Karen Longwell
Karen Longwell reports on how housing markets and local economic shifts affect daily life, with a particular focus on real estate in the Greater Toronto Area. Her primary beat is real estate, but her coverage extends across business openings and closures, public services, travel and community stories, giving a rounded view of how prices, work and infrastructure intersect.
Housing, development and price trends
Longwell’s real estate coverage tracks price movements and market thresholds, including a recent story on when townhouses could reach $2 million in the Greater Toronto Area. She reports on how taxes and policy changes drive up costs, as in her piece on alcohol becoming more expensive when a two‑month GST/HST holiday ends in Canada.
Her work also touches the development side of the housing ecosystem, such as a profile of a 78‑year‑old construction supervisor who has no plans to retire from a long‑standing Mississauga company, linking individual careers to the building sector that underpins growth. She contributes to coverage of commuter traffic data, highlighting studies that rank Hamilton among the worst commuter traffic in Ontario and quantify the time drivers lose in Toronto rush hour, which situates real estate and development within broader mobility and infrastructure pressures.
Local business, work and community stories
Beyond property markets, Longwell frequently reports on the fortunes of local businesses, documenting the opening and closing of long‑running enterprises.
Her work includes coverage of a grocery chain launching its first‑ever Brampton location, detailing the address and opening timeline for the new store. She has contributed to stories on a 33‑year‑old pizza restaurant in Mississauga closing for good, capturing the end of a long‑standing neighbourhood institution. Her reporting also extends to community and cultural events, such as a 30‑year‑old Toronto festival receiving $100,000 to return after a multi‑year absence, where she notes funding details and schedule for the revived festival.
She has written about notable alumni from a Mississauga secondary school, reflecting an interest in local histories and the people tied to longstanding community institutions.
Public services, weather and health pressures
Longwell covers public service strain and safety issues, including hospital crowding and severe weather. Her reporting on patients placed in hallway pods as a hospital deals with overcrowding in Mississauga explores how capacity pressures affect patient care and the use of unconventional spaces within health facilities. She writes about weather alerts issued for parts of Ontario, including guidance on checking on older adults, people living alone and other at‑risk groups during extreme conditions.
These pieces show her attention to the operational realities of public services and the practical advice residents receive when systems are under pressure.
Travel, climate and wider issues
Alongside local news and real estate, Longwell maintains a broader portfolio that includes travel, climate change and social justice topics.
Her professional profile notes that she writes about travel and has experience as a photographer, editor and journalist, and that her work has appeared in publications including the Toronto Star, National Post, This Magazine, blogTO, Travel Life, Nieman Lab and the Review of Journalism. She has covered aviation and tourism trends, such as a piece on Canadians gaining more choices in winter through 13 new routes from Air Canada, which situates route expansions within seasonal travel patterns.
The combination of local housing and business reporting with travel, climate and social issue coverage gives her a wide frame for stories that connect place, movement and policy.
Reporting style and focus
Longwell’s reporting for insauga is grounded in concrete developments: price changes, openings and closures, funding decisions, service disruptions and new routes. She works as a freelance photographer and journalist and has experience as a photographer, editor and journalist at newspapers, which aligns with the visual and narrative detail evident in stories that feature on‑the‑ground scenes and named individuals. Her consistent use of specific figures, dates, locations and dollar amounts across real estate, business, public service and travel pieces makes her coverage useful for understanding when changes take effect and who is affected by them.
4 more real estate journalists.
Addie Morfoot
Addie Morfoot covers how real estate, culture and media meet, focusing on people, rules and the way homes shape a life. She reports for The New York Times on housing and lifestyle, from personal narratives about finding a home after loss to features on how short-term rental policy affects everyday owners and renters. She writes real estate stories that connect laws and regulations to the choices available to ordinary residents in specific towns and cities. She is a regular contributor to the Sunday Routine franchise, following actors, comedians and designers through a typical day and showing how settings like homes, studios and subway cars shape daily experience. She also has a long track record covering documentary film and the entertainment business, including legal questions around fair use, changing docu-series formats, festival premieres and financing. Her portfolio spans more than two decades of work for The New York Times, Variety, The Wall Street Journal and Crain’s New York Business.
Alcynna Lloyd
Alcynna Lloyd is a real estate reporter and economic journalist at Business Insider whose work is distinct for treating housing as a core economic system people must navigate. She covers how housing markets, costs, and mobility shape everyday life decisions, connecting data on rents, home prices, and city trends with stories of people managing debt, multigenerational living, and moves abroad. Her beat centers on housing costs, renters, and household strategies, following renters pushing back against landlords and tracking “desperate home sellers” using concessions in unaffordable markets. A second strand of her coverage focuses on relocation, remote work, and cheap cities as everyday economic strategies. She regularly uses rankings and lists, such as best and worst states to buy a home and Rising Stars of Real Estate, and reads city housing and migration shifts as signs of broader economic change.
Alec Lazenby
Alec Lazenby covers how provincial politics and government decisions shape housing, real estate and the wider social fabric. He reports for The Vancouver Sun from the provincial legislature. His work examines HousingHub, middle-income rentals, affordability, stalled projects, empty condos, developer layoffs, municipal housing targets and land use. He also covers health, addiction, safer supply, involuntary care, water rights, resource management, Indigenous rights and Crown land. Lazenby connects policy language to specific buildings, rents, projects, services and people. He explains financial, regulatory and market pressures, then follows how institutions, professionals, developers, municipalities and affected communities respond. His reporting tests government goals against practical outcomes and shows how policy reversals, construction costs, interest rates and political accountability shape housing and public life.
Amir Ali
Amir Ali links housing, disputes, and oddball neighbourhood stories in case-based, street-level reporting for Daily Hive. He holds a senior editorial and writing role, listed on the masthead as part of Vancouver leadership and described as a staff writer. His core beat is real estate, especially the rental market and housing affordability, tracking rent ranges, market shifts, and how pressures land on people trying to stay housed. He also covers crime, civil tribunals, and mental health, explaining decisions and conflicts in plain language that focuses on timelines, behaviour, and outcomes. Ali writes offbeat hyperlocal features, traffic and transport disruptions, business, food, and general local news, often turning infrastructure, small businesses, and civic systems into tangible stories. A former radio producer, he brings tight pacing and clear stakes to written pieces and maintains an active social media presence as a broadcaster and writer.