What should we send you?
Your plan includes the daily filing lists, and you have not chosen any yet. Oakland publishes these every weekday — pick the ones worth your morning. You can change this whenever you like under Notifications, and nothing is ever sent that you have not asked for.
Picks a sensible set to start from. Change anything below before you save.
Oakland property intelligence
Know the block
before it becomes
your block.
The city already knows this building — the county's assessment across seven roll years and the tax rate actually levied, what the block sold for, how it is zoned and what is being asked to change that, what health inspectors have found on its streets, the police, 311 and citation record, and what the EPA holds on record around it. Thirty sections in seconds, every count compared with the city, as a PDF you can forward. 100% coverage of Oakland, every address, today.
Matched to the right plan and price — or told honestly that the free check is all you need.
Read a full sample report → every section, a real address, the actual PDF
The corpus behind every report
One record, every reader
The two sides of a sale read it most closely — and four more read it their own way.
If you sell property
You get asked what the block is like
And answering it in your own words is the part of the job with the most downside. A report you forward is records with the caveats attached, so the characterization is the city's and not yours.
- Know what the county already holds on the building, before you write an offer.Oakland has no point-of-sale disclosure this report can read. The city requires compliance with its energy and sewer-lateral ordinances at a sale, and publishes no register of either, so nothing here tests for them. What the report does carry is the county's own record: seven roll years, the date the parcel last changed hands, and the priced transfers on the streets around it.
- Walk in already knowing the rest.What was reported on these streets — police incidents, 311 requests and parking citations, by year
- Hand it over instead of characterizing. Nothing is scored, no school is rated, and the census section describes buildings rather than the people in them. That is a deliberate design decision about your exposure, not an omission.
- One account for the desk. Plans carry seats and share an allowance, and the owner of the plan can see every report run against it, and by whom.
If you are buying
You get one look before you commit
An open house tells you about the kitchen. The expensive surprises are on the block and in the building's file, and most of them are a matter of public record if you know which record to ask for.
- The obligations that come with it.Oakland requires older wood-frame apartment buildings to be seismically retrofitted, and publishes the program's results only as a table of rates by year and by race, with no address in it. So this report cannot tell you whether a particular building is on that list, and it says so rather than implying a clean result. The hazard layers it can read — liquefaction, landslide, fire severity, the wildland interface, soil class, mapped serpentine and the state Alquist-Priolo fault zone — are in the report, read at the point of the address.
- What your tax bill will actually be.Alameda County's assessment for the parcel across seven roll years, and the date it last changed hands. Read together they are the staircase Proposition 13 builds: about two per cent a year, and then a step where the building sold.
- Ten years of the surrounding blocks. Police reports, 311 requests and parking citations, each set against what an average area of the same size in Oakland records — so a number means something. — so a number means something.
- The flood map a lender uses. The federal zone and the panel it came off, quoted as FEMA publishes it. This report carries the federal map and says so rather than implying more.
And four more, reading the same record their own way
Renting a place
Oakland has rent control and publishes no register of covered units, so this report does not pretend to test whether a particular flat is covered. What it does have is ten years of what was reported on these streets — police, 311 and citations — against the citywide rate, so you can see what kind of block it is.
Owning or managing buildings
Your own building's assessment across seven roll years — the staircase Proposition 13 builds, and the step where it last changed hands — its zoning code and every combining zone laid over it, and what the parcels around it actually sold for.
Investing and developing
The pipeline of what is proposed, approved and under construction nearby, zoning and height limits, and the gap between assessed and market value.
Advising and arguing
The parcel’s full permit, violation and eviction record with the date each line was read — attorneys pull one report per matter and export the history.
Neither version is a valuation, an appraisal, or a statutory Natural Hazard Disclosure, and no version may be used to screen a tenant. What it is, in both cases, is the public record on one address, gathered in one place.
Not sure what it tells you?
Say what brings you here and the assistant will say what the report holds for it — then answer whatever you want to ask.
First — which of these is you?
The assistant answers about this product and what Oakland's records can show. It has no property in front of it, so it will not look an address up, price anything, or say what an area is like — running a report is what does that.
What a report contains
Thirty sections. Zero opinions.
Every line beneath is real output for 1111 Broadway.
Every building, not the same report
What the records hold depends on what it is.
A house
The county's record of the parcel — seven roll years, the exemptions, the date of the last recorded document — how the city has zoned it and what is combined over it, what the parcels around it sold for, and ten years of police, 311 and citations on the blocks around it.
A flat or condominium
The same area record as a house, and the same county roll: a condominium is its own parcel here, with its own assessment and its own transfer history. The association's own file is not a public record this report reads, and it says so rather than leaving a blank.
An apartment building
The county roll treats the building as one parcel, so the assessment and the transfer history are the building's rather than a unit's. Oakland publishes no rental register and no code-enforcement feed, so what a landlord has been cited for is not in this report and is named as absent.
A shop, office or warehouse
Every area record still applies: police, 311 and citations by year, the hazard and flood zones, the zoning, and what changed hands on the blocks around it.
Coverage is uneven because the records are, and where a section is thin the report says which record is thin rather than showing an empty space. Oakland addresses only, whatever the building is.
Built to be believed
Three rules the report keeps, and under each one the thing itself: real output for 1111 Broadway, unedited. A count, a refusal, and a number with the caveat that makes it safe to use.
Every number is compared
A count on its own is unreadable. Nobody can say whether 11,560 is a lot, so every figure is set against what an average area of the same size in Oakland records.
8.9× the Oakland average
An average area this size holds 1,304, and this works out at about 3 a day.
Nothing is scored
No safety grade, no risk number, no letter for the block. Those are opinions wearing a number's clothes, on a page that can move a price that matters — and for a brokerage they are a liability: area scores and school grades are the classic proxies for what the Fair Housing Act protects. A report with neither is one your agents can forward without a compliance read.
- Safety score
- Risk rating
- Neighborhood grade
- Investment outlook
You get the records and the comparison. Drawing the conclusion is your job, and saying so is what keeps it yours.
The caveats travel with the numbers
A complaint is not a finding. Police locations are published to the block. An assessment is not a valuation — and that last one is worth real money, so it sits against the figure it qualifies rather than in a footer nobody reads.
An assessment is not a valuation. Under Proposition 13 this is the 2021 purchase price adjusted by at most about two per cent a year, and it has been anchored for 5 years — so it may sit far below what the property would fetch. The roll behind it runs seven years, from $221,200,119 in 2019, and the report shows the whole staircase rather than the top step.
What Oakland filed today
Office and up choose freely from all eleven. Every weekday at 6:30am, on this city's own clock.
Every weekday the city records buildings being emptied, work being permitted, and inspectors finding things. Most of it is never read by anyone who would act on it. These are those filings, sorted into lists, delivered each morning — one filing type per list, in the order they were filed, never ranked and never an owner’s name.
11 lists, and you choose which arrive.
Buildings coming empty
The filings that precede a sale or a vacancy.
- Code enforcement reportedA resident has reported a property to code enforcement. Oakland publishes no enforcement case file, so this is the report rather than the finding, and it is the nearest thing the city puts out.
Condition and compliance
What inspectors found, and what tenants say is wrong.
- Illegal dumping reportedDebris, appliances and mattresses left on the street, by address. The largest single thing Oakland's 311 records, and the one a manager gets called about.
- Encampments reportedHomeless encampment reports at an address, including people living in vehicles. A report is a report, not a finding, and nothing here says what was found or what was done.
- Abandoned vehicles reportedA vehicle reported abandoned at an address. The second largest thing Oakland's 311 records, and the one a manager hears about from neighbors before anyone else.
- Graffiti reportedGraffiti reported on a street, a light, a signal or a private wall, by address. Abatement work, and a condition signal on a block.
- Streets and sidewalks reportedPotholes, depressions and damaged sidewalks reported at an address. A damaged sidewalk in front of a building is the owner's to fix in most of California, which is why this one is worth watching.
- Weeds and vegetation reportedWeed abatement in the public right of way, reported by address. In the hills this is fire-clearance work, and the city's own fire severity zones say where that matters most.
- Stolen vehiclesVehicles reported stolen, by block. The single largest category the department records here. Runs about five weeks behind, measured.
- Residential burglaryBurglaries the police recorded as residential, by block. Locks, doors, windows and alarms follow one. Runs about five weeks behind, measured.
- Commercial burglaryBurglaries the police recorded as commercial, by block. Boarding, glass, locks and alarms follow one. Runs about five weeks behind, measured.
- VandalismVandalism reports by block — glass, paint and repair work. Location is published to the block, so this is a street rather than a door. Runs about five weeks behind, measured.
The city publishes on a lag — two days for permits and violations, nearer a fortnight for buyouts — and every row shows the date it was filed rather than the day it reached us. This is nothing on my patch gets past me, not first to the door, and we would rather say so than let you find out.
Scan the Block <hello@scantheblock.com> · 6:30 AM
56 new filings on your lists
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Scan the Block <hello@scantheblock.com> · 6:30 AM
40 new filings on your lists
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What comes with it
Every plan, unless marked.
Plans
Every plan is billed monthly or annually — your choice — and can be canceled at any time — canceling stops the next renewal and keeps your access to the end of the period you have paid for; we do not pro-rate or refund part of a month. An allowance is a ceiling rather than a balance: it resets at the turn of the day or month, and unused reports do not carry over. A report counts against it only when it is newly run — re-reading one you already ran is free, always.
The guides are free to read whether or not you have an account — how to read a property record, what the city’s rules actually turn on, and what the records will not tell you, written separately for buying, renting, owning, agency and investment.
Open 24/7 Start the week of Pro yourself at the sign-in form — sixty seconds, no card. Pricing bids, not buying? Trade is $19/mo, no trial needed — see the card below. Teams and multi-seat plans: email hello@scantheblock.com and we set you up by hand. Email us →Plans with more than one account use the company’s own email domain — personal addresses (gmail and the like) fit the single-account plans.
Office and above include machine access over MCP, so Claude can run the account’s reports: switched on per seat, off by default, under the same allowance as the buttons. Claude is a product of Anthropic, PBC; Scan the Block is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic.
How this compares — against the city’s own free tool, NeighborhoodScout and PropertyShark, feature by feature, from each product’s own materials — including where they win.
See the comparisonThe data, seams and all
Where the city changed how it records something, the report says so next to the number rather than in a footnote. Three examples: Oakland publishes no building permits at all, so the question every other city here answers about a building is named as absent rather than shown as an empty card; its 311 coordinates are published as text in two columns named backwards, so that stream is counted in a box the width of the radius rather than a circle, and the section says so; and the county's transfer list is a snapshot that stops on 31 March 2025, so what changed hands nearby names both ends of the window instead of implying it runs to today.
The spine is public records — the City of Oakland's own open-data portal for police incidents, 311 requests and parking citations, the city's zoning layers, Alameda County's assessment rolls and transfer list, the U.S. Census, the FCC's broadband filings, and the federal sources listed opposite — the flood map a lender uses among them. Read live at the moment you ask. Alongside them sit a few third-party estimates: a property’s market value, a unit’s likely rent. Each is shown with its own range, named for the service that made it, and never presented as ours or turned into a score. We keep no copy of the city’s data — only your own receipt, which you can see and export.
Asked of the city just now, not stored here. Each dataset is published on its own rhythm, so a gap is the city's publishing lag rather than a gap in the report — and the report says so where it matters.
| Dataset | From | Rows |
|---|---|---|
| Police incident reports | 2013 | 819,472 |
| 311 service requests | 2013 | 1,188,060 |
| Parking citations | 2018 | 2,830,251 |
| Address points (city register) | — | 203,725 |
| Zoning polygons (base zones) | — | 1,083 |
| Parcels on the county roll (2025-26) | 2019 | 112,989 |
| Recorded transfers with a price | 2023 | 21,987 |
| County tax rates by tax rate area | 2020 | 10,000 lines |
| Health inspections (county) | 2024 | 14,731 |
| Affordable housing properties | — | 192 |
| Major planning projects | — | 393 |
| Building permits | — | not published |
And eight from outside the city, each named where it appears:
| Source | From | What it answers |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. Census Bureau | ACS | The tract and its housing figures |
| FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer | FEMA | The flood zone a lender uses |
| USGS earthquake catalog | 1900 | Quakes that actually happened |
| National Register of Historic Places | NPS | Federal historic listings |
| OpenStreetMap | volunteer | The nearest chemist or food shop |
| EPA AirNow and PurpleAir | EPA | Air quality, official and community |
| NREL PVWatts | NREL | What a roof here could generate |
| FCC broadband filings | FCC | Internet available at the address |
Read up first
Free, no account. A different three each day.
One city, on purpose
A national property site knows a little about everywhere. This knows Oakland, and most of what makes a report useful here does not exist anywhere else.
The things that only exist here
A county that publishes the value the documentary transfer tax was computed on, which in a state that discloses no sale price is the closest thing to one. Seven separate roll years rather than a current figure. Eight combining-zone layers laid over a base zone that has no published name. None of it is in a national aggregator's schema.
Read from the city's own registers
The address comes from Oakland's own address register and the counts from the city's own portal and the county assessor's own tables — live, at the moment you ask. Not a national aggregator's copy of a copy.
Then the next city
The method is the product: find the registers a city actually keeps, learn where they disagree with each other, and say so beside the numbers. That travels. The particular datasets do not, so the next city gets the same treatment from scratch rather than this one stretched to fit it.
No Oakland address can be looked up here yet. If you want to know when it opens, write to hello@scantheblock.com and we will tell you rather than guess at a date here.
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Is Scan the Block for you?
Keyboard shortcuts
Shortcuts stay out of the way while you are typing in any field.
Compiling your report
—
A fresh address takes a few seconds. Re-opening one you have run is instant.
Lists
Public filings, gathered daily. Each list is one filing type, newest first.
A different kind of list — screened live, not a subscription
Signals
Long-anchored multi-family parcels in one neighborhood, with open notices of violation joined in. Three public facts side by side; what they mean together is your judgment, and nothing here is ranked for you.
Notifications
Choose what arrives in your inbox. Nothing is sent that you have not asked for.
Picks a sensible set to start from. Change anything you like below — nothing is sent until you press Save.
When these arrive. 6:30am Pacific, weekdays only — these are city filings, so nothing is recorded at weekends. You are sent an email only when one of your lists has something new in it; an empty message every morning is how people learn to stop opening them.
How current they are.311 publishes the same day, police incidents run about five weeks behind, and parking citations about five weeks — each measured as a completeness ramp rather than taken from an update stampfiled, which is not the day it reached us — so treat these as “nothing on my patch gets past me” rather than “first to the door”.
Leads
The working prospect list — statuses and notes save as you go. Several of us work this same list.
Loading the leads…
Team
Sources
Live state of every upstream, measured from real report traffic rather than synthetic checks.
A source shown idle has no recent traffic to judge by — that is not a fault.
Companies
A plan is sold to a company. Seats are how many people it covers; the monthly reports are a single pool they share. Billing happens outside this service. A Claude mark on an account means that person has switched on machine access for it — Scan the Block is independent of Anthropic, and the mark records their choice, not an affiliation.
Usage & cost
What the report's paid sources actually cost this month, counted from calls that really went out — a cache hit costs nothing and is not counted. The city's own data is free and is shown for context only. Estimates use current list rates; billing is settled with each provider.
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