Kelsey Neubauer
Kelsey Neubauer connects shifts in housing, borrowing and everyday costs to clear service journalism that shows households how those changes affect their budgets. She focuses on translating mortgage trends, loan products and price pressures such as higher fuel and living costs into concrete actions for consumers rather than treating them as abstract market moves. She is a personal finance reporter for CNBC Select, covering mortgages, home equity and the housing market since 2023.
Mortgages, Home Equity and the Housing Market
Neubauer’s core coverage sits at the intersection of mortgages, home equity and homebuying, with a consistent emphasis on first-time and everyday borrowers.
Her work includes guides for first-time house hunters that break down “tools, strategies and hacks” for buying into the housing market, written to demystify the process and highlight practical steps. She regularly produces explainers on “best mortgage lenders” and related rankings, framing lender choice in terms of rates, fees and borrower profiles to help readers match products to their financial situations.
Pieces on what to do if a borrower is denied a mortgage, or how those with bad credit can still find options, show her focus on edge cases and vulnerable consumers, not just ideal borrowers. Reverse mortgage coverage and home equity content extend that lens into later-life borrowing and tapping home value, again with a strong emphasis on clarity around costs and long-term implications.
Across this housing beat, her distinguishing trait is a sustained attention to how complex mortgage structures play out in the everyday finances of people trying to buy, keep or leverage a home.
VA Loan Rates and Mortgage Lender Rankings
Rate tracking and lender comparison are a second pillar of Neubauer’s reporting, with a series of recurring pieces on VA loan rates and broader mortgage snapshots. She writes regular “VA loan rates for today” articles that present current numbers in a concise, comparable format, giving borrowers a quick read on how costs are moving across the market. Mortgage rate snapshots under the CNBC Select banner serve a similar function for conventional loans, positioning her as a reference point for up-to-date borrowing costs. In-depth stories such as “Top mortgage lenders in the best cities for first-time homebuyers” combine rankings with local market context, marrying rate and product data with the realities of where buyers are actually looking. Her lender lists and rate roundups consistently stress criteria such as credit requirements, loan types and fees, distinguishing her coverage from generic market summaries by drilling into how different borrowers will experience the same rate environment.
Household Budgets, Gas Prices and Everyday Money Tools
Beyond mortgages, Neubauer writes about household budgets in a broader sense, including pieces on how pay stagnation and price increases feel like a “pay cut” for American workers and what tools can stretch their dollars.
In that work she highlights specific financial tools and strategies, such as a feature outlining “5 financial tools to make your dollars go further,” which walks through concrete products and habits rather than broad advice. She also covers everyday financial infrastructure like accounting software, explaining who should stick with free tools and who might need more robust paid platforms such as QuickBooks Online.
Her reporting on elevated gas prices and ways to save at the pump fits into this pattern of looking at recurring, unavoidable expenses - transportation among them - and mapping out ways to manage those costs within a tight budget. These stories tie macroeconomic forces, from tariffs affecting remodeling costs to inflation squeezing take-home pay, directly to the decisions consumers make about driving, borrowing and spending.
The defining thread is a practical orientation: she consistently anchors economic and policy developments in the daily choices households face around fuel, housing and the tools they use to manage money.
Real Estate, Politics and Immigration Reporting
Neubauer’s current personal finance work is informed by earlier reporting across real estate, politics, immigration and business. Before joining CNBC Select, she covered real estate and housing at Business Insider, building expertise in how property markets, development and investment shape access to housing.
She also reported on New York commercial real estate for Bisnow, which exposed her to the business and institutional side of the property market and the stakeholders who influence supply, pricing and neighborhood change. Her bylines at outlets including The Miami Herald, Documented New York and Newsday span politics, immigration and business coverage, giving her experience with policy, regulation and the lived impact of economic decisions on different communities.
That background underpins her current approach to personal finance: she treats mortgages, loans and household costs not only as consumer products, but as points where policy, market forces and individual circumstances intersect.
4 more automobile journalists.
Aarian Marshall
Aarian Marshall is a staff writer at WIRED who stands out for covering how cars, software, and policy collide. She writes on transportation systems and cities, from the auto industry to broader mobility systems. Before WIRED, she reported on cities and urban policy for The Atlantic’s CityLab. Her beat runs from electric vehicles, fuel prices, tariffs, and car-buying decisions to autonomous vehicles, robotaxis, and software-defined cars. She reports with a systems view, linking policy shifts, technical failures, and urban life to what happens on streets, in repair shops, and at the pump.
Abby Smith
Abby Smith’s most distinctive work combines motorsports coverage with live digital and radio reporting. She is Digital Director at KRDO13 and covers the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, including race updates, weather shifts, breaking developments and ways to follow the action. Her beat also includes automotive news, crime, public safety, politics, city government and community life. Notable work includes coverage of homicide arrests, a major drug bust, a presidential address about the war with Iran, a family’s effort to bring Stephen Hubbard home, a state governor candidate and a city security ordinance. She also reports on fitness, school spirit and station staff. Smith writes in a concise, factual style shaped by investigative documentary experience. She turns live events, official announcements and daily developments into clear coverage across digital and radio platforms.
Adele Peters
Adele Peters covers climate solutions and other structural problems as design and policy questions, focusing on what can work in practice. She is a senior writer at Fast Company, where she reports on energy, transportation, housing, materials, agriculture, corporate sustainability, and social impact. Her stories examine climate technologies, grid resilience, electric vehicles, renewable energy, modular construction, homelessness, affordable housing, compostable materials, regenerative agriculture, and ecosystem restoration. She looks at whether projects can scale, their real-world constraints, and their measurable effects. She interviews political and philanthropic leaders, startup founders, and climate tech entrepreneurs, anchoring stories in what is being built and tested. She has written more than 3,000 stories and contributed to Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century and State of Housing Design 2023.
Adrian Leung
Adrian Leung writes engineering-led coverage of Chinese electric vehicles and performance cars for CarNewsChina. He focuses on new energy vehicles, battery systems, powertrains, electric platforms, high-end domestic brands, and track-ready models, and he explains technical details in plain language for non-specialist readers. His reporting treats new models as hardware and systems stories, with precise figures on range, battery capacity, chassis layout, motor outputs, weight, and acceleration. He also covers the Chinese auto industry’s finances and technology roadmap, including sector profits, vehicle volumes, and solid-state battery timelines. His background in Electrical and Computer Engineering shows in the way he writes about vehicle electronics and battery management.