How to look up a house’s history by address

A house’s history is spread over several public records: the county appraisal district or assessor (year built, size, rooms, values by year), the county clerk or recorder (deeds and sales), the city’s building department (permits) and FEMA’s flood maps. Insurance claims are private: the owner can request them and share them with you.

Updated October 14, 2026. General information, not legal advice: the city’s code and its planning staff decide for your lot.

The county appraisal record

Every county keeps a record of each parcel for property tax, run by the appraisal district or the assessor and usually searchable online by address. It lists the year built (sometimes also an effective year that reflects remodeling), the living area, the stories and rooms, and where the county records them the foundation, roof, heating and cooling, a garage or pool and other buildings. It also gives the assessed value of the land and of the buildings, year by year. Exemptions, such as a homestead exemption, show how the current owner is taxed; they end with a sale.

Deeds and sales

Deeds are recorded with the county clerk or recorder, and many counties index them online. A deed gives the date of each transfer and the lot’s legal description; in most states the price is on the record too. Some states do not require the price to be disclosed. Texas is one: its appraisal districts gather prices where they can, from closing statements and questionnaires that buyers and sellers choose to return, so the record often shows when a house sold but not for how much.

Permits

The city’s building department, or the county outside city limits, keeps the permits pulled for an address: a new roof, an addition, electrical and plumbing work, a pool. Many cities have an online permit search; others answer a records request. An addition or a garage conversion with no permit behind it is worth asking about before you buy: it may have to be brought up to code, or removed.

Flood zone and hazards

FEMA’s Flood Map Service Center (msc.fema.gov) shows the flood zone of an address. Inside a Special Flood Hazard Area, a federally backed mortgage requires flood insurance. Past flood damage is not on a public map; some states require sellers to disclose it.

Insurance claims

Claims filed on a house are kept in insurance industry databases, the best known being LexisNexis’s C.L.U.E. report. They are not public. The owner can request a free copy once a year and share it with a buyer.

What the street shows

Street-level imagery is dated, and older frames show how a house looked years ago: a roof replaced, a tree gone, an addition built. Check the date of a frame before you read anything into it, and remember that it shows only the sides a street sees.

How the Lot Report gathers it

The Lot Report puts the public part of this history together for one US address: the county’s record (year built, rooms, assessed values, the last sale on record and permits where the county lists them, with the county page it came from), the flood zone where FEMA’s map answers, the house as the most recent street view frame shows it, with the frame’s date, and the zoning that applies today. It does not search the title, inspect the house or estimate its value.