United States

The United States has no national land register and no national record of what buildings sell for; ownership is recorded county by county, and the only place a large building's owner, cost and encumbrances are reliably stated in one document is a REIT's annual report to the SEC.

6 buildings · 6 with an owner established · 18 sources · 6 tier A · prepared 2026-09-27

Can you find out who owns it?

There is no federal land register. Deeds are recorded by county recorders and clerks — several thousand separate offices — and assessment rolls are kept by county assessors, so whether ownership is free to look up, cheap, or behind a vendor depends entirely on which county a building stands in. Most counties do publish the owner of record for free, and some publish the whole parcel file as open data, but no one joins them up. There is likewise no national price-paid dataset: a dozen states are 'non-disclosure' states where sale prices are never recorded publicly at all, so the national price series are statistical indices rather than registers — the FHFA House Price Index, for instance, is "a weighted, repeat-sales index" built from repeat mortgage transactions on properties whose loans Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac bought or securitised since 1975. For big buildings the workaround is the SEC: a REIT's Schedule III names each property with its original cost, its encumbrances and the year it was acquired, and Exhibit 21 maps the single-asset LLC to its parent.

Is ownership public?An open dataset names the owner

Cost of one title searchNot available at any price

Bulk ownership dataNo national channel. County assessor and recorder files, county by county (NYC PLUTO, Cook County and Miami-Dade are free and complete); for large commercial assets, SEC EDGAR Schedule III and Exhibit 21, free and full-text searchable

Sale pricesAggregates only — no individual sales

Sites that forbid taking their data

redfin.com — “2.3.5. No Scrubbing or Scraping. You may not automatedly crawl or query the Services for any purpose or by any means (including, without limitation, screen and database scraping, spiders, robots, crawlers and any other automated activity with the purpose of obtaining information from the Services) unless you have received prior express written permission from the applicable Redfin Company.”

The marquee buildings

The towers that set the tone of the core, and who holds them. A price is the price a document states, on the date it states — not an estimate of what the building is worth now.

Building	Use	Owner	Owner type	Last price paid
Empire State Building 350 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 2,711,351 sq ft office + 88,143 sq ft retail	Office	Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: ESRT) ESRT's 2025 10-K names "ESRT's flagship Empire State Building" and lists it in the property table at 2,711,351 rentable sq ft of office (91.8% occupied, $172,538,871 annualized rent, $69.96/sq ft, 148 leases) plus 88,143 sq ft of retail. Schedule III lists it as "350 Fifth Avenue (Empire State Building), New York, NY" with no encumbrances and accumulated depreciation of $544,036k.	REIT	$1,262,767 thousand gross carrying amount 2025-12 Schedule III gross carrying amount at 31 Dec 2025 (land $21,551k + building $1,241,216k), not a sale price. Year built 1930; year acquired 2013. A ESRT via SEC EDGAR
One Vanderbilt Avenue One Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 1,657,198 sq ft	Office	SL Green Realty Corp. (NYSE: SLG), in joint venture with National Pension Service of Korea, Hines Interest LP and Mori Building Co., Ltd 55.01% SL Green's 2025 10-K lists One Vanderbilt Avenue among its Manhattan unconsolidated office properties at 55.01% ownership, 1,657,198 rentable sq ft, 100% occupied, with the JV partners named. It is SL Green's single largest revenue source at 12.8% of office annualized cash rent in 2025 (down from 16.0% in 2023), and the REIT's own headquarters is a tenant there.	REIT	$4,700.0 million gross asset valuation 2025-09 The valuation at which SL Green sold a 5.00% interest to Mori Building in September 2025, generating $86.6 million of proceeds and an $88.1 million gain. Not a whole-building sale price; the same $4.7B valuation was used for an 11.00% sale in November 2024. A SL Green via SEC EDGAR
767 Fifth Avenue (the General Motors Building) 767 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 1,970,335 sq ft	Office	BXP, Inc. (NYSE: BXP, formerly Boston Properties) with joint venture partners 60% ownership BXP's 2025 10-K property table lists "767 Fifth Avenue (The GM Building) (60% ownership)", New York NY, 98.8% occupied, 1,970,335 net rentable sq ft. The 10-K also states the building is insured separately from the rest of the portfolio, with per-occurrence property limits of $1.625 billion including terrorism coverage — the highest single-asset figure BXP discloses.	REIT	$3,328,906 thousand original cost 2013 Schedule III original cost at acquisition (land $1,796,252k + building $1,532,654k); gross carrying amount at 31 Dec 2025 was $3,752,846k with $2,294,992k of encumbrances. Years built/renovated 1968/2019. A BXP, Inc. via SEC EDGAR
Salesforce Tower 415 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 1,420,682 sq ft	Office	BXP, Inc. (NYSE: BXP) Listed in BXP's 2025 10-K property table as Salesforce Tower, San Francisco CA, 98.0% occupied, 1,420,682 net rentable sq ft, with no joint-venture percentage noted — the tallest building in San Francisco, carried by its REIT owner with no mortgage against it.	REIT	$1,146,554 thousand original cost 2013 Schedule III original cost (land $200,349k + building $946,205k); gross carrying amount $1,150,703k at 31 Dec 2025, accumulated depreciation $214,753k, no encumbrances. Year built 2018, year acquired 2013. A BXP, Inc. via SEC EDGAR
200 Clarendon Street (formerly the John Hancock Tower) 200 Clarendon Street, Boston, MA 1,700,914 sq ft	Office	BXP, Inc. (NYSE: BXP) BXP's 2025 10-K lists "200 Clarendon Street" at 1,700,914 net rentable sq ft, 99.9% occupied — New England's tallest building. The Schedule III line is "200 Clarendon Street and Garage".	REIT	$887,427 thousand original cost 2010 Schedule III original cost (land $219,543k + building $667,884k); gross carrying amount including the garage $1,199,356k at 31 Dec 2025, no encumbrances. Year built 1976. A BXP, Inc. via SEC EDGAR
The Prudential Center 800 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 1,274,213 sq ft (800 Boylston Street tower)	Mixed use	BXP, Inc. (NYSE: BXP) BXP's 2025 10-K lists "800 Boylston Street - The Prudential Center", Boston MA, 95.7% occupied, 1,274,213 net rentable sq ft. It is also BXP's own registered principal executive office. Years built/renovated 1965/1993/2002/2016-2017/2024.	REIT	$1,040,434 thousand original cost 1998-2000 Schedule III original cost (land $92,077k + building $948,357k) across acquisitions in 1998, 1999 and 2000; gross carrying amount $1,902,462k at 31 Dec 2025, accumulated depreciation $871,069k, no encumbrances. A BXP, Inc. via SEC EDGAR

The core land

The most valuable ground in the city, and what the public record says about it.

There is no national equivalent of a highest-assessed-parcel league table, because assessment is a county function. What the federal government does publish, free and in bulk, is how much building is authorised and what it is expected to cost — and what the SEC requires of REITs turns the largest individual buildings into line items with a cost and an encumbrance. The permit figures below were computed directly from the Census Bureau's own bulk state file.

Housing units authorised by building permits, 20251,431,616 units

Computed from the Census Bureau Building Permits Survey annual state file st2025a.txt (survey date 202599, United States row): 911,903 one-unit, 36,748 two-unit, 18,993 three-and-four-unit and 463,972 five-plus-unit. Public domain federal data.

Reported construction value of those permits$379.1 billion

Same file, same row: $379,050,517 thousand of reported valuation, or about $264,771 per authorised unit — $320,814 per one-unit house and $166,325 per unit in 5+ buildings. This is construction value as reported to the permit office; it excludes land.

States authorising the most units, 2025Texas 210,217; Florida 178,297; California 103,856

Same Census file. New York authorised 38,667 units — fewer than a fifth of Texas — of which 25,389 were in 5+ unit buildings.

Largest single-building gross carrying amount found in a REIT Schedule III$3,752,846 thousand — 767 Fifth Avenue (the General Motors Building)

BXP's 2025 10-K Schedule III, at 31 December 2025, with $2,294,992 thousand of encumbrances against it. A book figure, not a market value; the largest single-asset valuation stated anywhere in the filings read was the $4.7 billion gross asset valuation SL Green used for One Vanderbilt in September 2025.

Who builds the houses

New-home building in this market: the volume, and the firms behind it. Ownership of a builder matters as much as its volume — a private-equity platform and a family firm behave differently.

The US is the one market with a real, published builder league table: Pro Builder's Top 200 (renamed from the Builder 100 — the old /builder-100 URL now 404s). It ranks by revenue rather than units, and the table itself is not in the article HTML, so the unit figures below come from each builder's own 10-K, which is better evidence anyway. All five leaders are listed public companies reporting to the SEC, which makes the US the only market in this section where builder volumes are audited. Note the divergence in what a 'home' means: D.R. Horton's average closing price was $370,400 and PulteGroup's average selling price was $566,000 in the same year.

Name	Type	Homes closed, latest fiscal year
D.R. Horton, Inc. (NYSE: DHI) FY ended 30 September 2025: homes closed down 5% to 84,863, average closing price down 2% to $370,400, homebuilding revenues $31.5 billion across 126 markets in 36 states. Its 10-K states it is "the largest homebuilding company in the United States as measured by number of homes closed in fiscal 2025". Separately closed 3,460 single-family rental homes and 2,947 multifamily rental units.	Public company	84,863 homesA D.R. Horton via SEC EDGAR
Lennar Corporation (NYSE: LEN) FY ended 30 November 2025: new home deliveries including unconsolidated entities rose 3% to 82,583 from 80,210, but home sale revenues fell 5% to $32.1 billion because the average sales price dropped 8% to $391,000.	Public company	82,583 homesA Lennar via SEC EDGAR
PulteGroup, Inc. (NYSE: PHM) Calendar 2025: 29,572 closings, down from 31,219 in 2024. Average unit selling price $566,000. Its 10-K states its "national market share represented only approximately 4% of U.S. new home sales in 2025" — the clearest published statement of how fragmented US housebuilding still is. Brands: Centex, Pulte Homes, Del Webb, DiVosta, John Wieland.	Public company	29,572 homesA PulteGroup via SEC EDGAR
NVR, Inc. (NYSE: NVR) Calendar 2025: 21,915 settlements, down 4%, at an average settlement price of $460,600; new orders 20,410 and backlog 8,448 units worth about $4.0 billion at 31 December 2025. NVR runs a land-option rather than land-owning model.	Public company	21,915 homesA NVR via SEC EDGAR
Toll Brothers, Inc. (NYSE: TOL) FY ended 31 October 2025: 11,292 homes delivered from 556 communities, part of 52,203 homes from 1,061 communities over five years; 1,137 communities in planning or operation holding about 76,100 home sites owned or optioned; backlog $5.49 billion (4,647 homes). The luxury end of the Top 200.	Public company	11,292 homesA Toll Brothers via SEC EDGAR

Commercial landlords

The commercial side, counted separately from housing: who holds the office, retail and industrial floor area.

Nobody publishes a free national ranking of commercial landlords by floor area — CoStar, MSCI Real Capital Analytics, Trepp and Yardi Matrix hold that, under licences that forbid redistribution, and Nareit's own data pages refuse automated access outright. What is free is each landlord's own 10-K, which is where the figures below come from. They are not on comparable bases: Prologis counts a global logistics footprint including co-investment ventures, Simon counts US mall GLA, and the office REITs count net rentable square feet in a handful of cities.

Name	Type	Floor area / assets
Prologis, Inc. (NYSE: PLD) At 31 December 2025 Prologis "owned or had investments in, on a wholly owned basis or through co-investment ventures, properties and development projects expected to total approximately 1.3 billion square feet". Its consolidated real estate segment alone had more than 4,000 customers in 649 million sq ft; its ten unconsolidated co-investment ventures held $62.4 billion of gross book value across 562 million sq ft. The largest landlord in the United States by area, by a wide margin, and it is warehouses rather than offices.	REIT	~1.3 billion sq ftA Prologis via SEC EDGAR
Simon Property Group, Inc. (NYSE: SPG) At 31 December 2025 Simon owned or held an interest in 212 income-producing US properties — 108 malls, 70 Premium Outlets, 16 Mills, six lifestyle centres and 12 other retail properties across 38 states and Puerto Rico — containing approximately 188.4 million sq ft of gross leasable area, plus ownership interests in 42 properties in Asia, Europe and Canada.	REIT	188.4M sq ft GLA, 212 US propertiesA Simon Property Group via SEC EDGAR
BXP, Inc. (NYSE: BXP) At 31 December 2025 BXP owned or had joint venture interests in 179 commercial properties aggregating approximately 52.6 million net rentable sq ft — 157 office, 14 retail, seven residential and one hotel — concentrated in Boston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington DC, including eight under construction totalling 3.5 million sq ft. The largest premier-office owner in the country.	REIT	52.6M sq ft, 179 propertiesA BXP, Inc. via SEC EDGAR
SL Green Realty Corp. (NYSE: SLG) At 31 December 2025 SL Green owned or held interests in 16 consolidated commercial office buildings of approximately 9.5 million rentable sq ft and 10 unconsolidated buildings of approximately 13.9 million rentable sq ft, primarily in midtown Manhattan, plus 0.4 million sq ft managed for third parties. Five properties — One Vanderbilt, 11 Madison, 420 Lexington, 1515 Broadway and 245 Park — account for 36.6% of portfolio annualized cash rent.	REIT	23.4M sq ft Manhattan officeA SL Green via SEC EDGAR
Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: ESRT) At 31 December 2025 its portfolio was approximately 7.9 million rentable sq ft of office and 0.8 million sq ft of retail plus 743 residential units, all in New York City, across 10 office properties of which three are long-term ground leasehold interests. Small by area, but it owns the single most recognisable building in the country and runs its observatory as a reported business segment.	REIT	8.7M sq ft + 743 apartmentsA ESRT via SEC EDGAR

Looked for and not found

Claims this page would have made if a source could be opened. They are left out rather than guessed.

No single official page was opened that states in terms 'there is no national price-paid dataset in the United States'. The claim rests on the absence of such a file from the Census, FHFA and HUD catalogues, on the existence of non-disclosure states, and on the FHFA describing its own national series as a repeat-sales index built from GSE mortgage records rather than from recorded prices.
Which states are non-disclosure states, and how many. Named in the pack as including Texas; no authoritative list was opened.
A national ranking of the largest commercial owners by square footage. It exists only inside CoStar, MSCI Real Capital Analytics, Trepp, Yardi Matrix and Reonomy, under licences that forbid redistribution. The free substitute is the one used here: REIT Schedule III plus county parcel files.
The Pro Builder Top 200 table itself — the ranking order (D.R. Horton, Lennar, Pulte, Toll Brothers, NVR) is stated in the article standfirst, but the revenue figures behind it are not in the page HTML.
Nareit's REITWatch monthly industry aggregates, which would give a sector-level total against which to size the individual REITs. reit.com serves a 3,038-byte error shell to automation with HTTP 200.
Owners of nationally significant buildings held privately rather than by SEC filers — Rockefeller Center, Willis Tower, Hudson Yards, the Chrysler Building. Private sponsors file nothing comparable to a Schedule III, so a county assessment record is the only route and that is a per-city job.

Sources

Building Permits Survey — annual state file st2025a.txt — U.S. Census Bureau · openA
FHFA House Price Index — methodology — Federal Housing Finance Agency · openA
The 2026 Top 200 Rankings — the largest home builders in the U.S. by 2025 Housing Revenue — Pro Builder (SGC Horizon) · openA
BXP, Inc. and Boston Properties Limited Partnership 2025 Form 10-K (property table and Schedule III) — BXP, Inc. via SEC EDGAR · openA
Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. 2025 Form 10-K — ESRT via SEC EDGAR · openA
SL Green Realty Corp. 2025 Form 10-K — SL Green via SEC EDGAR · openA
D.R. Horton, Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal year ended 30 September 2025 — D.R. Horton via SEC EDGAR · openA
Lennar Corporation Form 10-K for fiscal year ended 30 November 2025 — Lennar via SEC EDGAR · openA
PulteGroup, Inc. 2025 Form 10-K — PulteGroup via SEC EDGAR · openA
NVR, Inc. 2025 Form 10-K — NVR via SEC EDGAR · openA
Toll Brothers, Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal year ended 31 October 2025 — Toll Brothers via SEC EDGAR · openA
Prologis, Inc. 2025 Form 10-K — Prologis via SEC EDGAR · openA
Simon Property Group, Inc. 2025 Form 10-K — Simon Property Group via SEC EDGAR · openA
EDGAR full-text search API (efts) — building-name queries against 10-K filings — U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · openA
Terms of use — Redfin · openA
Zillow Research public CSVs — metro ZHVI (the sanctioned alternative to scraping listings) — Zillow · openA
Top 200 / Housing Giants section index (rename from Builder 100) — Pro Builder · openA
REIT market data (REITWatch, REIT Directory) — Nareit · blockedA