Igni for Real-Estate Agents — Permit Signal

The problem

• Your farm area drives your business, but you can't easily see which homeowners are adding ADUs, renovating, or improving — the equity events that lead to listings.
• Owners often pull a permit to fix up before they list; by the time the sign goes up, another agent already has the listing.
• When you run a CMA, a neighbor's new ADU or major addition can change the comp, but that activity never appears in the MLS.
• Permit momentum is one of the earliest reads on where a neighborhood is heating up, yet it's buried in city portals you'd never check by hand.

Farm your area with permit signal

A homeowner investing in their property is a future client — they may refinance, build wealth, or list within a few years, and they'll remember the agent who paid attention. Igni lets you watch your farm by ZIP and city and see which parcels are adding ADUs or units, renovating, or building, so your farming touches go to owners with real, documented activity instead of a blanket mailer.

Filter by ADU type and valuation to focus on the improvements that signal the most equity and the highest likelihood of a future move. You can inspect a single property's filing with the permit-lookup tool, and see how ADU activity reads in our explainer on what an ADU is.

Catch pre-listing renovation activity early

Plenty of sellers fix up before they list — a kitchen remodel, a new roof, an ADU to boost value — and the permit is filed long before the listing appears. Filtering for that improvement activity in your farm by status and valuation surfaces likely future sellers while they're still preparing, which is exactly when the listing conversation should start.

Reaching an owner mid-renovation with relevant, specific outreach — rather than a generic "thinking of selling?" card — is what wins the listing before a sign goes up. Our guide on turning permit data into outreach covers the timing logic, which applies just as well to listing prospecting.

Sharper CMAs with ADU and addition context

A comparable sale is only as good as your understanding of what changed at that property. When a nearby parcel adds an ADU or significant square footage, it can move the comp — but that change isn't in the MLS until much later, if ever. Igni's typed ADU classification and project valuation let you see which surrounding properties added units or made major improvements, so your pricing and listing presentations reflect what's actually happening on the block.

Use it as context alongside your usual tools — it's general market information, not an appraisal or formal valuation. For how valuation is recorded on a permit, see the glossary entry on permit valuation, and the differences between unit types in detached vs attached ADUs.

Read neighborhood momentum across every market

Permit volume is one of the earliest indicators of where a neighborhood is heating up — useful for advising buyers and sellers and for deciding where to farm next. Because Igni normalizes permits from many cities into one consistent schema across 65 cities in 37 US states, you can compare momentum across ZIPs and submarkets instead of reconciling incompatible city exports by hand.

In California, SB-9 lot splits and by-right duplexes are a distinct infill signal that reshapes blocks; Igni carries SB-9 and SB-10 flags so you can spot that early. Read the background in our overview of SB-9 and SB-10 and browse coverage on the state coverage hub. Igni is contact-driven during its pilot — no public self-serve checkout — so access starts with a short conversation about your markets.

The filters that matter for you

Frequently asked questions