An analysis from the San Francisco Chronicle identifies twelve of the biggest and most influential owners of rental properties in the San Francisco Bay Area.

A team of San Francisco Chronicle reporters—Susie Neilson, Emma Stiefel, J.K. Dineen, and Lauren Hepler—conducted an in-depth analysis of the Bay Area’s property ownership records to trace the real ownership of the region’s rental properties.
“California doesn’t have hard-and-fast rules on how property owners identify themselves; large corporations, hedge funds and even wealthy families often purchase multiple homes through shell companies or trusts, shielding their names from ownership records.” To get more clarity, the team “used machine learning methods to parse the data and called on dozens of experts and additional data sources” to narrow down the 12 most influential property owners in the region. According to the authors, “We believe this is an unprecedented effort to uncover rental ownership and management networks across all nine counties in the region: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma.”
The article lists the 12 owners and details about their properties, business practices, the demographics of their tenants, the geographic range of each owner’s properties, information about inspections and safety violations, eviction practices, and more. The authors note that “Even if the owner of your property isn’t on our list, you can learn more about who owns it by using our map of nearly 2.3 million Bay Area properties here.”
FULL STORY: These 12 secret power players are shaping the Bay Area housing market

Maui's Vacation Rental Debate Turns Ugly
Verbal attacks, misinformation campaigns and fistfights plague a high-stakes debate to convert thousands of vacation rentals into long-term housing.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

In Urban Planning, AI Prompting Could be the New Design Thinking
Creativity has long been key to great urban design. What if we see AI as our new creative partner?

Florida Seniors Face Rising Homelessness Risk
High housing costs are pushing more seniors, many of them on a fixed income, into homelessness.

Massachusetts Budget Helps Close MBTA Budget Gap
The budget signed by Gov. Maura Healey includes $470 million in MBTA funding for the next fiscal year.

Milwaukee Launches Vision Zero Plan
Seven years after the city signed its Complete Streets Policy, the city is doubling down on its efforts to eliminate traffic deaths.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Gallatin County Department of Planning & Community Development
Heyer Gruel & Associates PA
JM Goldson LLC
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University
Jefferson Parish Government
Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Claremont