San Francisco has never had an official map of its rent-controlled housing stock, so a 17-year-old high school junior in San Mateo built one himself, pulling around 463,000 public records from the city's Rent Board and turning them into a data set covering roughly 174,000 units. His name is Neil Rao, and his side project maps the system he set out to chart.
From a Berkeley Volunteer Gig to Half a Million Records
Rao's interest in housing took root after he began volunteering with homeless and housing-insecure people in Berkeley, according to The San Francisco Standard. He went on to analyze nearly half a million San Francisco Rent Board records, which included tenant complaints, landlords' annual disclosures, and move-out notifications, all of which Rao ran through the AI tool Claude to geocode locations across the city.
The scale of the project is notable given Rao's age — he also took over a financial literacy club during his freshman year of high school, per the same account. The project maps San Francisco's rent-controlled housing stock.
Where the Rent Board Paper Trail Runs Thin
Rao's analysis identified the Mission, Noe Valley, Bernal Heights, Outer Richmond, and Potrero Hill as the five neighborhoods with the most Rent Board records per capita, the Standard reports. His map charts Rent Board records across the city.
Why the City's Numbers Keep Shifting
Owners of rent-controlled units must report annually to the Rent Board to obtain rent increases, and annual reporting applies to all residential property owners. That registration requirement stems from Ordinance 265-20, passed by the Board of Supervisors in December 2020, which created the Rent Board Housing Inventory and required all residential property owners to report occupancy and unit details annually to obtain a mandatory rent increase license, according to the Small Property Owners of San Francisco Institute. The Rent Board's fees for 2026 are $59 per dwelling unit and $29.50 per SRO guest room, due each March 1, per BanCal Property Management.
The citywide allowable annual rent increase is 1.6% for the cycle running from March 1, 2026, through February 28, 2027, according to the San Francisco Rent Board. Landlords can reset rent to market rate after a tenant voluntarily leaves.
The Ellis Act has figured in rent-control cases. Rao's project maps San Francisco's rent-controlled housing.
The gap Rao is chasing sits alongside other active fights over the city's rent-control system. San Francisco Rent Ordinance Section 37.9E already requires landlords to hand tenants a written disclosure before starting lease buyout negotiations and give them a 45-day window to rescind any deal, protections Hoodline detailed in a recent buyout case. Meanwhile, Supervisor Danny Sauter and Mayor Daniel Lurie introduced legislation this month to cap banked rent increases and capital improvement pass-throughs at 10% annually through 2029, aimed at closing loopholes that let landlords stack years of allowable increases at once.
