Shane Dingman
Shane Dingman examines how money, regulation and design shape the real estate market, connecting complex financial structures with the lived experience of homeowners, renters and small investors. He is a real estate reporter at The Globe and Mail and has worked in the industry since 2004, after earlier roles as a technology reporter, technology editor and digital editor at The Globe and Mail and the National Post.
Housing Market Dysfunction and Investor Power
Dingman’s reporting on the housing market focuses on the structural forces driving prices and access, rather than only day-to-day listings. He has covered how owners of multiple properties dominate purchasing in Ontario, outpacing first-time buyers and people moving between homes, using data from new reports to show how investor activity reshapes the market.
In a multi-reporter feature on “Five examples of Canada’s dysfunctional housing market,” he helped document specific cases where policy promises and market interventions have not corrected deeper problems, highlighting absurdities that reveal systemic issues.
He also participates in reader-focused coverage of the market, joining panels of real estate and personal finance journalists to answer questions on buyer confidence, mortgage choices and geopolitical tensions affecting housing. Across these pieces, he treats the housing market as an interconnected system of policy, investor behaviour and consumer outcomes, rather than a series of isolated transactions.
Real Estate Finance, Fraud and Bankruptcy
A distinguishing strand in Dingman’s work is his attention to the financial machinery behind real estate, especially when it fails.
He has spent months investigating the collapse of a group of companies referred to in court documents as “Balboa, et al.,” managed by former child star Robby Clark, reporting on one of the largest real estate lending bankruptcies in Canadian history and its impact on smaller lenders whose savings and retirement funds were exposed. His coverage of the fraud trial of the co-founders of failed syndicated mortgage company Fortress Real Developments extends that focus, following how complex investment products tied to property can generate large losses and criminal proceedings.
Dingman also reports on regulatory burdens, including how real estate firms feel weighed down by anti–money laundering paperwork, showing how compliance demands interact with day-to-day business in the sector. Beyond his articles, he moderates industry discussions with developers and executives about new paths forward for real estate, engaging directly with the people shaping projects and financing.
This combination of court reporting, regulatory scrutiny and industry dialogue gives his real estate coverage a financial and legal depth that goes beyond typical market roundups.
Rental Market Pressures and Reader Guidance
Dingman covers rental housing as a central part of the real estate story, not a side issue.
On a Stress Test podcast episode about soaring rents, he discussed what he is seeing in the rental market and potential solutions that could help renters get a leg up, framing affordability challenges for millennials and Gen Z within broader market trends. In live and digital events, he joins real estate and personal finance colleagues to field reader questions on topics such as fixed versus variable mortgages, timing decisions for buying or selling, and how external shocks feed into housing costs. These appearances show him translating his reporting into practical guidance, explaining complex market dynamics and mortgage structures in plain language for non-specialist audiences.
His rental coverage consistently links individual tenant experiences with policy and investor behaviour, treating rent levels as outcomes of specific decisions rather than abstract numbers.
Home of the Week and Property Profiles
Alongside market and finance coverage, Dingman writes detailed property features that capture how people live in and remake homes. His Home of the Week work includes profiles of distinctive renovations, such as an 1890 rowhouse reworked with playful design touches, where he describes the architecture, interior choices and the narrative of the renovation rather than just listing square footage and price.
In package coverage that combines Home of the Week with broader real estate news, he situates standout properties within the wider context of market conditions and policy debates. These pieces blend close attention to layout, materials and character with an understanding of neighbourhood and market positioning, showing how individual homes sit within larger trends.
The property features round out his beat, giving him a view of both the spreadsheet side of real estate and the lived-in spaces those numbers represent.
Dingman’s background in technology and digital editing supports a style that is data-aware and structurally focused, while his current beat spans investigative finance work, housing policy, rental pressures and detailed property storytelling. His coverage is marked by an interest in how systems - financial, regulatory and social - translate into concrete outcomes in the housing market, and he returns to those connections across formats, from long-form investigations to panels, podcasts and feature profiles.
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.