Laurence Darmiento
Laurence Darmiento follows the money, risk and power running through California’s economy, focusing on how finance, insurance, major deals and property markets affect businesses and homeowners for the Los Angeles Times. He combines data-heavy reporting with close attention to regulation and corporate behavior, turning complex business and real estate stories into clear narratives about consequences for ordinary people. Since joining the paper in 2015 as an assistant business editor after leading a regional business journal, he has shifted into front-line reporting on some of the state’s most contentious economic and insurance battles.
Insurance markets and wildfire fallout
Darmiento’s most distinctive work tracks the pressures on California’s home insurance market and the fallout for residents in fire-prone areas. He has reported on Los Angeles County’s investigation into State Farm’s handling of January 2025 wildfire claims, detailing complaints that the state’s largest home insurer delayed, denied or underpaid claims and the sweeping document demands regulators sent the company to scrutinize its practices and use of artificial intelligence.
In coverage of ballot initiatives affecting Proposition 103, he explains how proposed and withdrawn measures would have changed insurers’ obligations to offer coverage and to grant premium credits to homeowners who invest in fire-proofing their properties, keeping a close eye on consumer protections embedded in California’s landmark insurance law.
His reporting extends from policy to lived experience. In stories on wildfire victims, he documents one of their biggest complaints: the difficulty of navigating claims after losing homes, and the frustration with insurers and government systems that are slow to respond. He also follows regulatory moves aimed at stabilizing the troubled home insurance market, laying out how state decisions are intended to coax insurers back into writing policies while balancing pressure from consumer advocates.
Across these pieces, Darmiento treats insurance as a critical part of the real estate landscape, showing how coverage availability and pricing can determine whether homeowners can rebuild, relocate or stay put.
California business climate, investment and trade
Beyond insurance, Darmiento regularly tests conventional wisdom about California’s business climate against hard numbers. In his coverage of corporate relocations, he examines cases such as KB Home’s plan to move its headquarters to Arizona and situates them within broader data on business movements, arguing that the Golden State has not lost its economic luster as completely as headline narratives suggest.
He parses relocation announcements alongside employment and investment figures to separate politically charged claims from underlying economic trends.
Darmiento also reports on cross-border capital flows into California. In a piece on foreign investment, he notes that overseas spending in the state rose despite trade disruptions, highlighting a Japan-led increase and identifying the sectors and regions that attracted the most money. Earlier work on traffic at the Port of Los Angeles amid tariff battles shows a similar approach: using trade and shipping data to measure the impact of policy changes on local commerce rather than relying on rhetoric alone.
These stories share a methodical frame - he anchors debates about California’s competitiveness and resilience in evidence drawn from investment statistics, trade activity and corporate decisions.
Real estate, property risk and major scandals
Real estate enters Darmiento’s beat where property values, risk and finance intersect. He has reported on a $1.34-billion real estate scandal in Laguna Beach, unpacking how a large property scheme in a traditionally quiet coastal community spiraled into a major legal and financial crisis, and what that meant for trust in high-value real estate deals. In following that story, he treats local land and luxury properties as part of a larger system of investment vehicles, lenders and regulators.
His business coverage frequently touches housing and development decisions that carry real estate implications. Reporting on KB Home’s headquarters relocation, he situates the move within the company’s broader operations in homebuilding and the state’s residential market. When he writes about insurance availability and wildfire mitigation, he links coverage decisions directly to the ability of homeowners to maintain or regain their properties, making clear that real estate risk is shaped not only by market cycles but by the willingness of insurers and regulators to underwrite that risk.
Taken together, his work treats headline-grabbing property scandals and everyday insurance disputes as different points on the same continuum of real estate exposure in California.
Finance, dealmakers and advanced industries
Darmiento’s broader business beat spans finance, aerospace and Southern California dealmakers, and he often tells these stories through the actions of executives and investors rather than abstract market trends.
He tracks how capital is raised and deployed, whether through foreign investment, corporate restructuring or large-scale transactions, and how those decisions reverberate through local industries. Coverage of aerospace and other advanced sectors fits the same pattern: he focuses on the companies and financiers driving innovation and growth, and on the regulatory and economic conditions that enable or constrain them.
His background running a regional business journal before joining the Los Angeles Times gives his reporting an editor’s discipline; he keeps stories tightly focused on the key players, financial stakes and policy levers at work. Across finance, insurance, trade and real estate, Darmiento’s through-line is clear: he covers the intersection of money and regulation in Southern California, with a particular eye on how decisions by insurers, corporations and governments reshape risk and opportunity for property owners and businesses.
4 more real estate journalists.
Aaron Elstein
Aaron Elstein brings a Wall Street reporter’s eye to commercial real estate. He is a senior reporter at Crain’s New York Business, where he covers large office towers, Midtown corridors, landlords, lenders, investors and regulators. His reporting shows how ownership decisions, bank balance sheets, capital markets and regulation shape property values and risk. He also covers banking, finance and Wall Street, including bank mergers and investment firms. Before joining Crain’s in 2003, he wrote Heard on the Street columns for The Wall Street Journal and covered bank mergers for American Banker. Elstein reports by closely reading footnotes, contracts, regulatory filings and legal documents. His investigative work has examined executive payments, pension funds, tax enforcement and tenant harassment. His coverage places deals, disputes and enforcement actions within broader financial and property cycles.
Aaron Moselle
Aaron Moselle covers housing and community development for WHYY’s PlanPhilly, filing for radio and the web. He stands out for connecting market data and government action to displacement, affordable homes, and the daily questions facing renters and homeowners. His core beat is housing affordability and market strain, including high mortgage rates, rising prices, tax assessments, and what they mean for buyers, sellers, and renters. He also reports on preserving and creating affordable housing, neighborhood rehab efforts, major real estate deals, and the effect of property sales on residents. His work often uses direct sourcing, plain language, and service journalism to make policy and finance clear.
Aarthi Swaminathan
Aarthi Swaminathan is a personal finance reporter at MarketWatch whose distinctive beat connects residential real estate with household budgets. She covers housing prices, affordability, mortgage rates, financing, insurance, remodeling and the costs of owning a home. Her reporting examines overvalued and fast-rising markets, ZIP-code trends, second-home sellers, builders, developers and buyers facing higher borrowing costs. She also follows Gen Z buyers, owners trapped in weakening condo markets and neighborhood conflicts over development. Her work pairs data-driven housing analysis with detailed case studies of buyers, owners and sellers. She explains complex market data in clear, accessible language and writes news features, personal-finance explainers, Economic Report stories, The Big Move and New American Playbook. She won a silver award for Best Collection of Work by an Individual Covering Residential Real Estate.
Abbey Ferguson
Abbey Ferguson stands out for reporting how major commercial moves and redevelopment plans reshape the built environment, especially the real estate deals that reveal what land and retail space are worth. She covers Central Texas commercial real estate and development for KWTX, with recent stories on land valuation, major transactions, retail redevelopment, and infrastructure planning. Her work has tracked an $80 million data center site offer in Hill County, a prospective Trader Joe’s location in Waco, and a planning project using artificial intelligence to predict traffic patterns. She writes as a news reporter, staying close to the numbers, public records, brokers, officials, and landowners. Her stories turn contract prices, appraisal data, and listing history into plain explanations of what buyers are betting on and how those deals affect surrounding property owners and nearby businesses.