Salmaan Farooqui
Salmaan Farooqui covers housing and personal finance for The Globe and Mail with a service-first lens on how mortgages, rent and the cost of living shape everyday life. He treats the real estate market as a household finance problem, tracking rates, rents and inflation and translating them into clear choices for borrowers and renters. His reporting combines data-driven analysis with practical guidance that shows people what changing market conditions mean for their budgets.
Mortgage rates and housing market analysis
A recurring strand of his work is a weekly rundown of fixed and variable mortgage rates, where he identifies the lowest available offers across terms and categories and explains the forces moving them. In these pieces he breaks out insured and uninsured products, distinguishes fixed from variable mortgages, and ties shifts to central bank decisions and broader market sentiment.
He uses that format to show how policy announcements and bond market moves translate into concrete rate changes, and to flag where lenders are most competitive.
Beyond the rate tables, he writes about the spread of slowing housing prices and the way corrections move through different segments of the market. In business briefs and news updates he charts where prices are softening, how quickly changes travel between regions and property types, and what that means for buyers trying to time a purchase. He connects mortgage costs, price trends and inflation in plain language, so that readers see the interplay between financing conditions and the trajectory of home values rather than treating each as a separate story.
Best cities for renters and affordability rankings
Another core focus is the rental market, especially comparative affordability between cities. In coverage of “best cities for renters” he works with data colleagues to build ranking systems that weigh monthly costs, the range of available units, livability and market stability.
Those pieces do more than name top locations; they lay out the metrics and trade-offs, highlighting where renters gain reliability, space or lower costs and where they sacrifice convenience or future ownership prospects.
His renter coverage regularly situates housing within the broader cost-of-living and inflation story.
He shows how rent increases intersect with wages, transportation and other core expenses, and how rental policies and new building projects change options on the ground. Features on large new rental developments and changing neighbourhoods connect project-level details - such as building scale, timelines and tenant mix - to bigger affordability questions, giving readers a line of sight from a single development to the wider rental landscape.
Personal finance features on life choices and tax
Farooqui often uses narrative features to explore how major life choices translate into long-term financial outcomes. In his reporting on child-free couples, he interviews dual-income households without children about why they made that decision and how it shapes their spending, saving and retirement planning. Follow-up Q&A pieces answer reader questions on how that lifestyle fares in old age, digging into issues like health care, housing and wealth transfer while staying anchored in practical money decisions rather than abstract theory.
He also examines cross-border and tax complications that catch ordinary people off guard.
Recent callouts seek stories from Canadians who sold a U.S. property and ended up owing tax in both countries, signalling coverage that combines technical rules with lived experience. In that work he looks for specific cases where people misjudged timing, residency or paperwork, and then uses those examples to show how tax authorities approach foreign real estate and what sellers can do to avoid costly surprises.
Broader reporting background
His current beat sits within The Globe and Mail’s business coverage, with a strong emphasis on personal finance, housing and inflation. Before focusing on this area he reported for major national and international outlets, including large wire services and metropolitan newspapers as well as global broadcasters.
That experience spans breaking news and feature reporting, giving him fluency in rapid updates and deeper reads on complex subjects.
Earlier work has touched on corporate responsibility and race, such as examinations of outdoor retailers’ marketing and apologies to communities of colour, and on international stories involving law enforcement and organized crime.
This broader background shows up in his housing and finance pieces through an attention to power dynamics, institutional decisions and who gains or loses when markets move. He covers mortgages and rent not as isolated products but as part of a wider system that involves banks, governments, employers and households, which is what sets his coverage apart from a generic real estate desk.
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.