Breakfast Blog Series #4: Sean Burton

Meet Sean Burton

Sean co-founded Cityview in 2003 and has built it into one of the country’s most respected multifamily investment and development firms, investing billions of dollars across more than 150 projects nationwide and earning recognition as the decade’s most active multifamily developer in Los Angeles. Before Cityview, he was an executive at Warner Bros., an attorney at O’Melveny & Myers, and a staffer in the Clinton White House. He has since served as president of the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners during the $20 billion modernization of LAX, as a presidential appointee to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, and as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve.  Starting in 2027, he’ll chair the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce.  When I asked about his earliest influences, though, Sean took me all the way back to a college campus.

An Early Lesson in Public Service

A college friend invited Sean to hear a relatively unknown governor from Arkansas speak at UC Irvine. That governor was Bill Clinton. Sean, who describes himself as having grown up “on the wrong side of the tracks,” connected immediately with Clinton’s platform built on three fundamental ideas: opportunity, responsibility, and community.  Despite there not being a single elected Democrat in Orange County at the time, he joined the campaign as a student volunteer, registering voters, handing out signs, staffing tables, doing whatever was needed.

That grassroots work eventually carried him to Washington D.C. Still in school, he convinced his professors to let him finish his coursework remotely, packed up his car, and drove across the country for what became one of the most formative experiences of his life. The position was unpaid, so he built a schedule that would test anyone’s resolve: the White House from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., bartending at Ruby Tuesdays from 6 to 11, and schoolwork late into the night before doing it all again. 

Sleep was clearly an overrated luxury in Sean’s early career days.  His work ethic eventually opened doors into roles supporting the Democratic National Committee and briefing work for Vice President Al Gore that took him around the world.

One lesson stuck with him above the rest. Watching Bill Clinton work a room, whether the person in front of him was a head of state or a junior staffer, Sean saw how powerful genuine attention can be — the ability to make people feel like they were the only person in the room. It’s a trait that still shapes how he leads. And the three ideas that first drew him in — opportunity, responsibility, community — still anchor how he thinks about housing today. The industries changed; the mission didn’t.

Building Cityview — and a Philosophy of Housing

Over the past two decades, Sean has built Cityview on a simple conviction: if people can’t afford to live where opportunity exists, communities stop working. So, when I asked whether it has become easier or harder to develop housing in Southern California, he didn’t hesitate. “It’s always been hard,” he said, “but today’s challenges are different.”

California, he argues, has spent decades layering policies and regulations onto the housing market, many well-intentioned, but often carrying unintended consequences. The result is a system in which building has become more difficult, more expensive, and more unpredictable. “We’ve protected ourselves from a lot of things we don’t need protection from,” he explained.

Why Housing Got So Hard to Build

At the center of nearly every housing conversation, Sean sees one unavoidable reality: we simply don’t build enough homes. While politicians often train their attention on landlords, investors, or developers, he views the crisis through a far simpler lens — supply and demand. California has millions fewer units than it needs, and until that gap closes, affordability will stay out of reach for too many families.

That doesn’t make him anti-regulation. In fact, he supported statewide housing reforms that brought greater predictability to the market, pointing to California’s statewide rent-control framework (AB 1482) as an example of legislation that, while imperfect, created clearer rules and headed off a patchwork of conflicting local policies. 

Housing takes years to entitle, finance, and build, and when the rules keep changing, capital simply moves elsewhere. That’s why he’s particularly concerned about measures like Los Angeles’ ULA transfer tax, the so-called “mansion tax.”  Intended to fund affordable housing, ULA has, in his view, paradoxically discouraged transactions and made new housing projects harder to finance.

His broader frustration isn’t aimed at any single policy. It’s aimed at a lack of urgency. Los Angeles, he believes, cannot solve its affordability crisis without dramatically increasing production — and that requires local leaders to embrace growth rather than resist it. “No housing boom is coming until City Hall gets on board,” he said.

If Sean Ran California

So, I asked the obvious question, what would he do as Governor? 

The answer came quickly: build more housing. 

Sean would override the portions of local control that keep new housing from getting built, create a more stable insurance framework, encourage the return of starter ownership products like townhomes and condominiums, and clear away the barriers that discourage investment. Most important, he would get everyone to the same table — developers, affordable-housing advocates, investors, business leaders, and local governments — around a single goal.

The stakes, he points out, are interconnected. If workers can’t afford to live in Los Angeles, companies struggle to attract talent. If families can’t build equity through ownership, wealth creation gets harder. If businesses watch housing costs spiral, they look elsewhere. Everything is connected.

Rebuilding the Housing Ladder

That theme carried into a question I’ve been thinking about a lot, namely a future in which a growing share of young Americans may never own a home. Sean doesn’t believe permanent renting should be the goal. For generations, entry-level housing gave families a pathway to build wealth and stability. Now, many of those rungs have disappeared, particularly in California. The answer, he argues, isn’t to demonize renters or multifamily housing; it’s to create more attainable ownership and rebuild the ladder that once helped millions of Americans build equity.

His advice to young people was refreshingly optimistic: keep moving forward, lean on your community, work hard, keep learning, and when opportunity presents itself, take the risk. He knows firsthand that careers rarely run in a straight line — his own ran from Orange County campaign volunteer to White House staffer to bartender to attorney to one of the most influential housing investors in the country. That’s why, despite everything facing housing, politics, and technology, he remains optimistic. “America is still a place where people can build something meaningful.” And in his view, the next generation has more tools and more opportunity than ever, provided they’re willing to embrace change, adapt, and keep showing up when opportunity knocks.

A Few Parting Thoughts

What stays with me from this breakfast is how little distance there is between the 21-year-old registering voters in Orange County and the executive running one of LA’s largest housing platforms today. His vocabulary never changed — opportunity, responsibility, community — only the tools did. 

Sean is also right that the core problem isn’t complicated; we don’t build enough, and until we do, affordability stays out of reach. At Paladin, we see the same equation from the operating side every day in Southern California’s workforce housing. The encouraging part is Sean’s reminder that this is a solvable problem: not a force of nature, but a policy choice. The only real question is whether the people who can fix it decide they want to.

This report reflects the opinions of Paladin Realty and does not constitute legal advice. Paladin Realty is not a legal expert. Readers should not rely on the accuracy of the information herein and should consult carefully with their legal counsel to further understand existing and potential rent control laws, ordinances and regulations and should not make investments based on the brief summary of complex laws, ordinances and regulations provided herein. This report does not and will not constitute a part of any offering memorandum and is not intended to constitute investment advice and does not take into account the investment objectives, financial situation, or particular needs of a recipient. Paladin Realty does make any representation or warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this report and takes no responsibility for any loss or damage suffered as a result of any omission. The opinions contained in this report are subject to change without notice. The author(s) of this report and Paladin Realty’s research team may participate in investment decisions and receive compensation based upon the performance of Paladin Realty and/or certain of its investment funds.