Editorial policy
The standards we hold ourselves to, and what you are entitled to expect from us.
This page covers our standards and how we govern them. For the mechanics of how a story gets reported and built, see methodology. For mistakes, see corrections.
What we cover
The American Developer covers US real estate development: the projects, the capital behind them, the policy that shapes them, and the data that explains them. We publish twice each weekday, in a morning and an evening edition.
We select stories on what a developer, investor, or lender can act on: the size of the deal, whether it sets a precedent, whether it moves a market, and whether we can verify it. We do not publish a story to fill a slot. If a day is thin, the edition is short.
Independence
Coverage is not for sale. No one can pay to appear in these pages, to change how they appear, or to be left out. We do not accept payment, gifts, travel, or hospitality in exchange for coverage.
No advance approval. The subjects of our stories do not see them before publication and do not get to approve them. We will check a specific fact with a source when accuracy calls for it. That is not the same as showing them the story.
Anything paid gets labeled. If we ever run advertising, sponsorship, or partner content, it will be clearly marked as such and it will not be written by the people who write the news.
Conflicts of interest
Where we have a financial or business relationship with a company we are writing about, we disclose it in the story itself. We would rather lose a story than run one that quietly serves an interest of ours.
Accuracy and corrections
Every factual claim traces to a named, linked source, and the sources are listed on the story so you can check our work rather than take it on faith. When we get something wrong we fix it on the record, with a note saying what changed and when. We do not delete stories to make an error disappear. Read the full corrections policy, or write to us at hello@theamericandeveloper.com.
Sources and attribution
Two kinds of work run on this site, and we would rather tell you which is which than blur them.
Our original reporting is our data and our wire: permit filings pulled straight from city and county records, deal disclosures pulled from SEC filings, and the market series on our data pages, each computed by us from public official sources and labeled with its provenance.
Our analysis of other outlets' reporting is much of our daily news file. When a trade publication breaks a story, we credit it by name and link to the original in the story's source list, and our contribution is the interpretation: what the deal implies, how the numbers compare, what to watch next. We do not pass off someone else's work as our own, and we do not lift quotes without crediting who obtained them. If the reporting is theirs, the byline credit is theirs, and the link is right there for you to go read it.
Automation and human oversight
We are open about this because readers deserve to know how the thing they are reading was made. Our newsroom is heavily automated: software scans sources, drafts stories, and assembles each edition, under editorial standards set and supervised by the editorial desk, which is accountable for everything published here. Automation sets our cadence. It does not lower the standard: the sourcing, verification, and correction rules on this page apply to every story regardless of how it was produced, and anything that cannot be verified does not run. More detail in our methodology.
Data
Our market data comes from public official series, each labeled with its source and the date it was last updated. Where we compute something ourselves, we say what we did. We do not present an estimate as a measurement.
Contact
Questions about our standards, a complaint, or a correction: hello@theamericandeveloper.com. We read everything.
Last updated July 15, 2026. See also methodology, corrections, and privacy.