Times-Picayune’s Greg Thomas Wins $5,000 NAREE Bivins Fellowship

(Contact: Mary Doyle-Kimball, NAREE Executive Director at 561-391-3599)

      New Orleans - The National Association of Real Estate Editors (NAREE) has named Greg Thomas, real estate writer for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans as the winner of the fifth Annual NAREE Bivins Fellowship. 

      Thomas will use the $5,000 Fellowship to study the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and its impact on the real estate market.

      The NAREE Bivins Fellowship entries are judged by George Harmon, head of the Business Writing Program at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

     “This writer is in the midst of covering the biggest housing story ever to hit this country,” Harmon said. “To decipher the destroyed market for single-family homes in New Orleans, he will work for a week alongside a real estate consultant and then visit manufacturers. The objective is to inform consumers about new codes and about prices in areas where rebuilding is partial.”

     Thomas, a past president of NAREE, created the clearest and most detailed Fellowship proposal among several outstanding entries, Harmon said. The Fellowship award was announced at NAREE’s Fall Summit in New Orleans.

    The award is named for NAREE past president Ralph Bivins to honor his decades of leadership to the NAREE group. Bivins, an award-winning, Houston-based journalist, is editor of www.RealtyNewsReport.com and a NAREE honorary life member. He has devoted thousands of volunteer hours to NAREE activities.

       In addition to the NAREE Bivins Fellowship, NAREE also offers $7,000 in cash awards to winners of its Annual Real Estate Journalism Contest. The deadline to enter NAREE's 57th annual competition is Feb. 5, 2007. Real estate stories published, aired or posted during 2006 will be judged by the faculty of the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism of Ohio University. The journalism contest recognizes excellence in individual writing, editing, design and team reporting in newspaper, magazine, broadcast and Internet media. Entry forms are available on www.naree.org.

       Award winning stories have focused on affordable housing, real estate lending, commercial development, government housing policy, the environment, urban growth, land use, investments, construction and design. Journalists, including non-members of NAREE, are encouraged to enter the competition.

        The National Association of Real Estate Editors, founded in 1929, is a 700-member organization. Membership information is available at naree.org