Miranda Ceja
Miranda Ceja covers how real estate, local development and civic decisions intersect in coastal and south Orange County communities, with an emphasis on big-ticket home sales and the policies and projects that shape housing supply. Her reporting tracks both headline-grabbing luxury deals and the quieter planning moves, from redevelopment proposals to affordable housing debates, that change how and where people live.
High-end home sales and real estate records
Ceja regularly reports on notable residential listings and sales, focusing on price-setting transactions and properties with distinctive histories or features.
She has covered record-breaking deals such as a Laguna Beach home sale surpassing $110 million and other multimillion-dollar listings that reset expectations in the local market. Her stories highlight list prices, sale prices when available, and where a property sits relative to wider Orange County trends, giving readers clear markers of how the luxury segment is moving.
When a property carries cultural or historical significance, such as ties to well-known families or entertainment figures, she folds that context into her real estate coverage to show why a particular home matters beyond its price tag.
Housing supply, redevelopment and affordability
Alongside individual properties, Ceja covers how new projects and policy debates affect housing availability and affordability. She has reported on major redevelopment proposals, including plans for a six-story apartment building that would add hundreds of homes at an existing Mission Viejo apartment community, explaining unit counts, building scale and the stages of public review. Her city council and candidate coverage includes survey pieces on where local office-seekers stand on affordable housing measures and legislation affecting new development, such as AB 2011, giving a concise read on the political landscape around housing.
By linking candidate positions and project proposals to specific communities and parcels, she shows how broader housing issues translate into local land use decisions.
Local governance and real estate-adjacent civic issues
Ceja’s beat extends into civic stories where real estate, public space and local government overlap.
She reports on city council races involving real estate professionals, such as a Laguna Beach real estate agent declaring a run for council, and explains what seats are open and what is at stake. She covers calls for public input on topics like sober living homes, outlining how residents can participate and what rules or changes are being discussed. Her work also follows city initiatives related to community safety and services, including items such as recruiting school crossing guards, public shredding events and recognition programs, when they reflect changing priorities around how neighborhoods are managed and maintained.
Community life and the built environment
Ceja’s coverage frequently touches the everyday experience of living and working in these coastal communities. She has written about local artists and their connection to the landscape, including features on plein air painting that link creative work to specific streets, parks and viewpoints. Her reporting on Pride flag thefts in Laguna Beach and the broader conversation it sparked shows how symbols, storefronts and shared spaces become focal points for community values.
By pairing real estate and development stories with pieces on civic engagement, public celebrations and neighborhood concerns, she builds a consistent picture of how physical places and community identity evolve together.
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.