Press

"Facebook is growing again with plans for a new 465,000-square-foot office building at its headquarters campus, marking the latest development in the Menlo Park company's expansion plans, according to building permits compiled by Buildzoom."

"Another factor is that, as Issi Romem, chief economist at contractor site BuildZoom Inc., has documented in map-rich detail, more new housing is being built these days in the central cities of expensive coastal metropolitan areas than in the suburbs. "

"BuildZoom, a service that helps folks find licensed contractors, analyzed the wide spectrum of professions within the construction industry, [citing] “the high-rise boom[...]” as the primary reason that elevator technicians are getting the best compensation."

"In the San Francisco metropolitan area, housing megaprojects [...] account for a quarter of the new housing supply, up from roughly half that level in the previous two decades, according to census data compiled by BuildZoom [...]."

"According to a report released Thursday by the urban-housing economist Issi Romem of Buildzoom, a platform for finding contractors, many urban cores are actually developing and growing denser."

"According to a report released today by urban housing economist Issi Romem of Buildzoom, many urban cores are actually developing and densifying."

"[The Amazon Seattle Headquarters] occupies more than 13 million feet of office space, according to permit information pulled by BuildZoom, enough to fill five Empire State Buildings."

"The research and report, conducted by Issi Romem, chief economist at BuildZoom, and published by SPUR, a Bay Area urban planning and research non-profit, shows how rising prices are impacting migration."

"In the San Francisco metropolitan area, housing megaprojects [...] account for a quarter of the new housing supply, up from roughly half that level in the previous two decades, according to census data compiled by BuildZoom [...]."

"The website BuildZoom, which tracks the construction industry, pulled every permit filed with the city of Seattle for each Amazon-occupied office since the company first ramped up its growth spurt here 10 years ago."

"Issi Romem, chief economist at BuildZoom, a construction marketplace, points out that the Bay Area actually has plenty of space to build if it wanted it."

"Meanwhile, an impressive analysis of another ratio--the relationship of vertical replacement costs of construction with the actual lot value--comes from BuildZoom economist Issi Romem."

"BuildZoom, a service that helps users find general contractors, has estimated a price tag for the Cupertino, Calif. campus. [...] BuildZoom believes Apple paid at least $1.2 billion."

"In 2015, the unemployment rate was 7.1%, but the construction workforce contracted further to 10.4 million, according to a report from BuildZoom."

"Romem, the chief economist with BuildZoom, [says] 'To accommodate all those people you need to build a lot, and the state’s big metro areas haven’t since the early 70s. To catch up, cities would need to build housing in a way that they haven’t in two generations.'"

"The ZIP Code encompassing this vibrant Los Angeles precinct is the toughest place in America to build housing, according to an analysis of housing data conducted for The Wall Street Journal by Issi Romem, chief economist at BuildZoom."

"Homeowners can search the database and find details about contractors, such as when they obtained their license and if it has ever been suspended. Users can also search an address to learn its permit history, which can reveal which contractor did the work."

"BuildZoom's website has an online building-permit map of Palo Alto as well as other cities across the U.S. organized by type of project and other details about your neighbor's work."

"Led by Dr. Issi Romem, BuildZoom’s data science team uses the data to identify top performing contractors, and to perform economic research. The BuildZoom Remodeling Index, based on this data, is a powerful reliability indicator."

"Getting people out of their cars in favor of walking, cycling or riding mass transit will require the development of new, closely packed housing near jobs and commercial centers, … according to a recent study by permit and contractor data analysis website BuildZoom."

"BuildZoom Chief Economist Issi Romem agrees that there is likely upside for remodeling activity – because so much has been deferred over the past few years.…In the three months after a sale, remodeling was 4.6 times more likely in Atlanta, 8.6 times more likely in Los Angeles, and 4.2 times more likely in Phoenix."

"The new 372,893-square-foot [Apple] data center would include a build out of eight clusters as well as an administration building, garage and generator yard, according to a building permit accessed using BuildZoom, an online service that matches property owners with contractors."

"Tesla is showing no signs of slowing as it races to build the world’s largest lithium-ion battery factory…. BuildZoom, a site connecting construction contractors with homeowners, has been tracking Tesla’s construction permits."

"House flipping is back, with all its opportunities and risks.… Trulia, citing data from BuildZoom, showed 11.6 percent of flipped homes had acquired work permits."

"Last week was a big milestone for the Golden State Warriors’ plan to build an 18,500-seat arena dubbed the Chase Center at 300 16th Street.… The Registry pointed out the impermissible permit, but it was actually contracting site BuildZoom who first noticed the blip on the radar."

"…Americans are still moving to sprawl mainly because sprawl is affordable. On Wednesday, Issi Romem, chief economist at the San Francisco-based online construction marketplace BuildZoom and a former student of Moretti's, backed this up with an important new study."

"…[A] novel new analysis of American Community Survey data on the construction vintage of all U.S. housing by Issi Romem, the chief economist at the platform BuildZoom, … uses building ages at the Census block-group level to trace where cities expanded — and what was already on the land when new housing was built."

"…[T]rying to build upward in order to keep cities accessible to average families may be a losing battle, according to findings to be released Wednesday by BuildZoom, a website for contractors."

"Uber Technologies Inc has filed an $8 million building permit with the City of Oakland to undergo heavy-duty renovations on the old Sears building that will house its new corporate headquarters … according to BuildZoom, a company that compiles construction and remodeling contractor data."

"Facebook could be in for an 81,000-square-foot-addition to its 300 W 6th Street offices in Austin, TX, according to building permit and contractor research firm BuildZoom."

"The average first-time buyer makes $84,559, much more than the average household income of $75,037 — the widest such gap in over 15 years, according to an analysis by the online housing marketplace BuildZoom."

"…Amazon just confirmed to Recode that it is now working on store No. 10 — a location at the Bellevue Square shopping center across Lake Washington from Seattle. Plans for this new location were found in building permits flagged by the building contractor site BuildZoom."

"Take that LinkedIn office. According to BuildZoom, which tracks building permits, more than 50 building permits with a listed valuation of more than $127 million were granted for that office building."

"BuildZoom, a company that helps consumers find contractors, released a study on the expansion of American cities over the past 60-plus years...In San Francisco, expansion has decreased by 75.4 percent in 2000 compared with the 1970s. In terms of square miles, Bay Area expansion dipped from 207.75 to 51.1 in 2000."

"Despite the increased activity, remodeling remains below the 2005 peak measured by the BuildZoom index."

"But something much more enduring than zoning and land use is also contributing to the deepening housing affordability problems of leading superstar cities and knowledge hubs. According to a recent study by Issi Romem, chief economist at BuildZoom, part of the explanation lies in the geographic characteristics of cities and metros."

"According to BuildZoom economist Issi Romem, first-time buyers are facing even more challenges than some statistics show, as the lower socio-economic tier of that group has dropped out of the market altogether."

"BuildZoom recently reported that renovations are now 2.8% above their level in 2005."

"A new index compiled by BuildZoom — which identifies contractors for projects — found that renovations are running 2.8 percent above their 2005 level."

"BuildZoom ... announced it has raised a $10.6 million Series A round of fund. Formation 8 led the funding with participation from Y Combinator, Founders Fund and other existing investors…"

"BuildZoom today announced a $10.6 million Series A funding round led by Joe Lonsdale from Formation 8 with participation from Y Combinator and Peter Thiel of Founders Fund. The investment from Y Combinator represents one of their largest investments to date."

"BuildZoom, started in 2011 by childhood friends Jiyan Wei and David Petersen, has now raised $14.3 million since 2013, when it was incorporated."

"To better understand the regional dynamics of growth in the solar industry, we looked at over 650k solar building permits from the BuildZoom database."

"BuildZoom takes information such as project costs, the number of clients a contractor has had and other metrics to make finding information relevant to homeowners easy."

"A new report released by BuildZoom has taken a decidedly different approach to gauging that growth: by counting up the number of building permits that have been applied for."

"The Golden State's average is four times higher than the national one, said BuildZoom, a South of Market startup designed to help consumers and businesses find building contractors."

"BuildZoom used solar power building permits for residential, commercial and utility-scale projects to rank the nation's 40 biggest cities."

"Through the use of a permit mapping project, BuildZoom allows users to find out what types of permits were applied for homes in the city as far back as 2010, as well as the contractor who performed the work. "

"Five of the 10 largest US metro areas ranked by solar power systems per capita are in California led by San Diego with 14.64 per 1,000 people, according to BuildZoom"

"Of all the major markets in Texas, Houston has the lowest rate of market penetration for solar power, according to recent data from BuildZoom"

"For the neighbor who can’t help but wonder what’s going on next door, a new website could now have the answer — at least for construction and remodeling projects."

"BuildZoom analysis shows which parts of the country are spearheading the nation's adoption of solar and which companies are doing the work"

"The partners created BuildZoom.com, which seeks to do what no other site that I’m aware of does: provide an up-to-date, searchable list of a community’s construction projects. "

"Users can type in their address into BuildZoom.com and see details on housing projects in their neighborhood and filter project types and costs."

"The website BuildZoom has compiled all the data collected in these locations on every single remodeling and construction project over the past ten years."

"The ending of the ListHub agreement earlier this month caused an immediate drop in the number of home listings available on Zillow, but the company has rapidly made up ground since then, according to an analysis by Issi Romem, chief economist of BuildZoom"

"The $356.68 billion (market cap) company spent more than $500 million on construction and remodeling from 2004 to 2014, according to an analysis of Mountain View city permit records conducted by San Francisco-based BuildZoom, a startup that helps people find residential contractors."

"Solar Permits Data Paint a Clearer Picture of the Solar Boom."

"According to BuildZoom Chief Economist Issi Romem, it wasn't a significant hit in terms of national numbers, but the real impact is in the geographic coverage."

"Next we analyzed over 60,000 verified contractor reviews that had been published on BuildZoom over the past two years and observed the share of negative reviews in each state, which was used as a measure of overall consumer sentiment."

"According to building permits pulled by home and construction resource startup BuildZoom, Tesla is preparing to the lay the groundwork for its “gigafactory,”a manufacturing site that is scheduled to be fully functional by 2020 and will create 500K battery packs a year for the electric vehicle manufacturer."

"As if big data and data science haven’t been reshaping every service and product we use already, it’s about to make shopping for a home improvement contractor hopefully that much better."

"Flips that were associated with building permits had a median ROI of 50%, compared to just 13% across all properties, RealtyTrac data revealed. What’s more, BuildZoom data shows that the more an investor spends on the home flip, the higher his return on investment."

"To help understand which U.S. cities have the greatest need for construction workers, we compared the number of licensed contractors per capita in some of the most populated U.S. cities."

"San Francisco's notoriously tight building regulations are a big part of the problem, according to BuildZoom."

"BuildZoom is similar to Angie’s List, however, it looks and performs considerably better."

"The use of data analytics to bring more objectivity and transparency to decision-making is happening in finance, healthcare, education, business, retail, and so on; BuildZoom is bringing it to home renovation."

"Consumers can visit BuildZoom to find out whether a contractor is licensed, what class of license they have, the year they were licensed, whether their license has ever been suspended or there’s been a compliant against them, whether they’re bonded or insured, and more, depending on their own state’s requirements."