Marc Shoffman
Marc Shoffman links property market reporting with personal finance and tax, focusing on how regulation, affordability and agency practice shape outcomes for homebuyers, landlords and investors. He writes regularly for The Negotiator on residential sales and lettings, where his coverage interrogates the costs, delays and assumptions built into the homebuying system. Across trade and consumer outlets he concentrates on the financial reality of owning, managing and selling property rather than treating housing as a purely transactional beat.
Housing affordability and homebuying processes
At The Negotiator, Shoffman’s recent work on affordability examines how rising costs and outdated processes deter would-be buyers from entering or progressing through the housing market.
In pieces on the length of UK transactions, he sets out how paper-based methods, manual searches and fragmented systems extend the typical purchase to around five months, compared with a matter of weeks in other countries. He draws attention to how opaque tax rules and fragile chains introduce extra risk and expense, arguing that these structural issues sit alongside, rather than behind, headline affordability concerns. When he writes about outdated assumptions in the sales process, he highlights how professionals and policymakers still design systems around legacy practices that do not match modern buyer expectations or technology.
His coverage of high-profile political stories, such as tax mistakes by senior figures and the broader need for housing system reform, uses individual episodes to illustrate systemic failures that affect ordinary homebuyers. Together, these pieces give a detailed view of the frictions in the purchase process, from conveyancing timelines to policy design, and treat buyer affordability as the product of these mechanics as much as raw pricing.
Landlords, tax and the private rented sector
Shoffman’s reporting on the private rented sector tracks how tax, regulation and market conditions reshape landlord behaviour and tenant outcomes.
He has written extensively on buy-to-let tax changes and the economics of self-managing versus using an agent, framing rental property as a financial asset where cost-of-ownership and compliance are central. Coverage of measures such as the Renters’ Rights Act and proposals to freeze rents in major cities reflects an interest in the balance between tenant protection and viable landlord returns.
Earlier work has followed tenants’ concerns about paying rent during the pandemic and the impact of arrears on lettings agents, showing how macro shocks translate into everyday cash-flow strain across the sector. He also reports on government interventions such as extended eviction notice periods and “winter truce” arrangements, weighing their practical implications for agents, landlords and tenants in the context of broader housing policy.
In this strand of his work, Shoffman consistently brings a tax and investment lens to landlord stories, writing for a readership that treats property as part of a wider financial portfolio.
Estate agency operations and market moves
Across trade titles, Shoffman covers the operational side of estate agency, from branch performance to franchising, technology adoption and market strategy. At Property Industry Eye he has reported on house price growth hitting multi-year highs, mortgage approvals reaching levels not seen in more than a decade, and the way stamp duty holidays shift surveyor activity and sales volumes. He follows agency workload and business models closely, with pieces analysing how agency working hours compare with other professions and how confidence among lettings agents holds up despite rising arrears.
His reporting on corporate developments, such as listed agency groups receiving state support during the pandemic and returning to record activity levels, situates branch-level performance within wider business and policy trends.
Profiles of industry figures and coverage of the deaths of notable estate agency leaders demonstrate a grounded familiarity with the people and firms shaping the sector. In guides to journalists’ specialisms, his remit is described as covering daily developments affecting UK sales and lettings branches, including franchise and independent agency news and the adoption of proptech tools.
This operational focus gives his work particular relevance to agency decision-makers tracking both regulatory risk and commercial opportunity.
Personal finance and property coverage across outlets
Beyond trade mastheads, Shoffman writes as a freelance journalist specialising in business, property and personal finance, with regular bylines at consumer-focused publications.
Author pages describe him as concentrating on the intersection between personal finance and property, bringing a cost-of-ownership and investment approach to housing stories. His work has appeared in outlets including The Week UK and MoneyWeek, where he explains how broader economic and tax changes affect household finances and investor decisions.
Profiles of his career note that his articles have run in publications such as FT Business, The Times, the Mail on Sunday and the i newspaper, underscoring a track record of translating complex financial topics for a general audience.
He also co-presents the In For A Penny financial planning podcast, further reflecting a consistent focus on practical money management and long-term planning. Taken together, this cross-outlet activity shows a journalist who treats property stories as part of a wider financial narrative, connecting housing markets, tax policy and personal investing across different readerships.
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.