Marc Lee
Marc Lee examines housing and real estate as part of a wider economic and justice agenda, rather than as an isolated market. His work follows how tax policy, climate action, and public spending shape who gets housed and on what terms. He writes as a senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, producing research reports, policy briefs and commentary that foreground affordability, equity and structural reform.
Vancouver condo bailout and a failed housing model
In his analysis of the Vancouver condo bailout, Lee treats the episode as evidence of a deeper failure in the housing model, not just a one-off rescue of a troubled project.
He focuses on how public support for a distressed condo development reinforces a system that prioritises speculative ownership and investor interests over secure, affordable homes. Rather than tracking prices or sales, he dissects the policy architecture around the bailout, looking at how governments absorb risk that originates in real estate finance. This approach characterises his housing writing: real estate is the arena, but the story is about incentives, regulation and who ultimately bears costs.
Upzoning low-density neighbourhoods for housing affordability
Lee’s report on “Upzoning Metro Vancouver’s Low-density Neighbourhoods for Housing Affordability” sets out a regulatory shift away from detached housing toward higher-density forms across established neighbourhoods. He argues that opening up low-density zones, including areas currently dominated by single detached homes, is central to creating enough rental and ownership options at affordable levels. In related work such as “How to Build Affordable Rental Housing in Vancouver” and “Planning for a Build-out of Affordable Rental Housing in Metro Vancouver: How Many Units and How Much Would It Cost?”, he concentrates on the scale of construction required and the financial parameters needed to bring rents within reach. Across these pieces, the emphasis stays on planning rules, land use, and public or non-profit development models, marking a clear departure from conventional real estate coverage that centres private developers and short-term market cycles.
Capital gains, procurement rules and tax fairness
Lee extends his housing analysis into tax and fiscal policy, treating these as levers that make particular real estate outcomes more or less likely.
In “Capital gains tax increase is a step towards a fairer tax system in Canada”, he supports increasing the inclusion rate on large capital gains and connects this change to how wealth accumulated through assets, including housing, is taxed relative to labour income. His speaking notes for that piece show him working directly with budget measures and distributional impacts, explaining who pays more and who remains sheltered under existing rules. In “Watering down public procurement rules is the wrong way to move internal trade”, he scrutinises proposals to loosen public purchasing requirements under the banner of reducing trade barriers, pushing back against cost estimates that downplay the value of robust procurement standards.
Earlier reports such as “Eroding Tax Fairness: Tax Incidence in Canada 1990 to 2005” and studies on public finance and the funding of services demonstrate a consistent pattern: he looks at who benefits from fiscal changes, how revenues are raised, and how these choices intersect with housing, infrastructure and social programs. For communications around real estate, this means he is most responsive to stories that connect property markets to the tax system, budgets, and longer-term distributional effects, rather than narrow accounts of individual projects or deals.
Pension funds, fossil fuels and climate justice
Lee’s leadership of the Climate Justice Project and publications such as “Pension Funds and Fossil Fuels: The Economic Case for Divestment” show that he tracks how large pools of capital, including retirement savings, are invested across sectors. He analyses the financial and climate risks of holding fossil fuel assets, including the prospect of stranded assets and their implications for financial markets and pension plans. Works like “Canada’s Carbon Liabilities: The Implications of Stranded Fossil Fuel Assets for Financial Markets and Pension Funds” and “A Green Industrial Revolution: Climate Justice, Green Jobs and Sustainable Production in Canada” link emissions, regulation and investment strategy in a way that overlaps with real estate when it comes to building standards, energy use and the siting of new development.
His co-authored “A Zero Waste Agenda for BC” and the earlier “Closing the Loop: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Creating Green Jobs Through Zero Waste in BC” expand this lens to waste systems and employment, again integrating environmental goals with economic planning. Across these climate-focused pieces, housing and urban form are treated as part of a larger system that must change to meet justice and emissions targets. This makes him a natural fit for stories at the intersection of green building, zoning reform, infrastructure and climate policy, rather than for purely financial real estate pitches.
Poverty reduction, health care sustainability and public services
Lee also writes on poverty, health care and other public services, bringing an inequality frame that feeds back into his housing work.
In “A Poverty Reduction Plan for BC”, he lays out a comprehensive approach to reducing poverty that includes income supports, employment policies and access to essential services, with housing costs as a central pressure on low-income households. Reports such as “How Sustainable is Medicare?” and “Is Medicare Sustainable?
A Closer Look at Aging, Technology and Other Cost Drivers in Canada’s Health Care System” examine long-term cost drivers and financing structures for health care, showing his comfort with demographic and expenditure modelling. These studies underline that he treats housing affordability as one element of a broader social policy landscape, where rents, health spending, and income supports interact.
Additional work on trade agreements and internal economic integration, including papers on interprovincial trade barriers and agreements like TILMA, reinforces his focus on the rules that govern markets rather than on day-to-day price movements. When he writes about real estate, it is usually to show how those rules, institutions and fiscal choices shape the distribution of risk and opportunity. Taken together, his body of work points to a journalist-economist whose coverage of housing and real estate is grounded in long-form policy analysis, with recurring attention to affordability, tax fairness, climate justice and the financing of public goods.
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.