San Francisco-based entrepreneur Yat-Pang Au, CEO of Veritas Investments, directs the operations of a company that currently oversees approximately $2 billion in investment assets. Yat-Pang Au, who founded Veritas a decade ago, works with his team to acquire, improve, and manage a range of multi-family buildings located in some of San Francisco’s best-known historic neighborhoods.In recognition of his professional achievements, he has additionally earned a place on the list of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs of 2017. Every year, Goldman Sachs sponsors a Builders + Innovators Summit, where it honors those named to the list and hosts an array of informational programming and networking events. Among the notable programs at the 2017 summit featured the story of entrepreneur Gordon Gund, who developed retinitis pigmentosa as a young man, and the condition caused him to become completely blind. But, as demonstrated in The Illumination, a documentary about how his personal struggle with blindness led him to an aggressive search for improved treatments, the disability has hardly held him back. Gund has excelled as a businessman, venture capitalist, artist, and founder of the non-profit Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB).Gund’s inspirational story also involves his work with his own family foundation, devoted to building on the success of the FFB with grants of matching funds made through June 2016. By that time, the FFB’s research had already led to a partial restoration of vision for nearly 100 people who participated in clinical trials.
Yat-Pang Au is a University of California, Berkeley graduate in electrical engineering and computer science. The CEO and founder of Veritas Investments, Yat-Pang Au specializes in residential investments in the San Francisco area.The recent employment resurgence in Silicon Valley has begun to effect changes in the ever-evolving San Francisco real estate market. The enticement of reducing their daily commute by 30 minutes each way has pulled higher-income residents from their homes in the northern section of the city to the Bayview neighborhood in the southern portion.Median home prices in the region have risen from $360,000 to $750,000 since the gentrification process began, yet these higher prices are still reasonable by San Francisco standards. Many believe it will be a challenge for San Francisco city officials to prevent the sort of confrontation that occurred during the Mission District’s transformation between the neighborhood's new and established residents.
For more than a decade, Yat-Pang Au has led Veritas Investments as the founder and CEO. In this capacity, he oversees the company’s real estate acquisitions, investments, and development. Yat-Pang Au focuses on investing in real estate in the San Francisco Bay Area, and has grown his company’s assets to nearly $2 billion.The San Francisco Planning Department recently released its Family Friendly Briefing report. This report includes information about the number of families living in the San Francisco area, along with reports on resident income levels.According to this report, families occupy just 30 percent of all three-bedroom homes in the city of San Francisco. Meanwhile, just 18 percent of households in San Francisco have children. Compared to the 1980s, this number is 18.9 percent lower, suggesting that families have been moving out of the city. Adding further support to this hypothesis is the fact that middle-income families are decreasing within the city while high- and low-income families are increasing.The small number of families now residing in the city is believed to be caused by the lack of family housing. The report notes that over 60 percent of new development in San Francisco has been one-bedroom units and studios. This trend has been continuing since 2010, and has likely resulted in San Francisco families moving to nearby neighborhoods such as Bayview, Crocker-Amazon, and Excelsior. Based on these results, the San Francisco Planning Department is stressing the need for more family-friendly neighborhoods in the city.
An accomplished real estate investor, Yat-Pang Au founded Veritas Investments in 2007. Today, Veritas stands as the largest residential unit owner in San Francisco. Yat-Pang Au plans to increase his company’s residential holdings through the city’s new accessory dwelling unit program. The accessory dwelling unit program is an ambitious plan to increase the number of residential properties in San Francisco by converting unused attics, basements, and storage rooms into new apartments. The aim of the program is to provide convenient housing alternatives aside from the traditional ground-up developments. Developers have lauded the program for providing cost-effective ways of creating new homes quickly and with fewer challenges. According to developers, new construction projects cost anywhere between $300,000 and $600,000 per unit, and getting their approvals can take up to two years. Additionally, the projects often face public backlash because they change the face of the city. On the contrary, the new accessory units will be cheaper to develop, their approvals will take about two months, and they will not increase building density. The city’s accessory unit program has also received tremendous support from dozens of business groups and from the University of California, Berkeley.
