Rachelle Younglai
Rachelle Younglai follows the money, policy and market forces behind housing and commercial real estate, focusing on how prices, rents, lending and development decisions shape access to property. She is a real estate reporter at The Globe and Mail, covering housing, commercial real estate and the financial and regulatory systems that underpin them.
Housing Costs, Policy and Affordability
Younglai’s core lens is the affordability and availability of housing, with repeated coverage of how government interventions interact with market pressures. She reports on federal and provincial plans to spend billions to cut homebuilding fees in places such as Ottawa and British Columbia, explaining how these programs are designed to accelerate construction and ease the cost burden on builders and, ultimately, on households.
She has examined federal proposals to curb demand, including Canada’s move to block some foreign buyers, bringing hard data on ownership shares and prices to debates that can otherwise be driven by political sentiment.
Her work frequently tracks major housing pledges ahead of key fiscal moments, such as federal funds to acquire existing apartment buildings and protect affordable rentals from being converted to higher‑priced market units.
In regular Canadian real estate news roundups, she pulls together shifts in national home prices and sales volumes with local development trends, giving a concise view of how policy, demand and supply are moving in tandem. That combination of data, policy detail and on‑the‑ground examples distinguishes her from more transactional real estate coverage.
Mortgage Debt, Lending and Financial Regulation
Younglai devotes significant attention to the credit side of housing, particularly the growing strain in mortgage debt.
She has reported on underwater loans, where borrowers owe more than the current value of their homes, and on the exposure of mortgage insurers that guarantee billions of dollars of these loans. Her stories explain how drops in home prices erode equity and leave a rising share of borrowers with negative equity, translating macro trends into household‑level risk.
She has covered mortgage debt as a “ticking time bomb,” tying interest‑rate cycles, borrower behaviour and market rebounds into a single narrative about systemic vulnerability.
Younglai follows regulatory decisions such as changes to the mortgage stress test for borrowers switching lenders at renewal, outlining what these rules mean for competition among lenders and the flexibility available to homeowners. She also writes on what interest‑rate hikes mean for renters, landlords and variable‑rate mortgage holders, linking central bank policy directly to rent levels, cash‑flow pressures and refinancing options.
This sustained focus on lending, regulation and borrower risk makes her coverage valuable for stories that sit at the intersection of housing and financial systems.
Developers, Investors and Landlords
Another strand of Younglai’s reporting looks at how developers, institutional investors and large landlords shape the housing landscape. She has written about companies planning to buy large portfolios of houses to rent them out and later expand into building new rental stock, detailing how those strategies can change the balance between ownership and rental markets.
Her stories explore how corporate actors respond to public backlash, regulatory scrutiny and capital‑market conditions, rather than simply noting individual transactions.
She covers investor sentiment in preconstruction condominiums, including periods where disillusioned investors walk away from projects or seek safer returns elsewhere. In her roundups, she highlights how developers are introducing hundreds of new condo units during rebounds in buyer interest, showing how supply pipelines respond to shifting demand and pricing. Beyond print, Younglai has spoken about the implications of developers becoming landlords to thousands of tenants, underlining the consequences when concentrated ownership meets stretched rental markets.
This consistent attention to the behaviour of powerful market participants sets her apart from beat reporting focused mainly on individual listings or one‑off deals.
Commercial Real Estate and the Office Market
Younglai also covers commercial real estate, especially the evolving office market and its connection to broader economic change. She has reported on research showing that older class A office towers now have vacancy rates comparable to historically less‑desirable class C buildings, as demand for downtown offices declines and new premium skyscrapers come on line. Her work traces how age, location and quality interact to determine which buildings lose tenants first, and how that dynamic affects landlords, lenders and surrounding neighbourhoods.
In profiles of her work, she is described as covering the return to the office alongside lending and land development, signalling that she treats commercial real estate as part of a wider system rather than a siloed asset class. By tying office‑market data to questions about work patterns, investment decisions and urban form, she extends a housing‑focused beat into the broader built environment.
Background in Economic and Policy Reporting
Before focusing on real estate, Younglai worked as a correspondent in Washington for Reuters News, covering Congress, economic policy and securities regulation.
That experience in financial policy and legislative coverage carries through to her current beat, where she consistently situates housing and commercial property stories within regulatory frameworks and macroeconomic trends. Her trajectory from economic policy reporting to housing and real estate reinforces a through‑line: she treats property markets as part of a larger system of credit, regulation and political decision‑making, rather than a series of isolated transactions.
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.