EDR Announces Strategic Partnership with BuildFax, Creators of the Largest Commercial and Residential Permitting Database in the U.S. Including over 6 Billion Data Points

Extensive U.S. wide permitting data promises to reveal significant insights about the environmental conditions and risks that have impacted properties

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- EDR today announced a ground-breaking strategic partnership with BuildFax, the creators of the largest commercial and residential permitting database in the United States. The BuildFax partnership represents an expansion of offerings provided by EDR to make the process of environmental due diligence as thorough as possible.

As BuildFax President, Holly Tachovsky points out, “Building department records can provide tremendous insight about the environmental conditions that may have impacted a property, including current and/or former operations and structural features that may be associated with high environmental risk. Permit information on a target property and adjoining property, can, for instance, indicate the presence of underground storage tanks, pump islands, sumps and drywells, as well as information regarding water, sewer, natural gas, electrical connection dates and current or former septic tanks.”

Rob Barber, CEO of EDR, stated, “The addition of the building permit records to our suite of historical research reports means that EDR now provides six out of eight standard historical sources listed in ASTM E 1527-5. This means that instead of time-consuming trips to municipal offices to request and sort through cumbersome records in various formats, our clients can now access this information from their desktop and view it in a standardized, crisp and meaningful format.”

For an additional $45 per report, EDR’s clients can now swiftly order an EDR Building Permit report online via www.edrnet.com/buildingpermits in order to access:

• Permit data on both target property and adjoining properties, making permit information on adjoining properties "reasonably ascertainable"
• Data reports including: date of permit, permit type, permit number, status, valuation, contractor company, contractor name, and description
• Data delivered in a simple, standardized format

EDR’s expansive line of environmental due diligence historical products includes aerial photographs, fire insurance maps, recorded land title records, SGS topographical maps, local street directories and now building permitting data.

EDR’s partners at BuildFax have assembled a database of over 60 percent of the commercial and residential building stock in the United States with over 6 billion data points based on data collected directly from city and county building and permitting authorities. Moreover, BuildFax has instituted an exhaustive quality assurance process to ensure that data is reliable, consistent and accurate across different jurisdictions.

About EDR (www.edrnet.com):

Environmental Data Resources, Inc. (EDR) is the leading provider of environmental risk information services and related workflow applications in the United States. As the innovator of the most comprehensive database of environmental and historical land use information, the company provides reports, subscription services and other solutions to help its customers reduce environmental risk. EDR, whose customers include commercial and residential real estate professionals, environmental consultants, lenders, corporations, attorneys and government agencies, is also the creator of commonground (http://commonground.edrnet.com) the first global, online community for property due diligence professionals. Established in 1991, EDR is headquartered in Milford, Connecticut with regional offices located throughout the United States. EDR is wholly owned by DMG Information Inc., the business information division of Daily Mail and General Trust, plc (DMGT).

About BuildFax (www.buildfax.com):

BuildFax, a division of BUILDERadius, is the creator of the first and only national database of historical building permit data. Co-headquartered in Austin, Texas and Asheville, North Carolina, BuildFax has created a proprietary property intelligence engine that contains building and permitting information from 4,000+ cities and counties throughout the country. Local building departments in each of these towns across the country inspect construction to make sure it meets quality and safety standards; as such it is an absolutely critical part of the public safety infrastructure. BuildFax is then able to consolidate this information into the dataset, which is a tremendous asset to professionals in the insurance, financial services, inspection, and appraisal industries, as well as buyers and sellers of property. As the best and only source of a structure’s “life story,” the BuildFax database continues to grow, currently covering over 60 percent of the U.S. commercial and residential building stock with 6 billion data points.

Red Fan CommunicationsKathleen Kenney Lucente, 512-217-6352
[email protected]

Source: BuildFax