#NAREE2024 - Live in Austin -
was Tuesday, June 18 - Friday, June 21
Hyatt Regency Austin
Tuesday, June 18
8:15 AM – Breakfast & NAREE University – Real Estate Investigative Reporting – An insider’s look into investigative reporting and tools anyone can use to enhance their reporting. Moderator: Daniel Geiger, real estate correspondent, Business Insider. Panelists: Debra Kamin, real estate reporter, New York Times; Tony Plohetski, investigative reporter, Austin American-Statesman; Maddy McCarty, Houston reporter, Bisnow.
12 PM – Lunch-and-Learn with NAREE University – Covering Luxury Housing with a Twist – Award-winning, veteran journalists look into luxury housing deep dives that shook their communities in the past year. Moderator: Jack Flemming, Los Angeles Times. Panelists: Linda Robertson, journalist, Miami Herald; Libertina Brandt, luxury real estate reporter, Wall Street Journal.
Wednesday, June 19
8 AM – Breakfast & NAREE University – Visual Engagement Tools – Data and visual storytellers discuss the rising popularity of data journalism and how reporters can enhance their work. Moderator: Susan Merriam, data and visual journalist, McClatchy. Panelists: Christian McDonald, associate professor of practice and innovation director, University of Texas, Austin; Mike Phillips, UK editor, Bisnow.
12 PM – Lunch-and-Learn with NAREE University – New Media Species – New media emerges as newspapers evolve from ink-and-paper to digital formats. Learn of the latest technological changes challenging and expanding journalism’s reach. Moderator:Tony Wilbert, senior news writer, CoStar News. Panelists: Terri Langford, health and human services editor, The Texas Tribune; Keith Larsen, The Real Deal; Jeff Ostrowski, Bankrate; Substack Columnist, Ilyce Glick.
Thursday, June 20
8 AM – Breakfast & NAREE University – Freelancing – Established real estate reporters share their transition to freelancing and how they found success on going solo. Boston Globe’s Eileen McEleney Woods weighs in with an editor’s perspective on what it’s like working with freelancers and qualities she looks for in those editor-freelancer relationships. Moderator: Lois Weiss. Panelists: Oshrat Carmiel. freelance writer and founder of the Highest & Best Newsletter; Richard Webner, freelance writer; Eileen McEleney Woods, Editor of Address and Real Estate, Boston Globe.
12 PM – Lunch-and-Learn with NAREE University – Book Writing Forum: Agents and Authors – Dreaming of writing a book? Learn how to make it a reality by hearing the ins-and-outs of book publishing.
Panelists: Becka Oliver, executive director, Writers League of Texas; Mary Shanklin, author and journalism faculty member, University of Central Florida; Suzy Spencer, New York Times best-selling author.
That’s a wrap for the 2024 conference.
2023 NAREE University
#NAREE2023 sessions included easy-to-use graphics for social media, book writing, getting started on YouTube, new media species, maximizing social media and investigative and watchdog reporting. Recordings of those sessions are in the Members only section.
Need a password? Contact Executive Director,
Mary Doyle-Kimball at mdkimball@naree.org
2023 Session in-depth:
Tuesday June 6 ,2023, Las Vegas
8:30 AM – NAREE University – Easy-to-use Graphics Design for Journalists on Social Media – An innovative how-to session to help journalists on deadline create eye-catching social media posts with Canva. Presenter: Reby Silverman, Canva, Senior Manager of Global Partnership. Co-moderators: NAREE Board Chair Eileen McEleney Woods and NAREE Member Catherine Carlock, both of The Boston Globe.
11:55 AM – NAREE University – Real Estate and Non Fiction Book Writing Luncheon Forum: Agents and Authors – Join a lively panel of authors and journalists and a literary agent as they discuss the ins and outs of book publishing. How do you know a story has the legs to become a book? What makes a proposal sing? How do you find a literary agent? Panelists: Charlotte Gusay, a literary agent with the The Charlotte Gusay Literary Agency; Josh O’Kane,Globe & Mail reporter and author of "Sideways: The City Google Couldn't Buy"; and journalist Sheri Koones,author of numerous books including "Prefabulous for Everyone." Moderator: NAREE Board Member Ronda Kaysen,The New York Times and co-author of "The New York Times Right at Home: How to Buy, Decorate, Organize and Maintain Your Space."
Wednesday June 7 ,2023, Las Vegas
8:00 AM – NAREE University – Getting Started on YouTube – Presenter: Nate Chute, a leader in developing visual strategy to grow audience and revenue with the Gannett | USA Today Network. Moderator: NAREE President Jason Hidalgo, Reno Gazette-Journal.
Noon – NAREE University – New Media Species – New media emerges as newspapers evolve from ink-and-paper to digital formats. What tweaks are planned for aging media and what new platforms are on the horizon as artificial intelligence lurks in the background and old-school real estate sections disappear. Ponder the future of media as this panel explores the possibilities. Panelists: Dawn Kopecki, deputy business and finance editor at The Messenger; Sami Sparber, reporter, Axios; Rebecca San Juan, reporter, Miami Herald; and Aldo Svaldi, reporter, Denver Post. Moderator: NAREE Past President Ralph Bivins, Realty News Report.
Thursday June 8, 2023, Las Vegas
8:00 AM – NAREE University – Social Media Musts – In the age of AI, making your stories dynamic and shine via social media is more crucial than ever. Learn about top tools to thrive and save time. Speaker: Professor Benjamin Morse University of Las Vegas Journalism and Media Studies program Moderator: Board Member Cameron Sperance, The Points Guy and freelance real estate journalist.
11:45 AM – NAREE University – Investigative and Watchdog Reporting – Investigative reporters Michael Scott Davidson, Newsweek, Mike Finch, Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate; Keith Larsen, The Real Deal and Kyle Campbell, reporter American banker on uncovering data and in-depth reporting on housing and commercial real estate issues. Moderator: Past President Jeff Collins, Orange County Register.
At #NAREE2022, Excel for Real Estate Journalists parts one and two online were presented online and part three was presented in person. All are recorded and available to members via the Member’s Only tab.
NAREE University at #NAREE2022
Excel for Real Estate Journalists
Workshop Leader: Charles Minshew, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Moderator: NAREE President Eileen McEleney Woods, Boston Globe
Excel for Real Estate Journalists - Part 1 - 2:00 PM EST Friday, August 26 on Zoom
Whether you’re new to Excel or you’re familiar with spreadsheets, spend an hour getting up to speed on Microsoft Excel. Learn how to sort, filter and perform basic analysis on your data.
Excel for Real Estate Journalists - Part 2 - 3:00 PM EST, Friday, September 16 on Zoom
Working with real estate and tax data can already be complicated enough when you’re collecting it from multiple sources. Getting it into the same format is key to analyzing trends in your market. Spend an hour learning strategies on how to clean your data to get it into the best shape for analysis.
Excel for Real Estate Journalists - Part 3 - 8:00 AM EST, Thursday, October 13 in person at the Westin Buckhead Atlanta
You’ve become familiar with Excel, you have clean data and you’re ready to analyze it for your next big story. We’ll discuss some more advance ways to analyze your data with pivot tables so you can quickly spot trends. Register here for NAREE’s full conference Oct 11-14 in Atlanta.
NAREE University Sessions at #NAREE2021
March 31st, 2021 at 1:00 PM EDT - Mining Data for Award-Winning Real Estate Stories
Thanks to NAREE Vice President Eileen Woods, Boston Globe, who has been heading up the 2021 sessions throughout the year and at the Annual Conference to be held in the fall.
Discussion on mining data for award-winning stories -- with helpful databases, tips for recognizing poor methodology, and expert advice on wrangling all those data sets. Summary by 2021 President Jeff Collins below and linked here.
Moderator:
Eileen Woods, Boston Globe and NAREE Vice President
Panelists:
Stefanos Chen, New York Times
Ethan Rothstein, Bisnow
Mary Shanklin, Fifth Estate Media and former Orlando Sentinel reporter
Writing with numbers: Good data can lead to compelling tales
By Jeff Collins, Orange County Register and NAREE President
Suppose you’re trying to figure out how many homeowners are struggling to pay their mortgage in your region. Or how many tenants are behind in their rent.Where do you go? Ouija Board? Tea leaves? Oracle of Delphi? A better bet, says Fifth Estate Media founder Mary Shanklin, would be the U.S. Census.And in particular, the census’ new Household Pulse Survey. “The census is notorious for really giving us a trailing indicator,” Shanklin said during a March 31 NAREE University Live held via Zoom. “But the good news is ... the census (now) has a more real-time release.”Shanklin was one of three speakers at the March 31 NAREE U, one of a series of online training sessions for real estate journalists launched during the pandemic in 2020.Other speakers included Ethan Rothstein, deputy managing editor for the online commercial real estate news site, Bisnow; and Stefanos Chen, real estate writer for the New York Times. Rothstein demystified the world of commercial real estate data, giving writers insights on where to find the best numbers and how to use them. Chen gave examples of how to overcome gaps in data sources and described how he once used dog license data to track gentrification. The Household Pulse Survey has four key metrics relevant for covering the pandemic, said Shanklin, a University of Central Florida journalism instructor and former real estate writer for the Orlando Sentinel. They include telework, housing insecurity, the likelihood of eviction and foreclosure and difficulty paying for the usual household expenses. The Household Pulse, which has numbers for the nation, states and key U.S. metro areas, has data as recent as two weeks ago. “It is warp speed compared to what we’ve been used to with the census,” Shanklin said. “The world’s been turned upside down in the last year. It seems like 2019 is archaic. So that is a better, more real-time set of data.”Other key census tools, Shanklin said, include the American Community Survey, which includes such housing data as the number of owner-occupied housing units, renter vacancies, mobile homes, the age of housing stock and population mobility, Shanklin said. The latest numbers are from 2019, with 2020 numbers expected as soon as September.
The ACS, available at data.census.gov, breaks data down to the county level. Another tool is Google Data Explorer, which bundles different types of metrics — birth rates, death rates, net migration — to help you visualize trends.
Commercial data
The census has good housing data, but is not as rich for commercial real estate.So where do you go to find trends in office occupancy as more and more people work from home? Where can you find data on industrial and warehouse trends as e-commerce booms? Rothstein, who specializes in commercial real estate, explained that virtually all the major commercial brokerages publish regular market reports on their websites on such topics as the office, retail and industrial markets.Newmark and JLL are the best because they give the most numbers, including the underlying numbers for their charts, Rothstein said. “If you open these reports, most of them are words,” Rothstein said. “When we’re doing research for data, we don’t really want the words. It’s interpretation. For the most part, I tend to ignore what they write, and I go to their charts and I go to their tables and I see what the numbers say.”Often, the narrations use words like “momentum” and “growth.” “They’re trying to make you see the numbers in a positive light,” when in reality, that may not be the case, he said. “It’s certainly spin city.” It’s also important, he said, to know the difference between vacancy and availability. Availability numbers include buildings under construction and leases that are expiring. Hence, availability numbers are more of an indication of the amount of space on the market than vacancy rates.
Gaps in data
Chen often struggles to find housing data in parts of New York City, where multiple listing services don’t exist. What numbers exist often have gaps. “We do not typically pull data from any one source,” Chen said. “When you trust a source, be aware that what’s in there might omit certain things. The omission itself could be the story.”Some sources, like StreetEasy, get all their information from the brokers, and the brokers have an incentive to paint a rosier picture, Chen said. Some new condo sellers report, for example, 50% of their units are under contract, when in fact, they’re only reporting sales for a portion of their buildings. When Chen got more complete data from the state, he learned just one in four new condos had been sold.Chen advised taking an Excel course so you can sort your data and get a clear picture of trends.“Having that background has helped a lot,” he said. Here’s a link to Shanklin’s tip sheet for census data. Links Rothstein finds helpful are: JLL, Newmark and Real Capital Analytics.
Here are the full URL's for the links above:
Shanklin’s Tip Sheet
Links Rothstein finds useful include:
NAREE University Sessions at #NAREE2020
May 7, 2020 - Story Selection in a Changed World
A big thank you to panelists and participants who logged in for "Story Selection in a Changed World” on Thursday, May 7 at 7:00 PM Eastern. If you missed it, check out Michelle Jarboe's recap here.
Coronavirus Coverage Challenges and Lessons Learned so far:
Dealing with the difficulty of not being able to plan ahead
Trying to find unique angles when everyone is covering the same story
Getting story ideas without informal meetings
Talking to sources out of their element
Getting sources to talk when little is known and no one wants to look bad
Moderator:
Catie Dixon, Bisnow Managing Editor and NAREE 2020 President
Panelists:
Eileen Woods, Boston Globe Sunday Real Estate Editor and NAREE 2020 Board Member
J. Scott Trubey, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Reporter and NAREE 2020 Board Member
Suzann Silverman, Commercial Property News/Multi-Housing News Editorial Director
Eli Segall, Las Vegas Review-Journal Reporter
April 16, 2020 - How to Do Our Jobs in a Changed World
Our inaugural NAREE U Live panel, “How to Do Our Jobs in a Changed World” took place on Thursday, April 16 at 7:00 PM Eastern. If you missed it, here’s Riley McDermid’s summary.
Coronavirus Coverage Challenges and Lessons Learned so far —
When the newsroom has gone digital (Coping with changes in your routine, WiFi snafus, and more)
When sources work from home, get sick, or are laid off (Dealing with how this impacts you; maintaining source relationships when you can only get coffee digitally)
When you are no longer covering real estate exclusively and you are tapped to cover the situation
Moderator:
Catie Dixon, Bisnow Managing Editor and NAREE 2020 President
Thought Leaders
Beth DeCarbo, Wall Street Journal Columnist and NAREE 2020 Chairman of the Board
Jeff Collins Orange County Register and NAREE Vice President
Steve Brown, Dallas Morning News Real Estate Editor and NAREE 2016 President
Dion Haynes, Washington Post Real Estate Editor and NAREE 2018 President
Stefanos Chen, New York Times Reporter and NAREE Member