Rachel Herzog
Rachel Herzog digs into how major property decisions ripple through neighborhoods, tracing the financial and policy forces behind affordable housing deals, downtown office plans and retail redevelopment. She covers commercial real estate for Crain’s Chicago Business with a consistent focus on who owns key assets, how transactions are structured and what they mean for tenants, investors and local communities.
Affordable housing and subsidized portfolios
Herzog repeatedly returns to the economics of affordable housing, spotlighting the tension between long-term community needs and the investment and retirement timelines of developers and owners.
In her coverage of the Holsten affordable housing portfolio going up for sale as its founder prepares to retire, she breaks down the scale of the portfolio, the financing and subsidy framework that supports it, and the questions a sale raises for residents and future rent stability. She approaches these stories as business coverage, but keeps the operational realities of nonprofit and mission-driven housing front and center, closely tracking how ownership changes and capital decisions intersect with policy tools and local housing goals.
Downtown towers, office plans and large-scale redevelopment
A significant portion of Herzog’s recent work follows big-ticket downtown properties and how owners are repositioning them in a shifting office market.
She reports on plans for marquee office buildings and mixed-use towers, examining refinancing efforts, redevelopment proposals and leasing strategies in detail. Her stories typically map out the lender relationships, debt loads and partnership structures behind these assets, then connect those details to broader questions about downtown recovery, vacancy trends and the future of central business districts.
She treats each tower as a case study in post-pandemic commercial real estate, showing how investors are adapting to higher borrowing costs and changing tenant demand.
Shopping malls, retail centers and the evolution of storefront space
Herzog brings similar rigor to retail real estate, where she follows both legacy malls and newer urban retail formats. In her reporting on Water Tower Place and other prominent shopping centers, she explains planned capital investments, ownership strategy and the mix of tenants owners are courting as traditional mall traffic declines. She writes about major renovation budgets and makeover plans in concrete terms, outlining timeline, scope and expected returns and pairing those details with interviews that clarify how retail landlords now think about experience, entertainment and food-service offerings as anchors. Her work on malls and retail corridors often draws out a contrast between properties that are thriving and those under pressure, grounded in lease data, foot traffic and investment decisions rather than anecdote.
Market trends, financing and the business of property ownership
Across her beat, Herzog reports like a markets and financing specialist within real estate. She is attentive to how interest rates, lending standards and capital market conditions shape deals, and she regularly highlights the role of institutional investors, private equity firms and local developers in controlling key sites. Her pieces frequently trace the life cycle of a property from acquisition and redevelopment through stabilization or sale, summarizing cap rates, loan terms and equity stakes where those details are available. She balances coverage of individual buildings and portfolios with stories that step back to look at sector-wide patterns, including how policy interventions, incentive programs or regulatory changes affect investor behavior. The through-line is a business-grounded view of real estate that still accounts for tenants, residents and neighborhood impact.
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.