How to choose a home builder: six checks, three of them in the public record

The six checks

1. Check the license or registration

Many states do not license home builders at all, and the ones that register remodelers often leave new houses out. Know which case you are in before you ask for a number.

For the lookup itself, our state guides walk through each board: Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio, Minnesota, Florida, North Carolina, Illinois. In Pittsburgh, 74.2% of the 31 builders on the permit file match an active City of Pittsburgh license; in Miami 97.4% match an active Florida license.

2. Count the homes they have permitted

A builder's new-home permits are its track record in your city. Open the builder's page on the new-home list and note two things: how many new-home permits it filed in the window, and the date of the newest one. A builder with one or two permits is not a bad builder, but you are buying a record you cannot check yet. A builder with five or more permits and none in the last year has gone quiet; ask why, and whether the company has a new name.

3. Did their homes reach a final inspection?

The finished share is the share of a builder's new-home permits, a year or more old, that the city closed out with a final inspection. New houses take long: the usual new-home permit took 660 days in Pittsburgh and 252 in Columbus. So compare a builder with its own city's figure in the table below, not with a remodeler or another city. Then pick one of its older addresses, search it on the city portal (links for every city), and read the inspection list.

The same addresses are your references. A builder's own reference list is the homes it chose; the permit list is every home it built. The National Association of Home Builders tells buyers to look at new homes "whenever you can" and to ask past buyers two questions: did the builder meet their expectations "with the main features, build, budget, and timing", and would they hire that builder again (NAHB, read October 2026). Ask a third: how the builder handled warranty calls in the first year. NAHB's point that you want a builder who "will be around after the construction is complete to service any warranties" is what the "active in the last 12 months" column measures.

4. Is your budget their usual job?

Each builder page shows the usual value the builder writes on its permits. In Pittsburgh the usual new-home permit was filed at $223,373, with the middle half of builders usually filing between $155,000 and $210,000. A builder whose usual job is far below or far above your budget is building a different kind of house from the one you want. The filed value is a construction value, usually without land, and not a price.

5. What the contract must say

No single law covers new-home contracts in every state, and Pennsylvania's home improvement contract rules do not apply to a new house (73 P.S. § 517.2). The FTC's checklist is the floor: a written contract with the contractor's name, address, phone and license number, start and completion dates, every spoken promise written in, and "all blank spaces" filled in (FTC). Add three things the permit record makes checkable: who pulls the permit (the builder, not you: Miami-Dade's owner-builder rules make the owner liable for injuries and damage caused by laborers they hire), which inspections must pass before each payment, and that the final payment waits for the final inspection.

What new-home permits show, city by city

"Builders" counts every firm with a new-home permit in the window; "active in last 12 months" counts those with one in the final year. "Usual filed value" is the middle value written on permits. "Finished" is the share of permits a year or more old that the city closed out. A dash means the city's file does not carry that field. Each city links to its builder list.

Windows are October 2023 to September 2026 except Nashville (2023-09 to 2026-09), Saint Paul (2022-07 to 2025-06), Honolulu (2022-07 to 2025-06), Scottsdale (2023-01 to 2025-12) and Cape Coral (2025-01 to 2026-09). Cities count "new home" from their own permit types, so compare builders within a city, not cities with each other.

See every Pittsburgh home builder by permit record →

6. What the record cannot tell you

The permit file shows permits, inspections, filed values and, where we match it, license status. It does not show workmanship the inspector did not see, warranty service, how a builder treats buyers, or homes built outside the city limits we cover. Pittsburgh has a specific gap: in mid-2024 the city moved residential building work to a permit type that does not name the contractor (see our Pennsylvania guide), so builders active since then are under-counted there, and "active in last 12 months" reads low. A production builder selling finished homes may file under several company names; ask which name is on the permits.