For the past five years, I have worked as a reporter for CBS News covering the U.S. housing market, bankruptcy and the business of sports. It has been a thrilling ride, but all good things come to an end.
I’ve changed employers, ladies and gentlemen. I’m now a reporter for CoStar Group and its Homes.com team. I cover the New York City and U.S. housing markets. This job is unbelievably exciting because I’m the first person to ever hold this position. In some respects, I can and will set the tone for how we write and pursue stories for Homes.com. I have never had a job where I was the first person in the seat, so I’m hoping to develop some great habits for our team and eventually make this a place that other real estate journalists want to join.
Homes.com is developing a national team of reporters to cover local markets and I’ve been tasked with covering one of the most expensive markets in our country. For those of you who have followed my career, you know that I’ve lived all over New York — from Brooklyn between 2010 and 2012 to Rochester in 2016 and 2017, Long Island between 2017 and 2020 and Westchester County during the pandemic. I vacation in the Thousand Islands. I drank bubbling spring water from the outdoor spigots in Saratoga Springs. I may be from Michigan but I know New York up and down and that’s what I’m bringing to this job.
One of the reasons I really enjoy my new job is that I get to exclusively write about the housing beat, which is something I grew a passion for at CBS News. If it wasn’t for my editors at CBS assigning me this beat, I would have never known how much I like it.
At CBS News, my time and talent was often pulled away to cover breaking news or other topics off my beat — like failing regional banks or crypto platforms collapsing overnight. I found myself frustrated often because I couldn’t truly dive into enterprise stories on the housing beat. Our team was small and we had to produce stories as much as possible week after week.
I hate sounding like a Debbie Downer. Let me be clear. I had an overall fantastic time working for CBS News. I did some of my best work as a journalist for the MoneyWatch team with the help of former co-workers who have either retired or moved on to greener pastures. Huge changes happened in my life — personally — while I was employed at CBS News. When I first started working there, I was living in a one-bedroom apartment on Long Island. Since then, I’ve bought a house, buried my last remaining grandparent and even seen the birth of my first child.
I’m proud to say I was on staff when CBSNews.com experienced its highest web traffic year ever. For a short stint, I was even able to work at CBS News with my best friend — literally the guy who was the best man at my wedding. Very few people get to say they worked somewhere with their bestie, but I did and I continue to thank God for that moment in time. During the pandemic, I told the stories of Americans struggling to get unemployment and funeral home directors being inundated with corpses. I had managers who believed in me and encouraged me to tackle stories that I was afraid to cover. I’ll never forget that.
No newsroom is perfect though. During my tenure, CBS News had gone through two (and was on its way to a third) corporate takeover (or I guess restructuring). We went from ViacomCBS to Paramount to Skydance just before my departure. And with every new entity, it felt like the goals and priorities changed — to the point where it was impossible to know if you were truly doing your job well. I love CBS News, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about the place. I’ve watched so many extremely talented journalists of color leave and I know there are more departures coming. I remember cringing when a dear friend of mine texted me and said “you finally left Caucasian Broadcasting System, huh?”
It’s true. You probably won’t see me at a CBS anchor desk talking about my stories anymore, but I’m still super thankful that I’m able to practice a craft and profession that I fell in love with in high school.