Real Estate Power 50 2026
Who can actually cause something to be built in New York, or prevent it.
Methodology
We assess who can cause something to happen or stop it: control of capital, control of sites, decision-making within the approval process, and the capacity to commit to space at scale.
Portfolio size alone is not the measure. In a distressed situation the lender frequently determines the outcome, and influence follows the capital stack as much as the title on a deed.
Claims about ownership and control rest on the public record — deeds, mortgages and assignments in the city register, assessment records, buildings filings and court records. Where the record does not establish something, we say so rather than inferring it.
Ownership is frequently held through entities, and beneficial ownership is not always determinable from public sources. That is a real limit on this list and we state it.
Subjects are contacted before publication. No place is available for purchase.
We publish the criteria before the list.
The methodology above is the standard this list will be held to. Entries name real people, and every claim in one is checked against a source we can point to, so they are published when that work is done rather than to fill a page. Our reasoning is set out in the Power List section, including what rankings get wrong and how to be considered.