WSJ’s Mansion Global Becomes A Ten

Mansion Global Turns Ten And Is Aligned Witwi A Housing Market Segment Favored Over Next Several Years
Despite Ongoing Media Disruption, There Are Countless High Quality Real Estate Sources
There Are Excellent Tools Available To Manage The Tsunami Of Housing Information

Let’s take a quick break from the heavy topics of the past couple of weeks since it’s Friday! Here’s a little story. More than a decade ago, I was invited to discuss a new website concept with an executive at News Corp, which eventually became “Mansion Global” (MG). I brainstormed some ideas with a few people over the ensuing weeks. We eventually endeavored to build a luxury housing index based on the listings they were getting from their advertising content. Their inconsistent data ended my effort but no regrets. The MG concept came two years after the Wall Street Journal had massively scaled up its real estate print presence in 2012, known as “Mansion,” up to 16 print pages on Fridays. Shortly after the huge new section launched, I was invited by four reporters on the section to their new digs, and we sussed out some story ideas for years. Super fun.

I blinked, and ten years have passed. Mansion Global has thrived to provide a base station for luxury real estate marketing efforts as luxury real estate took off.

High-end real estate is likely to fare better than the balance of the housing market over the next several years. The tariff tantrums coming out of Washington, DC, are going to work against the ability of the Fed to influence mortgage rates lower. High net worth individuals (HNWI) are less exposed to higher mortgage rates than the rest of us. In fact, HNWI have access to lower interest rates and alternative financing, whereas other segments of the economy generally pay full retail.

I’m asked all the time: “Where do you get all your information?” My usual answer is “Everywhere.” I’ve attempted to create a list, but I’m constantly curating it by adding and removing sources.

Sources For Real Estate Information Enthusiasts

Here is a partial list of my faves in no particular order except placing my own data at the top!

I’m sure I missed a bunch but you get the idea.

How To Consume A Lot Of Data

I rely on several services to capture much of the data I am interested in.

Feedly – this is my workhorse across all my devices
Instapaper – i’ve been using this service for years to bookmark all my reads
Instagram – I follow real estate media outlets for story announcements
X/Twitter – I avoid the toxic poison and follow smart people for ideas.

Final Thoughts

As we close out the week, I had wanted to share the story of where I found myself at the start of Mansion Global and, before that, the introduction of the 16-page real estate section of the Wall Street Journal. I forgot to mention that one of my friends used to be a senior executive in the advertising group at WSJ and he invited me to the launch party of the new Weekend Edition of the Wall Street Journal – it had nothing to do with real estate – just a fun opportunity to go to the Rainbow Room on top of Rockefeller Center back in 2004. I only mention this because he gave me an official WSJ Lawn Sprinkler (apparently, no one else wanted one) and I watered my lawn with it for years.

The Actual Final Thought – Telling the story of housing only works if the ending makes sense (wait for it).