Alex Douglas is a business and real estate writer based in suburban Chicago, bringing together professional newsroom experience, firsthand brokerage knowledge, and a practical interest in property investing. He earned a BS from Arizona State University and went on to report for multiple newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, where he covered business and real estate.
Before focusing on real estate journalism, Alex spent five years as a Realtor in Phoenix, giving him direct insight into buyers, sellers, agents, negotiations, and the day-to-day realities of local housing markets. Today, his reporting draws on both his journalism background and his real estate experience to explain market trends, housing developments, and industry changes with clarity and authority. As a novice multifamily real estate investor, Alex also brings a hands-on perspective to coverage of property ownership, investment strategy, and long-term market opportunities.
Alex Douglas 
Closed sales dropped to roughly 11,700 from 13,000 in June, and the statewide median slipped to $330,000 — though prices remain 4.7% above a year ago and listings are still tighter than last summer.
Builders who started five or fewer homes last year reported a 9.1% median increase in material costs, while builders with 100 or more starts reported 1.8% — a gap that helps explain why consolidation keeps accelerating.
Access Point Financial and TMGOC Ventures co-originated $120 million in bridge financing and preferred equity for Kailas Companies’ office-to-hotel conversion in downtown New Orleans.
BevyHouse is testing whether factory-built homes can cut Altadena’s wildfire rebuild timeline from 18 months to six, delivering a five-module house near Fair Oaks Avenue.
Ten states led by Oregon and New York sued the OCC over rules that would let national banks stop paying interest on mortgage escrow balances in 14 states and territories.
California Regional MLS launched REcore Workspace, a customizable hub replacing its static dashboard for more than 100,000 subscribers across Matrix, Paragon and Flexmls.
The Data Center Coalition agreed to comply with Gov. Greg Abbott’s five development standards, and at least one operator ended a Texas project rather than meet them, as ERCOT works through a 474-gigawatt interconnection queue.
More than 40 homeowners sued in Newport Superior Court over Rhode Island’s $5-per-$1,000 surtax on second homes assessed above $1 million, arguing it targets owners who cannot vote in the state.
Austin-based Boom raised a $15 million Series A led by S3 Ventures and launched BoomCRM, an AI leasing platform built on its applicant screening data. The company says it screens for more than 400 operators covering over 500,000 units.
The Real Brokerage and RE/MAX Holdings expect to close their combination Aug. 24 as Real REMAX Group, releasing preliminary results of the RE/MAX stockholder election on merger consideration.
Amazon will build a multibillion-dollar robotics manufacturing facility on about 300 acres in East Austin, anchoring the newly annexed Dog’s Head development with 300 to 500 jobs.
The Southern Environmental Law Center asked a South Carolina court to stop construction of a $2.8 billion, 457-megawatt data center in Spartanburg County, saying the project improperly skipped planning commission review.
The New York metro area counted 394,300 tech talent workers in 2025 against the San Francisco Bay Area’s 375,730, the first time New York has led in the 13 years CBRE has tracked the measure.
CoStar Group has closed its $800 million all-cash purchase of homebuilding data provider Zonda, pushing the commercial real estate data giant deeper into the $400 billion new-home construction market.
The share of mortgaged U.S. homes considered equity-rich fell to 41.1% in the second quarter, down from 43.3% in the first quarter and 47.4% a year earlier — the fourth straight quarterly decline, according to ATTOM.
The National Association of Realtors has launched a quarterly Commercial Real Estate Demand Index measuring the economic forces driving demand across 306 U.S. metro areas, with St. George, Utah, ranking first nationally.
Amazon Web Services said Tuesday it is increasing its planned investment in Northwest Louisiana to $18 billion, adding a third data center campus in Shreveport and pushing the total commitment $6 billion above the $12 billion figure the company announced in February, according to Amazon’s newsroom. The new campus will rise at Resilient Technology Park … Read more
WHITESTOWN, Ind. — JLL Income Property Trust has paid roughly $137 million for a 1.1 million-square-foot industrial distribution facility here that is fully leased to Subaru of America Inc., marking one of the largest single-property commercial real estate sales in the Indianapolis area this year. The Chicago-based, non-traded real estate investment trust acquired the property, … Read more
Skanska will build four data centers in the U.S. Southeast under a $1.2 billion contract, one of its largest American data-center orders as the AI buildout accelerates.
NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index fell 2.3% in July to its lowest level since January, as the summer’s mortgage-rate spike pulled back contract signings in every U.S. region.
Los Angeles County built a record 10,230 accessory dwelling units in 2025, more than six times 2018’s total, as new state laws stripped away local zoning barriers, a USC Lusk Center report finds.
Property data giant ATTOM has introduced three specialized AI agents that let users query its nationwide property database, analyze markets and generate client-ready reports using plain-language questions instead of code or dashboards.
A custom house completed in 2025 in Reno’s gated ArrowCreek community sold for $5.20 million to lead the five highest-priced home sales reported in the Reno, Nevada metro area for the week ending August 16, 2026.
A renovated country house on nearly 20 acres outside the Village of Millbrook sold for $2.73 million to lead the five highest-priced home sales reported in the Poughkeepsie, New York metro area for the week ending August 16, 2026.
A Gulf-front home on Don Pedro Island, reached from Placida by ferry or boat, sold for $1.40 million to lead the five highest-priced home sales reported in the Punta Gorda, Florida metro area for the week ending August 16, 2026.
Savannah metro area home sales for the week ending August 16, 2026 totaled $5.56 million, led by a $1.345 million closing in The Landings on Skidaway Island.
A custom-built home on five acres in Chandamere sold for $1,425,000 to lead the five highest-priced home sales reported in the Lexington, Kentucky metro area for the week ending August 16, 2026.
A Gulf Breeze waterfront home in Soundview Woods sold for $2.7 million, leading the five highest-priced home sales reported in the Pensacola, Florida metro area for the week ending August 16, 2026.
A lakefront ranch in Heston Point View sold for $1.15 million, leading the Youngstown, Ohio metro area’s top five reported home sales for the week ending August 16, 2026.
A 1919 house a short walk from East Wharf Beach in Madison led five reported home sales in the New Haven, Connecticut metro area for the week ending August 16, 2026, closing at $1,615,000.
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