Mariya Postelnyak
Mariya Postelnyak connects real estate, consumer systems and day-to-day costs, showing how market pressures translate into concrete choices about homes, neighbourhoods and money. She covers real estate and consumer affairs as part of The Globe and Mail’s personal finance coverage, with a focus on how policies, corporate behaviour and prices shape the lives of ordinary consumers.
Housing costs, neighbourhood choices and family strain
Her real estate reporting centres on how housing markets and rising costs reshape family life and living arrangements.
In her coverage of former partners forced to remain under the same roof because of a real estate downturn and higher household expenses, she treats housing not as an abstract asset class but as a pressure point on relationships and daily routines. She extends this lens to neighbourhood choice, documenting how parents pay a premium to live near top-rated schools and detailing what that decision costs them in mortgage payments, rent and trade-offs in space and amenities. She follows similar themes in work on first-time homebuyers navigating a chaotic market and in pieces that track communities climbing livability rankings, tying local real estate dynamics to quality-of-life measures and long-term planning.
Consumer protection and complaints against institutions
A second strand of her coverage focuses on consumer protection, formal complaints and the uneven power balance between individual customers and large institutions. She has written on a homeowners’ dispute with a major insurance provider, using that case to examine preferred vendor networks and how claim disputes escalate, with attention to documentation, timelines and the impact on repair decisions. She reports on surging complaints to the national telecom watchdog, breaking down which providers drive the increase and connecting the numbers to everyday frustrations such as billing issues, service outages and contract terms. In her introduction as part of The Globe and Mail’s personal finance team, she outlines a mandate to serve unhappy consumers, positioning her work as an “equalizer” that helps readers understand their rights and options when a purchase or service goes wrong. She reinforces this focus through regular calls for sources, actively seeking stories from people targeted by fraudsters and those caught in complex disputes so she can surface patterns and warning signs in subsequent reporting.
Cost-of-living analysis and cross-border price comparisons
Postelnyak’s consumer affairs work frequently takes the form of cost-of-living analysis grounded in specific price comparisons and shopping decisions. She has compared value grocers in the United States and Canada, running systematic checks on staple items such as ground beef and fresh produce to show how exchange rates and retail strategies play out at the checkout. In a guide to “Buy Canadian” shopping, co-written with a personal economics reporter, she walks readers through categories from cars to food and alcohol, weighing patriotic support against price, availability and product quality. She tracks labour-market dynamics alongside household budgets, reporting on how job-hopping is paying off more in Canada than in the United States and linking wage gains to inflation, debt repayment and saving capacity.
Across these pieces, she relies on concrete numbers, clear comparisons and plain explanations rather than abstract economic commentary, keeping the focus on what changing prices and incomes mean for individual decisions.
Reader-led reporting on financial decisions and everyday life
Her reporting style is notably interactive, drawing heavily on reader experiences to shape both topics and angles. She regularly invites people to share stories of downsizing or selling off old items of value, using their accounts of what they kept, sold or discarded to explore the emotional and financial dimensions of decluttering.
She participates in service-driven Q&A formats, such as live discussions on summer vacation planning where she and a travel editor field questions on destinations, budgeting and how to save money on flights and accommodation, translating real-time concerns into practical guidance. Within The Globe and Mail’s young money coverage, she contributes pieces that blend narrative case studies with clear takeaways about contracts, warranties, complaint pathways and the costs of ignoring fine print, reinforcing her emphasis on consumer education.
Her professional background spans work for general-interest magazines and city-focused outlets, as well as production roles on broadcast news programs, and she brings that mix of narrative storytelling and news discipline into her current beat.
Across real estate and consumer affairs, Postelnyak’s work is defined by its close attention to how systems meet the household budget: she reports on housing markets, corporate practices and regulatory trends through the lens of the specific bills, premiums, rents and trade-offs facing the people at the centre of her stories.
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.