Michael Smee
Michael Smee is a reporter and editor in CBC Toronto’s enterprise unit who focuses on real estate and the fault lines where property, policy and community interests collide. His recent coverage concentrates on contentious condo governance, public real estate disputes and municipal bylaws that directly shape how people live in the city.
Condo governance and resident security
Smee repeatedly reports on the internal politics of condominium boards and the impact those power struggles have on residents. He has co-written investigations into condo elections on Toronto highrises that were disrupted by questionable proxy forms, documenting court battles, forgery allegations and uncertainty over who effectively controls the buildings. His work includes earlier reporting on condo board members elected across multiple properties, highlighting how concentrated influence can affect everyday governance in large towers.
He also examines building access and security, including a CBC Toronto investigation that showed how easily strangers could obtain duplicate key fobs for condo towers without proof of ownership, exposing a practical vulnerability in highrise security systems. Beyond urban condos, his reporting has extended to rural property disputes, such as a case where a real estate broker bought a farm but could not remove a tenant who refused to leave, illustrating how legal and practical obstacles complicate real estate transactions.
Public real estate, heritage and community use
Smee covers conflicts around public buildings and land, especially where long-standing community uses meet redevelopment plans. In a detailed piece on the Bickford Centre, he reports on a stalled effort to turn the site into a community hub with amenities like a pool, gym, concert hall and theatre, showing how confusion over ownership between the city and the school board prevents revitalization.
That story traces the building’s history, the unusual land arrangement and the lack of a formal lease, explaining how governance gaps can block investment in public real estate.
His reporting also tracks neighbourhood resistance to new construction when it threatens valued local landmarks, such as residents in Parkdale rallying to protect a 150-year-old maple tree from removal for a proposed mid-rise development. He has reported on disputes over the naming of heritage properties, including coverage of the city’s decision to reverse course on removing a businessman’s name from a historic house, showing how commemoration and property policy intersect.
Municipal bylaws, corporate conduct and public safety
Smee frequently follows how municipal rules are applied in practice, especially when they affect large companies or shape daily life. He has reported on a Toronto councillor’s push to drive Tesla out of the city, a story that turned on whether the company’s operations violated local bylaws, and he detailed the city’s conclusion that Tesla had not broken any rules. His coverage of a proposed “bubble zone” bylaw to restrict protests outside certain spaces explains how the policy is intended to protect vulnerable institutions and why its implementation has been delayed indefinitely. On infrastructure and safety, he has covered debates over whether Toronto’s bridges need more suicide barriers, framing the issue as a question of public design, prevention and costs. His author page highlights work on planned changes to backyard pool regulations, including how new requirements could complicate and increase the expense of installing a pool, reflecting his focus on bylaws that reach directly into household decisions.
Enterprise reporting across formats
Within CBC Toronto, Smee works in an enterprise unit that produces longer-form, investigative and explanatory pieces rather than daily spot news.
Public bios note that he has worked in print, radio, TV and online journalism for many years, giving him experience in telling complex property and policy stories across formats. His condo coverage often appears as multi-part reporting with other journalists, pairing field investigations, document review and resident testimony into sustained examinations of how buildings are run and regulated. Across these stories, he consistently focuses on how rules, ownership structures and governance decisions play out on the ground for residents, tenants and communities.
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.