Steve MacNaull
Steve MacNaull connects real estate coverage with the wider business and lifestyle forces shaping how people live, shop, travel and drink wine, giving property stories more context than a standard market report. He is a news reporter, feature writer and wine columnist for KelownaNow and its sister platforms, with real estate and business as his core reporting spine. Alongside housing market pieces such as his look at the “phantom recovery” in Kelowna’s housing market, he keeps a steady output of business profiles, wine columns and travel features that round out his view of the local economy.
Real estate and housing market reporting
MacNaull’s real estate work sits at the intersection of housing, business and consumer experience rather than as a narrow transactions beat. In coverage of the housing market, including his “phantom recovery” story on Kelowna’s market, he examines whether apparent rebounds are sustained by fundamentals or driven by short-term sentiment, using sales trends and pricing patterns as a frame for the story. His remit from past roles has explicitly included real estate alongside business and national news, and he carries that combined lens into his current work, treating property as both a financial asset and a local quality-of-life issue. That approach makes his housing coverage a logical home for stories that connect market conditions to specific developments, businesses, or buyer groups, rather than purely to abstract data.
Business profiles and local enterprise coverage
MacNaull has long used business features to show how individual enterprises navigate shifts in the local economy. In a profile marking “50 years at Mosaic Books,” he traces the growth of a long-running bookstore, focusing on longevity, customer loyalty and the business decisions that sustain an independent retailer over decades.
In “Kaila’s back with new eatery,” he introduces a restaurateur returning to the market, framing the story around entrepreneurship, brand recognition and the competitive restaurant landscape. A piece on “Voyager RV’s a winner” highlights a recreational vehicle dealership, tying awards and performance to wider consumer trends and the business of leisure.
Across these stories he gives owners and managers room to describe strategy and challenges, while keeping the emphasis on concrete business outcomes and positioning.
Wine column and beverage industry
Wine is a standing pillar of MacNaull’s work, and he treats it as both an agricultural business and a consumer product. KelownaNow carries his weekly wine column, where he writes as a NowMedia Group reporter, Okanagan wine lover and Canadian Wine Scholar, with the column appearing every Friday afternoon.
In “Wine column: Blue Mountain goes big on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay,” he focuses on a single producer, explaining varietal choices, house style and market positioning for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Earlier coverage such as “Wine of the year” explores how awards and recognition affect a winery’s profile, showing how a single accolade can shift demand and brand perception for labels like Sandhill.
The wine column is firmly grounded in specific producers, bottlings and tasting notes, but it is also a channel where he can surface broader stories about regional wine identity and the business realities behind the bottles.
Travel and leisure storytelling
MacNaull extends his reporting into travel and leisure, blending narrative with service journalism. Professional profiles describe him as a print journalist with decades of experience who travels to generate features and photography, with work syndicated across major newspapers and travel-focused outlets. His contributions to platforms such as SnowSeekers and FestivalSeekers showcase destinations like Big White, Silver Star, Apex and Mount Baldy, emphasizing skiing conditions, amenities and the feel of each resort. A verified travel piece for KamloopsNow opens with “Accordion music serenades us through Dijon’s triumphal gate,” signaling his interest in sensory detail and scene-setting as a way into coverage of European cities and experiences. Across travel writing he keeps a practical eye on what the destination offers - activities, atmosphere, and distinctive features - while maintaining a clear storytelling arc.
Role within KelownaNow and NowMedia Group
Within KelownaNow and its sister outlets, MacNaull works as a news reporter, feature writer and wine columnist, contributing across news, business, lifestyle and columns sections. He writes for multiple NowMedia platforms, including regional news sites and business magazines such as Level Up and Faces of Kelowna, which extend his business and profile work beyond daily news. Earlier in his career he spent more than two decades as a business reporter and columnist at a local daily newspaper, where his beat encompassed business and wine, reinforcing the combined focus he maintains today.
This path gives him a consistent through-line: stories that explain how businesses, property markets, wineries and destinations operate in practice, told with straightforward prose and anchored in specific people, places and products.
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.