17 Permits, $4,600 Median: ZIP 90031

Seventeen residential permits. A median job value of $4,600. Fourteen of those permits in the single category of Alteration & Repair. That is the sealed picture of ZIP 90031 — a Lincoln Heights and Elysian Valley corridor ZIP in northeast Los Angeles — for the 30-day window ending June 9, 2026.

The tension in this assignment's angle is real: the volume is modest, and the median is meaningfully below the metro-wide median of $7,000. That combination raises a specific question for anyone reading permit data professionally — what does it mean when a neighborhood is filing permits consistently but at low individual job valuations? This report addresses that question directly, using only the sealed display-set figures.

Residential building permits (single-family and small multi-family); commercial and sub-trade permits are excluded at ingest. This is not a count of all construction permits issued in each city. All figures are computed directly from sealed daily permit snapshots; nothing is estimated, modeled, or extrapolated.

Frequently Asked Questions

The FAQ is placed early in this report — before the comparison table and methodology — because the most actionable questions about 90031's permit data emerge from the numbers themselves, not from supplementary context.

Q: Why is the median permit valuation in 90031 below the metro median?
A: The $4,600 median in 90031 sits below the Los Angeles metro-wide median of $7,000. The gap reflects the character of the work being permitted: 14 of 17 permits are Alteration & Repair jobs at the lower end of the valuation range — single-trade scopes like electrical panel replacements, plumbing reroutes, or structural roof repairs that typically carry valuations in the low single-thousands. Metro-wide valuations are pulled upward by ZIPs with significant addition and new-construction volume, which carry larger individual project costs.

Q: Does a 17-permit count represent a complete picture of construction activity in 90031?
A: No. This sealed snapshot covers residential building permits only — single-family and small multi-family dwellings. Commercial permits, sub-trade permits (filed separately for electrical, plumbing, or mechanical work on an already-permitted job), and any permit type filed outside the residential category are excluded at ingest. The 17 figure is a slice, not a census of all construction in the ZIP.

Q: Who typically pulls a Bldg-Alter/Repair permit in Los Angeles?
A: In most cases, a licensed contractor — a C-class specialty contractor (electrician, plumber, roofer) or a B-class general building contractor — files the permit on behalf of the property owner and becomes the responsible party for code compliance and inspection sign-off. An owner-builder may also pull the permit for their own primary residence under California law, but must meet additional LADBS disclosure requirements. The sealed dataset captures the permit category and valuation, but not the contractor license number at the ZIP-level aggregation used in this report.

Q: How does 90031 compare to neighboring ZIP codes in the sealed dataset?
A: 90031 files at a similar volume level to 90033 (19 permits), 90501 (17 permits), 91303 (17 permits), and 91602 (17 permits) in this edition. Its total permitted valuation of $0.4M is in line with the valuation reported by 91303 ($0.4M) and below 90501 ($0.8M) and 91602 ($0.5M) at the same permit count. The comparison table in the next section provides the full peer set.

Q: What would a remodeling contractor do with 14 Alteration & Repair permits in a ZIP?
A: A remodeling contractor focused on kitchen and bathroom renovations would cross-reference the permit addresses with property age and ownership records to identify homeowners who recently completed a smaller permitted repair — the group most likely to be weighing whether to do a larger renovation next. Fourteen permits in a single month means 14 addresses in 90031 where a licensed job is actively underway or recently approved, creating canvassing and mail-targeting opportunities in a defined geographic cluster.

Q: How is this sealed data different from searching the LADBS permit portal directly?
A: A direct search of the LADBS portal returns live, current-state records — including any corrections, cancellations, or late entries added after the original filing date. The sealed snapshot used here captures the database state on each collection day, hashes it, and stores it without modification. The sha256 hash bb1d222aa1d0c3af uniquely identifies this edition, making the figures cited in this report permanently reproducible against that sealed version even if the live LADBS database changes.

Key Findings

• 17 residential permits were filed in ZIP 90031 during May 11 – June 9, 2026, per the sealed Los Angeles permit snapshot.

• 14 of 17 permits were Bldg-Alter/Repair / 1 or 2 Family Dwelling, the top category and a clear majority of the ZIP's filing volume, per the sealed snapshot.

• The median permit valuation in 90031 was $4,600, below the metro-wide median of $7,000, per the sealed snapshot.

• Total permitted valuation for the ZIP reached $0.4M in the 30-day window, per the sealed snapshot.

• The Los Angeles metro recorded 4,042 residential permits worth $201.2M across the same window, with a metro-wide valuation coverage of 93.5%, per the sealed snapshot.

ZIP 90031 Permit Activity, May 11 – June 9, 2026

What Is Getting Built in 90031

A building permit in Los Angeles is a formal authorization from the Department of Building and Safety to begin specified work on a residential property. The label "Bldg-Alter/Repair / 1 or 2 Family Dwelling" is the broadest residential modification category in the LADBS system — it covers structural alterations, mechanical and electrical upgrades, plumbing reroutes, roof structure repairs, seismic safety retrofits, and interior gut-and-rebuild work that touches load-bearing elements or regulated systems.

In a ZIP like 90031, with housing stock that skews older and a dense concentration of single-family homes on small lots, Alteration & Repair permits typically reflect a mix of deferred-maintenance catch-up and targeted upgrades. A property owner replacing aging copper plumbing, an owner-occupant upgrading an electrical panel ahead of an EV charger installation, a landlord making a permitted structural repair after roof damage — all generate Alteration & Repair filings.

The $4,600 median valuation is the key interpretive figure here. At that level, the typical permit in 90031 represents a single-trade scope: one trade, one system, one inspection sequence. This contrasts with the permit profile you see in higher-valuation ZIPs, where the same Alteration & Repair label covers multi-trade kitchen and bathroom renovations that run considerably higher. The small valuation does not mean the work is informal or unpermitted — it means the scope that homeowners are choosing to pull permits for in this ZIP is defined and targeted.

"14 of 17 permits in 90031 were Alteration & Repair at a $4,600 median — pointing to single-trade, targeted repair scopes across a mature housing stock."

How 90031 Compares in Los Angeles

The peer band below shows high-volume anchor ZIPs alongside the ZIPs filing at volumes nearest 90031 in the sealed dataset, plus the metro headline.

ZIP 90031 files in a cluster of ZIPs all recording 17 permits. Its $0.4M total valuation matches 91303's exactly. ZIP 90501, filing the same count, returned $0.8M in total valuation — roughly double — which indicates that the 90501 permit mix includes higher-scope jobs per permit despite identical filing volume.

"ZIP 90031's $0.4M total permitted valuation at 17 permits places it in the middle of its same-count peer group — above 90033 ($0.1M) but below 90501 ($0.8M) at identical volumes."

Metro Category Reference

The three primary residential permit categories across Los Angeles in this 30-day window are shown below for context.

The metro's Alteration & Repair dominance mirrors what ZIP 90031 shows at a smaller scale. The ZIP's 14-of-17 share in this category is consistent with the citywide pattern. What the $4,600 median adds is texture: at this ZIP level, the work being permitted is at the lower end of the alteration-and-repair valuation range, consistent with older housing stock where maintenance needs are routine and per-job budgets are constrained.

For context on the broader Los Angeles permit landscape, the June 2026 Los Angeles building permit metro report covers all 4,042 metro permits. The neighboring ZIP 90033 report — $0.1M of Permitted Work in ZIP 90033, Los Angeles — covers an adjacent ZIP at similar permit volume.

Methodology

Data originates from the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety via data.lacity.org (Socrata). The pipeline collects this data daily, normalizes it, and seals it with a content hash.

1. Collect. Daily permit records are pulled from the LADBS Socrata feed, covering all permit types in the published dataset.

2. Normalize. The pipeline filters to residential categories (single-family and small multi-family) and retains source label strings verbatim. Valuation fields and ZIP codes are validated; records with missing required fields are logged but not fabricated.

3. Seal. Each daily snapshot is content-hashed (sha256 bb1d222aa1d0c3af for this edition), creating a tamper-evident, reproducible record.

4. Aggregate. The 30-day window (May 11 – June 9, 2026) is aggregated from sealed daily files. ZIP-level data for 90031 is produced by filtering on the postal code field in source records.

Scope: Residential building permits (single-family and small multi-family); commercial and sub-trade permits are excluded at ingest. This is not a count of all construction permits issued in each city. Metro-level valuation coverage: 93.5% (3,779 of 4,042 permits carry reported valuations).

Put Permit Data to Work

The 90031 permit profile is most relevant to three types of professionals working the northeast Los Angeles residential market.

Specialty trade contractors — electricians, plumbers, and HVAC technicians — are the most natural fit for a ZIP where 14 of 17 permits are Alteration & Repair at a $4,600 median. These are jobs in the sweet spot for a single-trade shop: not so small they are informal, not so large they require a general contractor to manage multiple trades simultaneously. A specialty contractor monitoring permit filings in 90031 can identify fresh permits in their trade category within days of filing, reaching the homeowner or the permitted contractor-of-record before a competitive quote is solicited.

General contractors and remodelers should read 90031's low-valuation profile not as a reason to skip the ZIP, but as an early-pipeline signal. A homeowner who pulls a $4,600 electrical permit this month may be working through a sequence of deferred maintenance — and the larger renovation conversation comes at the end of that sequence, when the owner realizes the property needs a coordinated upgrade rather than continued piecemeal repair.

Listing agents working the Lincoln Heights corridor can use permit filing dates as a proxy for homeowner readiness. A property with a fresh alteration permit that completed its final inspection is often cleaner and more sale-ready than its neighbors. US Tech Automations automates the workflow of cross-referencing permit completion dates with ownership records and routing pre-listing outreach to agents whose farm area includes the permitted address.

Monitor live permit filings by ZIP at https://permits.ustechautomations.com. For US Tech Automations permit automation workflows for contractors and agents, see the contractor permit tracking automation guide or the agentic workflows platform.

Source: US Tech Automations Research — computed from sealed daily permit snapshots, May 11 – June 9, 2026.