Georgina Sebar
Georgina Sebar connects property development stories to the rules, inquiries and market pressures that decide how people live and work in new buildings. Her coverage at The Canberra Times tracks projects from development application through redesign and approval, always with an eye on housing supply and the balance between commercial and residential use. She treats real estate as a mix of planning law, financial feasibility and everyday liveability rather than just sales or prices.
Northbourne Avenue apartments and corridor redevelopment
In her reporting on Art Group abandoning plans for an office block in favour of more apartments on Northbourne Avenue, Sebar focuses on how major projects along key corridors respond to changing demand for housing.
The shift from commercial floorspace to additional apartments sits within the broader pattern she covers, where inner-city sites are continually tested against the need for more dwellings and the future of office occupancy. Her work on this kind of story shows close attention to what developers propose, how those plans change, and what that means for nearby residents and businesses.
She uses these redevelopment cases to explore the practical consequences of planning decisions, such as density, street activation and the long-term character of mixed-use precincts. The emphasis is on what a specific change on a single block signals about the direction of the city’s built form and how policy settings and market signals shape that direction. That approach distinguishes her from purely transactional real estate coverage by grounding each project in its planning context.
ACT strata inquiry and apartment living
Sebar’s article on the ACT strata inquiry report examines a technical policy document and translates it into clear consequences for apartment owners, tenants and strata managers. She highlights that the inquiry delivered 33 recommendations, using that structure to explain where changes are expected in governance, maintenance, dispute resolution and financial management of apartment buildings. The coverage links those recommendations to issues such as housing affordability and residents’ confidence in shared ownership models, making a specialist topic accessible without losing detail.
Her treatment of strata reform reflects a broader interest in how legislation and regulation shape everyday experience in higher-density housing. Rather than treating apartment blocks only as investment assets, she writes about them as places where communities must rely on rules and management structures to function well.
This mix of legal, policy and human angles draws on her background in law and research and gives her property reporting a strongly institutional dimension.
Build-to-rent projects in the ACT
Sebar has also produced an overview of build-to-rent projects in the ACT, framing them as a structural response to low vacancy rates and a mobile workforce that cycles through the city for fixed periods. She sets out what build-to-rent means in practice, how projects are financed and delivered, and why institutional landlords view this model as a way to add rental supply at scale. The piece situates proposed and existing projects within the wider housing system, including tax settings and planning approvals, rather than treating them as isolated developments.
Her focus on build-to-rent shows a consistent interest in new tenure forms and investment structures that sit between traditional private rentals and social housing. By connecting these schemes to tenant security, lease terms and the predictability of long-term rental options, she brings a consumer perspective into coverage that might otherwise stay at the level of investor strategy. This reinforces the through-line of her work: policy and capital decisions are described in terms of their effects on people looking for somewhere to live.
Diplomatic precinct redevelopment
In reporting on plans to knock down and rebuild German embassy buildings, Sebar follows a significant redevelopment in a diplomatic precinct from proposal stage through public discussion. The story focuses on demolition and replacement of existing structures, explaining how such projects sit within planning frameworks and what they imply for the appearance and function of a high-profile enclave. By treating embassy land as part of the broader built environment rather than a separate domain, she shows how even specialised sites are subject to the same development logic as commercial and residential property.
This strand of her work extends her property beat into questions of heritage, security and international presence, while still anchored in the mechanics of approvals, design and construction. It demonstrates a willingness to cover complex, sensitive projects where diplomatic requirements must be reconciled with urban design and neighbourhood impacts.
Reporting beyond property
Sebar’s byline at regional mastheads includes a piece on how online algorithms shape risky behaviour among teenagers, showing that she can apply the same clarity of explanation to digital platforms and youth culture as she does to housing policy.
That work is grounded in regional reporting but deals with national and global dynamics, such as social media incentives and attention economies. It underlines her ability to move beyond property when required, while still maintaining a focus on how systems and rules influence everyday decisions.
Across these beats, Sebar’s distinguishing feature is her habit of treating each story - whether a reworked apartment scheme, a strata law inquiry, a build-to-rent pipeline or an embassy rebuild - as part of a larger structure of regulation, investment and lived experience. She writes in plain language, keeps the focus on concrete projects and policies, and consistently connects technical detail back to the people who will occupy or be affected by the spaces those decisions create.
4 more real estate journalists.
Aleisha Dawson
Aleisha Dawson covers property where prestige deals, hard market data and lifestyle stories meet, with a particular focus on high-profile apartments and new projects in South East Queensland. She is a regional real estate editor within News Corp’s property network, overseeing property coverage for the Gold Coast Bulletin and contributing to Realestate.com.au’s property news. Her beat spans record-setting penthouse sales, off-market prestige deals, new apartment releases in landmark projects, and one-off high-value homes used as case studies in buyer behaviour. She tracks land and apartment markets with a data-led approach, using specific price points, volume figures and suburb lists. Dawson also reports on quirky homes, celebrity property, pop culture-linked locations and technology-shaped renovations, and her stories are widely republished by developers, agents and project marketers.
Blair Jackson
Blair Jackson explains housing through money: how prices, policy and banks shape the way people buy, sell and live. He is a reporter with the national wire service NewsWire, covering real estate and household finance across Australia. His work follows housing downturns, price movements, negative equity, mortgages, first-home buyers and existing borrowers. He reports on renters, poor housing conditions, high rents, repairs, affordability and housing inequality. He examines zoning, supply targets, tax changes, construction limits, development decisions and efforts to fix housing shortages. His finance coverage includes mortgage fraud, bank risk, interest rates, household costs and windfalls used to pay off property. He also covers auctions, listings, luxury homes, renovations and major developments. Jackson combines data, policy analysis, expert warnings, open-home and auction detail, and personal examples to show how financial decisions affect households and communities.
Bonnie Campbell
Bonnie Campbell is a luxury property reporter for The Australian Financial Review who focuses on the very top of the residential market, where big-ticket homes, mega-mansions and high-profile sales set and test price records. She covers trophy properties, record-breaking deals and prestige streets, using individual sales as case studies in how wealth, status and grand houses move through the market. Her stories track extreme price movements, large-scale renovations, unusual features and multi-million dollar listings, and link them to high-net-worth buyers, business leaders and public figures. She repeatedly returns to prestige coastal, resort and lifestyle markets, explaining how scarcity, views and amenity support multi-million dollar valuations. Alongside single-property features, she produces roundups of major luxury deals to show patterns in where the biggest money flows and which houses define the top end.
Caroline Delaney
Caroline Delaney is a senior property and features journalist at the Irish Examiner whose work links individual homes, damaged houses and outdoor spaces to the wider housing landscape. She covers residential listings with clear, price‑led pieces on specific homes coming to market, highlighting core details such as guide price, size, house type and a plain sense of location. Her property features look at fire damage and repair, treating house fires as a structural issue for the housing market and following cases through court proceedings and the process of putting homes right. She also reports on outdoor spaces and synthetic lawns, including environmental experts’ views on plastic turf in domestic gardens. Her news and features background keeps the tone fact‑led rather than promotional and gives her coverage a practical focus on aspiration, risk and everyday use of housing.