
On residential new buildings, proposed units is the best single signal. A 70-unit building is a different job from a 7-unit one in every scope. Watch for zeros: a blank unit count on an NB usually means commercial or mixed use, not small.
Stories and height
Stories tell you about lifts, access and schedule. Height in feet, divided by stories, hints at use: tall floor-to-floor often means commercial or hotel.
The description
Free text, written by the applicant. "Excavation," "foundation," "support of excavation" mean a job that's months from finishes. "Combine," "convert," "change of use" on an alteration mean scope well beyond cosmetic.
Estimated cost
Use it only as a floor. Many filings show $0 or $1,000 on jobs that will clearly cost millions.
Owner
An owner with several active filings is a developer with a pipeline. That's worth more than any one job.
Written from the field side of reading NYC filings every morning. Questions: hello@bidseerhub.com.