Daily Progress reporters feted for series on housing prices

By The Daily Progress Staff

Published: May 3, 2008

Daily Progress reporters Brian McNeill and Jeremy Borden have been named winners of a statewide real estate journalism award for their 2007 series exploring the issue of housing prices in Central Virginia.
The President’s Award for Excellence in Real Estate Reporting for a series of stories is organized by the Virginia Association of Realtors in conjunction with the Virginia Press Association.
The Progress reporters produced a two-day series that included about a dozen stories on various angles of what, at the time, was a red-hot housing market.
Stories showed how more and more Central Virginia residents were unable to buy homes because incomes were not increasing at a pace able to keep up with housing costs. The series included other stories about how prices were affecting the quality of life, traffic, tax assessments and efforts to find solutions to the housing problems.
Contest judges said the stories were “well-researched, with perspective provided from local officials as well as a large number of residents.”
The Virginian Pilot of Norfolk won honorable mention in the contest.