Today’s show is a search of quality real estate news in the mainstream media. I suppose it’s also a critique of the Wall Street Journal. I’ve been reading the Wall Street Journal since I was a teenager. Yes, I know that sounds completely weird. As a teenager, I would go to the news stand and purchase the physical paper. Even if I was traveling in Europe as a kid, I would buy both the FT and the WSJ and the differences between the US edition and the European edition of the WSJ were readily apparent. I would also regularly buy the Sunday edition of the NY Times. I loved the fact that the NY Times Sunday edition was so thick it would take me an entire week to go through it.
But today, much as I appreciate some of the reporting in the WSJ, I have to give them a failing grade for their real estate section.
I went in search of more mainstream publications hoping to find something meaningful on real estate. Forbes Magazine, owned by publisher and libertarian Steve Forbes, sadly had little more to offer. Their real estate page was filled with stories of luxury properties. One article talked about exploring Paradise Valley, Arizona’s most expensive zip code.
I know that the Forbes Council on Real Estate has some esteemed members. But somehow the access to this talent has not translated into meaningful content in the publication.
The Financial Times doesn’t have a real estate section at all. Their reporting of economic and stock market news rivals the quality of the WSJ. But again, no commercial real estate news.
Even Bloomberg News doesn’t cover real estate. The latter is not that surprising because Bloomberg has its roots on Wall Street having developed the industry’s fastest trading terminals for market traders.
