36 Permits in 98115: Seattle ZIP Report

No Seattle ZIP code in this edition filed more residential building permits than 98115: 36, between June 13 – July 11, 2026. A building permit is a municipal record of proposed construction or renovation work, filed for review before a contractor or homeowner can legally start the job. In 98115, those 36 filings carried a combined declared valuation of $8.3M at a $70,000 median — a ZIP defined by high permit volume paired with a below-metro ticket size.

This report is one ZIP-level slice of the same sealed daily snapshots behind Seattle's citywide permit report. 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. Nothing below is estimated or projected — every figure is copied directly from the sealed source.

ZIP-level detail exists because citywide totals flatten real variation. A metro-wide report can say Seattle sealed 311 permits and $72.2M this window, but it cannot say whether that activity concentrated in a handful of neighborhoods or spread evenly across the city. Breaking the same sealed snapshot down by ZIP code answers that question directly, without changing a single underlying record — it is the same data, filtered differently, not a separate count.

Key Findings

• According to US Tech Automations' sealed permit snapshots, 98115 filed 36 residential permits in the window — the most of any tracked Seattle ZIP.

• Per the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections via data.seattle.gov (Socrata), 98115's permits carried $8.3M in declared valuation, at a $70,000 median.

• Per the same sealed snapshots, Addition & Alteration made up 23 of 98115's 36 permits — the dominant category in the ZIP.

• According to the same source, Seattle citywide sealed 311 permits worth $72.2M in the same window.

• Across the 8-metro edition, 6,456 permits worth $747.7M were sealed this reporting period, per the same daily snapshot process.

98115 outfiled every other sampled Seattle ZIP at 36 permits this window.

ZIP 98115 Permit Activity, June 13 – July 11, 2026

The gap between total value and permit count is the first thing worth noticing. $8.3M spread across 36 permits is a market of frequent, moderate-size jobs rather than one or two outsized projects carrying the sum. Seattle's single largest permit anywhere in the metro this window reached $2,000,000 — nothing in 98115 resembles that scale on its own; the ZIP's total is built from volume.

For anyone reading this table as shorthand for how much construction money is moving through 98115, one caveat carries over from the citywide report: declared valuation is the figure stated on the permit application at filing, not an independent appraisal. Contractors and homeowners have some incentive to state conservative numbers, particularly on renovation-scale work where the declared value affects permit fees. It remains the most consistent public signal available for where residential construction spending is being committed, ZIP by ZIP, even without a third-party valuation behind each entry.

How Valuations Spread Across Seattle's Permits

Set against that citywide spread, 98115's own $70,000 median sits below the metro's $100,000 midpoint and well under the $328,802 mark that defines the upper quarter of Seattle permits — closer to the lower half of the distribution than the upper one. Read plainly: 98115 is not where Seattle's largest single projects are landing this window. It is where a large number of mid-size renovation jobs are clustering, which is a different and arguably more useful signal for anyone tracking steady renovation demand rather than one-off construction spikes.

That distinction matters for anyone using ZIP-level permit data to gauge a neighborhood's construction intensity. A ZIP with a handful of very large permits can post an impressive total while telling you little about how many households are actually doing work; a ZIP like 98115, with a high count at a modest median, tells you the opposite story — a lot of individual households renovating, even if no single project is dramatic on its own.

Seattle's citywide median permit is $100,000; 98115's own median is $70,000 — a smaller-ticket ZIP than the metro overall.

What 98115 Is Building

Addition & Alteration is the category behind 23 of 98115's 36 permits this window — the city's own label for the category is Building / Addition/Alteration. That permit type covers work on an existing structure that changes its footprint, layout, or structural elements: room additions, second-story additions, garage conversions, load-bearing wall removals, and larger interior reconfigurations that go beyond cosmetic finish work. It is a heavier review category than a simple like-for-like repair, because the work can touch structural, electrical, or plumbing systems that the jurisdiction has to sign off on before and after construction.

That mix fits 98115's housing stock. The ZIP, covering much of Seattle's Ravenna, Wedgwood, and View Ridge neighborhoods, is dominated by older single-family homes on modest lots — exactly the housing type where owners expand rather than replace, adding square footage or reconfiguring a layout instead of demolishing and rebuilding. Seattle's own citywide mix backs that reading: Addition/Alteration is the largest category metro-wide at 193 permits, well ahead of Building/New at 78 and Demolition at 18, so 98115's own top category mirrors — and outpaces its share of — the city's broader pattern.

Addition & Alteration work tends to track life-stage decisions more than market timing. A growing family finishing a basement or adding a bedroom, an owner nearing retirement reconfiguring a single-story layout instead of moving, or a buyer bringing an older Ravenna or Wedgwood bungalow up to modern code after purchase — none of that shows up as a distinct line item in the permit record. It shows up only as more Addition & Alteration filings relative to New Construction or Demolition, which is exactly the skew 98115 displays against Seattle's two smaller citywide categories.

For the category's dedicated Seattle-wide breakdown, see Seattle Addition & Alteration Permits, which covers the citywide figures behind this ZIP-level slice.

23 of 98115's 36 permits this window were Addition & Alteration filings.

Where 98115 Sits Among Seattle's ZIPs

98115 leads this sample at 36 permits, narrowly ahead of neighboring 98117 at 35 — the two north Seattle ZIPs sit well clear of the rest of the table. 98103, 98125, and 98118 form a second tier around 20-21 permits each, roughly half of 98115's count. On dollars the ranking shifts: 98117's $9.0M total edges out 98115's $8.3M despite fewer permits, while 98125 posts $8.1M on only 20 filings — a reminder that permit count and declared valuation answer different questions about a ZIP's construction activity.

For the full citywide picture behind every row in that table, see the Seattle building permit report.

The gap between 98115's leading count and Seattle's citywide total of 311 permits is also worth sitting with. Even the busiest ZIP in this sample represents a small share of the metro's overall permitting activity — the expected shape of a citywide dataset split across dozens of ZIP codes, where no single ZIP should dominate the full count, and 98115 does not.

98115 (36 permits) and 98117 (35 permits) are the two busiest ZIPs in this Seattle sample.

Methodology

Source: Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections via data.seattle.gov (Socrata). All figures are computed directly from US Tech Automations' sealed daily permit snapshots; nothing is estimated, modeled, or extrapolated.

Every ZIP-level figure in this report is a slice of the same sealed snapshots behind Seattle's citywide permit report — filtered to records carrying the 98115 ZIP code, not a separately collected dataset. Scope is residential building permits (single-family and small multi-family); commercial and sub-trade permits are excluded at ingest, so this is not a count of all construction permits issued in each city. The edition is cross-sectional: it reports this window on its own terms and makes no claim about prior periods.

The point of sealing a daily snapshot rather than querying the source system live is straightforward. A live query can return a different answer next month if the underlying record is revised, silently changing a number that was already cited elsewhere. A sealed, content-hashed snapshot cannot be revised after the fact, so every figure in this report stays anchored to the date it was captured, and a reader checking back later will see the same numbers this report shows today.

1. Collect. Pull Seattle's residential permit feed from data.seattle.gov every day, retaining each record's ZIP code.

2. Normalize. Map every record to a common schema — permit identifier, issue date, declared valuation, category label, ZIP — excluding commercial and sub-trade permit types at ingest.

3. Seal daily. Hash each day's normalized snapshot into an append-only, content-addressed store, so figures cannot be silently revised after the fact.

4. Aggregate. Compute ZIP-level counts, totals, and medians directly from the sealed snapshots over the June 13 – July 11, 2026 reporting window.

This ZIP report sits inside a July 2026 edition spanning 8 metros, 6,456 permits, and $747.7M in declared valuation at 84% coverage. The same sealing discipline underlies our permit prediction ledger, where predictions are committed to the record before outcomes are observable.

Frequently Asked Questions About ZIP 98115

Q: Does this report count every permit filed in 98115?
A: No. Scope is residential building permits (single-family and small multi-family); commercial and sub-trade permits are excluded at ingest. 98115 recorded 36 permits meeting that definition in the June 13 – July 11, 2026 window — this is not a count of all construction permits issued in the city.

Q: Is 98115 the busiest ZIP in Seattle for residential permits?
A: In this sample, yes — 36 permits, ahead of 98117 at 35 and well ahead of 98103, 98125, and 98118, each around 20-21. By declared dollars the order shifts slightly: 98117's $9.0M total tops 98115's $8.3M despite the lower permit count.

Q: Why is 98115's median valuation lower than the Seattle citywide median?
A: Because the ZIP's permit flow is dominated by Addition & Alteration work — moderate-scope renovation and expansion jobs rather than new construction. 23 of the ZIP's 36 permits fall in that category, pulling the local median to $70,000 against Seattle's $100,000 citywide figure.

Q: How is a sealed daily snapshot different from just querying the city's permit system live?
A: A live query can return different results tomorrow if the city revises a record. A sealed snapshot is hashed and stored the day it is pulled, so the figures in this report are locked to that date and cannot be silently altered afterward — the audit trail is the point.

Q: Who typically pulls Addition & Alteration permits in a ZIP like 98115?
A: General contractors handling room additions and layout changes, homeowners expanding an existing house rather than moving, and specialty trades — framing, electrical, and plumbing contractors — brought in for the structural portions of the work.

Q: How does this ZIP-level report relate to the Seattle citywide permit report?
A: It is a filtered slice of the same sealed snapshots, not a separately collected dataset. The citywide report covers all 311 permits and $72.2M across Seattle; this report narrows that same snapshot to the 36 records carrying the 98115 ZIP code.

Put Permit Data to Work

98115's numbers point at a specific set of buyers. Remodeling contractors and design-build firms can read a 36-permit, Addition & Alteration-heavy ZIP as an active territory worth prioritizing over quieter neighborhoods. Building material suppliers — framing lumber, windows, structural hardware — can time inventory and delivery routes to a ZIP that is filing this many expansion-scope jobs.

Listing agents can treat a fresh addition permit as a pre-sale signal: owners often finish an expansion before putting a house on the market. Lenders financing renovation work can use 98115's permit volume as a leading indicator of borrower demand — a homeowner who has just filed an Addition & Alteration permit is a warmer prospect for a home-equity or renovation loan than a name pulled from a cold-outreach list.

In this window, 98115 alone accounted for $8.3M of Seattle's $72.2M in declared valuation.

US Tech Automations turns signals like these into automated workflows: monitoring new permit filings as they land in the jurisdiction feed, routing qualified records to the right territory or rep, and drafting outreach grounded in sealed, verifiable data instead of scraped guesswork. Explore the underlying permit corpus at permits.ustechautomations.com, or see how agentic workflows can monitor a territory like 98115 automatically.

Source: US Tech Automations Research — computed from sealed daily permit snapshots, June 13 – July 11, 2026.