Jen Melocco
Jen Melocco covers how Australian property markets move, with a national focus on regional real estate and what changing prices, infrastructure and policy mean for buyers and investors. She is National Property News Director at ACM and leads property coverage and strategy across its network.
Regional price growth and market hotspots
Melocco’s reporting tracks sharp price growth in regional centres, using hard numbers and local agent insight to show where markets are heating up and why.
In her coverage of a coastal town near Albany, she sets out a 27 per cent annual rise in dwelling values alongside the current median price, then grounds those figures in recent sales activity from agents on the ground. When she writes about “top regional property growth markets in NSW and Queensland”, she links that growth to infrastructure spending, highlighting how new transport and facilities shape both demand and future value. Pieces on where owning property has paid off most since COVID, and where prices have grown the most in recent years, extend this lens over several years to show which regions have delivered the strongest gains. Across these stories, she moves between national data sets and suburb-level detail, always keeping the focus on what sustained growth means for owners and prospective buyers rather than treating price movements as abstract statistics.
Investor strategies and affordability in regional Australia
Melocco writes extensively for investors and first-home buyers, explaining how they can use yield, price and policy settings to make better decisions in both capital-city and regional markets. In her work on why buying a unit rather than a house pays off in regional Australia, she draws on a nationwide affordability report to show that apartments are often cheaper to buy yet deliver stronger rental yields than houses in the same towns. She breaks down the top affordable regions named in that study, noting where unit yields outpace houses and how lower entry prices allow investors to get into the market sooner.
Earlier coverage has walked readers through where unit prices are expected to outperform houses, where markets have shifted into buyer’s territory as listings rise, and how much first-home buyers need to borrow to enter the market.
She also tackles taxation and regulation directly, with pieces explaining major party policies for first-time buyers, proposed changes to home loan rules, and practical tax tips for short-stay hosts. The through-line is clear: she connects data, policy and on-the-ground conditions so that investors and aspiring owners can understand both opportunity and risk in concrete terms.
Rapid construction and new housing models
Melocco’s property beat includes scrutiny of how new building methods and industry pilots could reshape supply and delivery times for homes. Her coverage of a major builder trialling rapid home construction from slab to completion in 20 days treats the project as part of a wider shift towards faster, more standardised building, and examines what that pace could mean for buyers, builders and the broader market. She uses this kind of story to connect construction innovation with affordability, highlighting how build-time reductions might interact with labour constraints, material costs and the need to add stock quickly in fast-growing regions.
Lifestyle and prestige property in regional markets
Alongside market analysis, Melocco regularly profiles standout homes that show the lifestyle and design appeal of regional living.
In her feature on a luxury country home with a guest room “straight from Japan”, she describes authentic design elements, layout and price guide, then situates the property within its local market and auction context. She pairs that home with other notable regional listings, such as a rare Victorian terrace in Wagga Wagga and a lakeside house in Metung, to show the breadth of character housing available outside capital cities. Her broader work on “grand estates” and “inviting residences” brings together pools with views, historic architecture and scenic settings, while still noting price expectations and selling agents.
These pieces sit within the same regional frame as her analytical work, illustrating how lifestyle, heritage and prestige sit alongside yield and growth in the decision-making of buyers.
Melocco’s current leadership role is built on a long career in property journalism across major metropolitan and regional mastheads. She has previously led editorial teams for prominent property magazines attached to leading newspapers and business titles, and her property reporting has appeared in national business and general news outlets. ACM has highlighted that she brings more than 25 years of journalism experience and a deep understanding of both metropolitan and regional housing markets to its property coverage.
Today she uses that background to shape a national property content strategy and oversee reporting that spans price trends, policy, construction and lifestyle, with regional real estate as the consistent centre of gravity.
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.