Parcel-Level Ownership Analysis for Salt Lake County

Understanding a Rapidly Shifting Housing Landscape

Salt Lake County, the fast-growing heart of Utah, is facing a new kind of housing crisis. Skyrocketing prices and shrinking affordability are colliding with rapid population growth, leaving policymakers racing to respond. Yet, without a clear, detailed understanding of who owns the land — and how homeownership trends are shifting — efforts to design effective, equitable housing policies risk falling short.

Recognizing the urgency, the Salt Lake County Office of Regional Development sought answers about ownership trends, investor activity, and affordable housing risks before challenges spiraled further. Like many local governments, they faced limited capacity to conduct complex, time-intensive analysis alongside day-to-day priorities.

WHO OWNS AMERICA

Ownership Transparency to Defend Housing Affordability

Salt Lake County’s story reflects a broader national trend: corporate ownership is quietly reshaping American neighborhoods, often without clear data to guide public policy.

With Who Owns America, we’re leading the charge to equip local governments with the same powerful market intelligence that private investors already use…and turning the tide in favor of communities, affordability, and local leadership.

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For sale by owner sign in front of home.

OUR APPROACH

Building a Parcel-Level Foundation for Smarter Policies

The Center for Geospatial Solutions (CGS) partnered with the Office to build a foundation for smarter, faster, and more coordinated action. Leveraging the Who Owns America methodology, our team delivered a dynamic decision-support dashboard that illuminated ownership patterns across the region.

Starting with local historical and recent datasets, we:

Classified ownership types for parcel-level clarity on in-state and out-of-state individual, multi-property, corporate, government, and nonprofit ownership.
Performed historical trend analysis, tracking shifts before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Built a user-friendly dashboard enabling live queries and trend review to inform live policy and planning discussions.

What Leaders Can See Now

For the first time, Salt Lake County leaders now have accurate, updated, and hyperlocal data to inform housing policy, moving from anecdotal fears to evidence-based action. This model sets a new national standard for empowering public agencies with ownership intelligence. CGS turned fragmented records into an actionable, single source of truth.

Now, in less than five clicks, decision-makers can:

Thanks to CGS, we were able to ground conversations in facts, not anecdotal fear. The data helped us clarify what’s really happening in Salt Lake County. Now we’re better positioned to collaborate with our partners and bring this information into policy conversations at the regional and state levels.

Dina Blaes

Regional Development Director, Salt Lake County

Results That Matter

Making Ownership Trends Visible — and Actionable

Salt Lake County’s new ownership dashboard is more than a static report; it’s a decision-support tool designed for ongoing use.

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Built for Regional Collaboration

Designed with multi-jurisdictional coordination in mind, the dashboard is laying the groundwork for countywide alignment and future integration across Salt Lake’s 23 municipalities.

Hyperlocal Insights, Instantly Accessible

Staff can independently query ownership patterns by school district, neighborhood, zoning classification, and more without needing GIS analyst support.

Actionable Intelligence for Housing Policy

Officials can now validate anecdotal with data, prioritize neighborhoods for intervention, and track policy impacts over time.

Data Integrity Is the Foundation of Ownership Intelligence

Parcel-level analysis is only as good as the data behind it. In Salt Lake County, CGS uncovered major inconsistencies — like dozens of different ways the word “LLC” was entered. Our team cleaned, standardized, and enriched the dataset to ensure every parcel had the most accurate, complete information possible.

This quiet work makes the big insights possible and ensures decision-makers are working from the truth, not assumptions. It has also sparked deeper conversations about how data is captured and shared statewide. From standardizing property records to informing legislative briefings, this project is helping reimagine the data infrastructure needed for equitable housing policy in Utah and beyond.

What's Next?

A Repeatable Model for Smarter Housing Policy

Salt Lake County’s housing pressures mirror those of growing cities across the country. Understanding the reality of land ownership parcel-by-parcel is critical for designing smart, resilient housing policies that protect affordability and communities.

Aerial view of Salt Lake City against mountain range.

Private investors have long used cutting-edge market analytics to identify and target real estate opportunities. Until now, public agencies and nonprofits had no comparable tools. Who Owns America changes that.

With scalable, replicable technology and a nonprofit mission at its core, CGS is creating the data solutions communities need to defend affordable housing and foster equitable growth nationwide. For Salt Lake County, that meant moving from fragmented records and anecdotal evidence to a unified, dynamic tool capable of powering smarter decisions.

Transforming Housing Policy with Parcel-Level Ownership Insights