How to get roofing leads in winter in Minneapolis
By Exterior Permits ·
Winter is when most Minneapolis roofers feel their lead flow dry up. The permit data shows how sharp that drop is. It also shows that winter isn't empty, and that the work you do from November to February decides how fast you start in spring.
All numbers below cover residential roofing permits on houses, duplexes and townhouses issued from October 2025 to September 2026.
How big the winter drop is
Minneapolis issued 2,322 residential roofing permits in those 12 months. Here they are by month:
| Month | Roofing permits |
|---|---|
| Oct 2025 | 387 |
| Nov 2025 | 205 |
| Dec 2025 | 40 |
| Jan 2026 | 11 |
| Feb 2026 | 38 |
| Mar 2026 | 135 |
| Apr 2026 | 224 |
| May 2026 | 211 |
| Jun 2026 | 215 |
| Jul 2026 | 268 |
| Aug 2026 | 291 |
| Sep 2026 | 297 |
From October to January, roofing permits fell 97%, from 387 to 11. December, January and February together had 89 permits. That's under 4% of the year.
The flip side: October and November alone had 592 permits, about a quarter of the whole year. And March came back at 135, more than three times February.
Brooklyn Park follows the same curve on a smaller scale: 57 roofing permits in October 2025, 20 in November, 5 in December, fewer than 5 in January and 8 in February.
For every month, see roofing permit seasonality in Minneapolis.
What still happens in winter
The 89 winter permits are worth a look, because they tell you who still buys a roof in the cold.
- Fewer roofers. 61 different applicants pulled a roofing permit from December to February, compared with 736 over the full year. If you stay visible in winter, you're competing with far fewer crews.
- Not smaller jobs. The median permit value from December to February was $13,478, against $12,000 for the rest of the year. Winter permits aren't just patch jobs.
- Spread out. No single neighborhood had 5 or more winter roofing permits. The busiest ZIPs were 55419 (11), 55412 (9) and 55417 (8). Winter work is scattered, so you won't find it by driving one neighborhood.
- One big name kept going. Kaufman Sheet Metal Roofing pulled 9 of the winter permits. Every other applicant had fewer than 5.
So winter roofing demand is small, scattered and fairly high value. That favors roofers who watch every new permit, not ones who wait for a storm.
Winter playbook for roofers
1. Front-load October and November
A quarter of the year's roofing permits land in October and November. Book as much as you can before Thanksgiving. Every permit in those two months is a house with a crew, a dumpster and neighbors watching. That's your best moment for mailing the neighbors of a permitted job.
2. Work last fall's jobs in December
The houses that got new roofs in September and October are still public record in December. Their neighbors saw the work. A card in December that says "we're booking spring installs now" reaches people who had all fall to think about their own roof. Our guide to direct mail to permit leads covers postage and what to put on the card.
3. Sell the jobs that do move in winter
Full reroofs still get permitted in December, January and February, so some homeowners do buy in the cold. Make it easy for them to find you: keep your site and listings current, answer the phone, and say clearly that you install in winter if you do.
4. Cross-sell with trades that stay busy
Roofing drops hard, but not every exterior trade does. December to February held:
- 285 windows and doors permits, about 16% of that trade's year
- 84 solar permits, about 24% of the year
- 50 siding permits, about 12% of the year
Windows and doors had 104 permits in January, when roofing had 11. If you also do gutters, siding or windows, winter is the time to lead with those. See window replacement leads and how to get siding leads.
5. Build the spring list now
Roofing jumped from 38 permits in February to 135 in March and 224 in April. The roofers who start spring fast are the ones with a list of warm homes ready in February. Keep a running list of the streets where you saw permits in the fall, and mail them again in late February.
6. Know where fall demand was
Roofing in the last half of the year was concentrated. Waite Park had 152 roofing permits from July to September 2026, about 18% of the city's 856 for that quarter. Our post on the top Minneapolis neighborhoods for roofing permits ranks the rest.
A simple winter calendar
| When | What to do |
|---|---|
| Oct–Nov | Close every job you can. Mail the neighbors of each new permit within a week. |
| Dec | Mail fall permit streets with a "book spring now" offer. |
| Jan | Lead with windows, gutters or siding if you offer them. Track the few new roofing permits. |
| Feb | Mail your spring list again. Line up crews for March. |
| Mar | Watch new permits weekly as volume comes back. |
Watching permits through the winter
In a month with 11 roofing permits, each one matters, and you can't afford to find out about it three weeks late. The free Monday email lists last week's new roofing permits with address, description, value and contractor. Get it free. Pro ($49 a month) adds a second trade plus owner names and mailing addresses for mailers. Full Metro ($99) covers all five trades with daily weekday alerts. See pricing.
For how roofers use new permits year-round, see roofing leads in Minneapolis. Each month's totals are in our monthly permit report.
Data note: counts are residential roofing permits (single-family, two-family and townhouse) from the City of Minneapolis CCS_Permits open data, pulled 2026-10-15, sorted by trade with our classifier (method). Brooklyn Park figures come from the City of Brooklyn Park's monthly permit reports, as of 2026-10-16. Permit value is the declared value on the permit, not the final price. Counts under 5 are shown as "fewer than 5".