Photo by iStock

Britt Johnsen and Kirsti Marohn of the St. Cloud Times used empty lots to illustrate how the recession stalled new housing developments in a three-part series. Through their reporting, they found their three-county area had 12,000 empty lots. In Avon, a city near St. Cloud, the recession thwarted plans for two developments. In part two, they write:

“The proposals were grand in scale: two developments with hundreds of upscale homes for new residents. Waters Edge was supposed to have 116 homes. Avon Estates was anticipated to have as many as 600 housing units eventually, with 88 single-family homes planned for the first phase.

But Waters Edge stands about half empty. Avon Estates has just one house. And the city is strapped with a serious financial burden of unpaid assessments.”

In an earlier post, Britt and Kirsti offered tips on calculating the number of empty lots. Today, they offer more advice:

Look at unpaid assessments to see how much empty lots cost cities.

Unpaid assessment data helped Britt and Kirsti see the impact on cities that used public financing to pay for infrastructure improvements instead of requiring developers to finance the costs.

“Analyzing the unpaid assessments revealed how cities were losing thousands of dollars each year in revenue from publically financed developments, yet were still required to make bond payments,” Kirsti says.

Reporters can check with their city treasurer offices to get this data.

Mix beats to build expertise.

Kirsti is county government reporter for the Times, and Britt was the business editor. The sources they built gave them the expertise they needed for the series, Britt says.

“I began talking with developers, real estate agents and residents about the issue of stalled developments and empty neighborhoods, and Kirsti started requesting vacant lot data in cities and speaking to local and state government sources,” Britt says.

Day 1 of Britt Johnsen and Kirsti Marohn's project was 'So many lots, so few houses.'

Britt Johnsen and Kirsti Marohn produced a great three-part series called “Gambling on Growth” for the St. Cloud Times using empty lots to show the recession’s impact on new housing developments. The series won a Sigma Delta Chi Award for excellence in journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists last year.

Through their reporting, they found their three-county area had 12,000 empty lots.

Those lots left some homeowners in stark areas watching their home values fall.

In part one of the series, they write that homeowners weren’t the only victims:

“Minnesota developers, builders and investors have lost thousands or even millions on a gamble that the housing market would keep growing. Some have gone bankrupt or owe thousands in taxes and assessments.

Elected officials and other government leaders made the same gamble. In many cases, cities bore the cost of expanding and improving roads, sewer and water lines, treatment plants and schools, all based on growth projections that didn’t materialize.

Those developments haven’t generated the property tax revenue, assessment payments and user fees city officials expected. In some cases, stalled developments have burdened cities with millions of dollars of debt.”

Both Kirsti and Britt, who’s no longer at the paper, offered some great tips on how they gathered data that didn’t exist in some of the cities they covered.

Today’s Tip: Start by determining the number of subdivisions in your area.

Britt says the story idea came from a real estate source who said there was a 10-year supply of vacant lots.

“That struck us as pretty interesting,” Britt says. “We wanted to know more about our area’s vacant lots, which were a symbol of the housing market crash, unfulfilled promises and economic hardship that touched just about everyone the last few years.”

However, when they started reporting, officials and real estate agents said the vacant lots weren’t a big deal and it was “only a matter of time” until the market turned around, Kirsti says.

“We had to keep asking the right questions and figure out what data we needed to show what was really happening,” Kirsti says.

Getting the total number of lots took time. They had to request a list of all platted subdivisions with 10 or more vacant lots, as well as the total number of lots in each one, the name of the development company and the amount of special assessments owed, Kirsti says. They created a database using Microsoft Excel to track and map 60 developments.

“Kirsti’s successful data requests were absolutely key in showing the vacancy rates, which were the basis for our story,” Britt says.

By Flickr user Jeff Turner

Editors note:  On Feb. 9, 2012, after months of negotiations, federal and state officials announced a $26 billion settlement with five of the largest home lenders that could provide relief to  American homeowners harmed by housing meltdown. Melissa Preddy’s tips for covering the deal (originally written Feb. 1) now come into play.

We may know by Friday if state attorneys general have reached a deal - reportedly worth up to $25 billion – with five major banks accused of deceptive practices that exacerbated foreclosure problems for struggling homeowners.

The banks involved are Bank of America, Wells Fargo & Co, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup and Ally Financial Inc.  The value of the deal will depend on how many states sign it; some, like California and Delaware, already have signaled reservations about the terms.  The attorney general for Nevada – where one of the most desperate residential real estate markets exists – last week sent a 38-question memo to negotiators.  Among other things, she questions how the settlement will relieve banks of liability and whether it will undermine the authority of state regulators.

Twenty-five billion dollars sounds like a lot, but the settlement is likely to help only a fraction of people with mortgage woes.  Here’s a helpful Associated Press story that outlines some of the shortcomings of the deal.   No one who’s lost a home will get it back, but about 750,000 people could receive restittution payments of around $1,800, the AP reports.  Another million homeowners may get a reduction in the principal balance of their current mortgage loan or other restrutcturing.  So overall, it appears the settlement will help less than a quarter of the 8 million homeowners who’ve faced foreclosure since the housing bubble exploded.

Clearly, foreclosure issues will be making headlines again.  Here are a few ideas for finding local angles while we wait for the terms of a settlement to be released:

How many in your state will be helped?  Even if your AG won’t divulge terms of the proposed settlement, he or she must have a pretty good idea of the number of customers of those five banks who are expected to benefit from any deal.  You can put that into context by juxtaposing those figures with RealtyTrac foreclosure data to illustrate the limitations of the deal and make readers aware that the settlement making headlines won’t help everyone.

Foreclosure update.  Note on the RealtyTrac site the bloodcurdling statement that, nationally,  ”1 in every 634
housing units received a foreclosure filing in December 2011.”   You can mouse over the interactive map to get the rate for your state; in places like Florida, California and Michigan the ratio is far worse.

This RealtyTrac blog is like a veritable newsfeed of foreclosure stories nationwide; you can mine it for other local story ideas.  This blog post about the ‘Foreclosure bowl’ is eye-catching; it ranks National Football League cities by foreclosure rates; the post says San Francisco is likely to win the dubious honor.

You could do the same for cities in your region.  I honestly don’t know where the most comprehensive list of foreclosures is housed; you may be able to get that information from your state’s Realtor or real-estate agent trade group.  But check out the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae home sales listings; they’re searchable by ZIP code and the results, complete with address and photo, are quite interesting.  The prices are astounding; you could take several samples and show the history of each house and its sale price over the years, for a detailed look at how the housing bust has affected your market.

Tips and caveats for buying foreclosures would be a good pre-spring feature.  And get this; according to this HUD website, a number of government agencies also have houses for sale – I guess the ones for sale from the IRS, U.S. Marshals and Customs are probably seizures, but one wonders what the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers is doing, dabbling in residential real estate.  Checking out the source of some of these ‘alternative’ listings could lead to some interesting tales.

Susan Berfield of Bloomberg Businessweek used the municipal-bond database, EMMA, to get the story on a failed plant in Moberly, Mo.

Using municipal-bond data, Susan Berfield of Bloomberg Businessweek produced a well-researched and -written “tale of economic desperation” in Moberly, Mo.

She details the town’s relationship with “a short, chubby, well-dressed executive from Beverly Hills named Bruce Cole.” His company, Mamtek, planned to build an artificial-sweetener plant that would employ 612. Excited city officials dove into the deal within three weeks of meeting him and approved $39 million in municipal bonds for the company.

Susan writes:

“In August 2011, it came time for Mamtek to make its first payment on the principal of the bond, a sum of $3.2 million. Cole’s company didn’t have the money. It never did, as it turned out.”

Today’s Tip: Use bond-offering documents for inside scoops on municipal-bond deals.

Susan Berfield

“They provide hundreds of pages of interesting details in terms of what the company is telling officials,” Susan says. “The trustee for the bond is required to make public what’s going on at the company.”

You can use the Electronic Municipal Market Access system, better known as EMMA, which provides free access to information about the municipal-bond market, to find bond-issue documents. Susan said she used the name of the banker listed on those documents to start gathering information. She was referred to a PR staffer at the bank, who sent her additional documents she needed.

“Go to every primary source you can to see what you can get,” she says.

You can learn more about how to use EMMA during a free Reynolds Center’s Webinar March 27-28. One of the presenters will be Yamil Berard who spoke with me last year about using EMMA for her investigative story at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on conduit bonds.

Susan said some people declined to talk because of investigations into Mamtek by the state and by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. So she used LinkedIn to find their connections to employees who had less at stake, she says.

The Reynolds Center also has a free Webinar on Feb. 28 on sourcing through LinkedIn.

From Jan. 2-5, Lipton was a fellow in the Reynolds Center’s Strictly Financials Seminar. We caught up with him to gain insight into what stories business reporters should seek out in the aftermath of the recession. For starters, Lipton suggests tracking stimulus funds and the inventory of foreclosed homes.

WSB-TV Investigative team: Exposing a new twist on the foreclosure epidemic from Alfred I. duPont Awards on Vimeo.

Jodie Fleischer of WSB-TV in Atlanta won a 2012 Alfred I. duPont – Columbia University Award for an investigative series showing a new twist on the foreclosure story: so-called sovereign citizens who allege they are immune from prosecution under state laws. The duPont Awards recognize the best in broadcast journalism from the previous year.

The series reports that the “citizens” file quitclaim deeds in court to transfer ownership of a property to themselves. They post the paperwork in the home’s window and threaten to sue anyone who challenges them. A source in the segment notes:

‘”They’re able to tie up the legal system by filing bogus paperwork and engaging in paper terrorism against anybody who dare comes after them,’ said Assistant District Attorney John Melvin.”

Jodie Fleischer

Jodie sent me a video with her, producer/editor JoshWade and research assistant Sonja King providing details about the series. It’s also available above. They say the story started when an anchor at the station complained that someone had moved into the house next door. The team used that address to start the paper trail that eventually led to the arrest of several people.

Today’s Tip: Follow the paper trail.

Jodie notes that the team started with just one name from police records. Sonja was able to get another name by looking at paperwork before a clerk redacted the information. From there, they searched the courts and found the “new” deed holders and the witnesses to their signatures.

For more on quitclaim deeds, check out this post on how a reporter used the deeds to track hard-money lenders. Use this link for Registers of Deeds by state to find the office in your area.

The Particulars

When: 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 26

Where: The Chambers,
Brown-Lupton University Union,
Texas Christian University
Schieffer School of Journalism,
2901 Stadium Drive,
Fort Worth, Texas 76109

Instructors: Linda Austin,
executive director of the
Donald W. Reynolds National
Center for Business Journalism;
Carlie Kollath, business reporter,
Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal;
Chris Roush, business journalism
professor at the University of
North Carolina; Doug Swanson,
investigative projects editor
for The Dallas Morning News;
Tommy Thomason, director of TCU’s
Texas Center for Community
Journalism

Co-sponsors: TCU’s Texas Center for
Community Journalism,
Texas Press Association

Hotels: Please see this list of nearby
hotels, including some that offer
discounts to TCU-affiliated guests.

Directions

Register for this free workshop.

“What isn’t business that we cover?” — Laurie Ezzell Brown, editor of The Canadian Record in Canadian, Texas

Photo by Flickr user Jo Naylor

That’s the thinking behind this free workshop designed to help community journalists cover local business better. Whether it’s finding stories in the municipal budget, the local economic-development agency or area small businesses, business and the economy are big news on Main Street, as well as Wall Street.

Geared to the needs of generalists on small staffs, this daylong training will arm you with resources, tips and ideas to bring more meaningful coverage of this important topic to your community.

The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism is presenting this free workshop, which is hosted by the Texas Center for Community Journalism at Texas Christian University’s Schieffer School of Journalism. The Reynolds Center is offering a similar workshop on April 13, hosted by the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

Sign up for this free workshop on April 26.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• How to find good stories in the business of government, including budgets and contracts,
• How to cover economic-development agencies at the state and local levels,
• How to find public information on private companies,
• How to find stories in publicly available databases, such as incorporation records and real estate transactions,
• How to find stories in small businesses, including 15 questions to ask for small-business profiles, and
• How to localize national and international stories for your audience.

YOUR INSTRUCTORS

Linda Austin

Linda Austin is the executive director of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. A former editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader and reporter and editor at the Dallas Times Herald, she is also a former business editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Carlie Kollath

Carlie Kollath has been a business reporter at the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal in Tupelo, Miss., since 2007. She fell in love with journalism in high school and discovered business journalism while working for two trade publications in New York after graduating from the University of Mississippi.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush is the Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Scholar in business journalism and the founding director of the Carolina Business News Initiative at the University of North Carolina. He was named Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Teacher of the Year in 2009 and the North Carolina Professor of the Year in 2010. He is the author of Show Me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication and co-author of The Financial Writer’s Stylebook: 1,100 Business Terms Defined and Rated.

Doug Swanson is the investigative projects editor at The Dallas Morning News. Before that, he was a projects reporter specializing in coverage of troubled state agencies and the financial misdeeds of state contractors. He has written five crime novels and is at work on a biography of Benny Binion, who started the World Series of Poker. Swanson is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and was a John S. Knight Fellow in Journalism at Stanford University.

Doug Swanson

Tommy Thomason is the founding director of Texas Christian University’s Center for Community Journalism. He was also the founding director of TCU’s Schieffer School of Journalism, which he led until starting the center in 2009. He has taught journalism at five universities and has been at TCU since 1984.

AGENDA: Uncovering the Best Local Business Stories

• 8:30-9 a.m. Registration and continental breakfast
• 9-9:20 a.m.  Welcome, introductions and why cover local business  –  Linda Austin
• 9:20-10:50 a.m. The Business of Government: Uncovering good stories in local government budgets, taxes and contracts  — Doug Swanson
  
• 10:50-11 a.m. Break
• 11 a.m.-noon Covering government incentives for economic development — Swanson
  

  Tommy Thomason

• Noon-1 p.m. What’s worked for you in covering local business?  A conversation over a boxed lunch (provided) on what’s worked for you. — Carlie Kollath and Tommy Thomason
• 1-2 p.m.  Uncovering public information on private companies — Chris Roush
  
• 2-3 p.m. Uncovering stories in data — Example: accessing and presenting incorporations data on your website — Roush 
• 3-3:15 p.m. Break
• 3:15-4 p.m. Uncovering stories in small businesses — 15 smart questions to ask for small-business profiles — Roush
• 4-5 p.m.  Localizing national/international business stories for your audience — Austin

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Please do not register unless you are sincere about participating. Signing up and not participating deprives someone else of the opportunity.

Those who successfully complete three regional workshops or online seminars presented by the Reynolds Center are eligible to receive a “Circle of Achievement” certificate.

This free seminar is sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. If you have any questions about the workshop or the center, please email Executive Director Linda Austin or call 602-496-9187.

The Particulars

When: 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 13

Where: Room 248, Gatton
College of Business and Economics,
550 S. Limestone St.,
University of Kentucky,
Lexington, Ky. 40506

Instructors: Linda Austin,
executive director of the
Donald W. Reynolds National
Center for Business Journalism;
John Cheves, reporter,
Lexington Herald-Leader;
Carlie Kollath, business
reporter, Northeast Mississippi
Daily Journal; Chris Roush,
business journalism
professor at the
University of North Carolina.

Host: UK’s Institute for
Rural Journalism and
Community Issues

Partners: Hoosier State
Press Association, Kentucky Press
Association, Ohio Newspaper
Association

Nearby hotels:

SpringHill Suites by Marriott
Holiday Inn Express
University Inn
Crowne Plaza

Parking:
Available in paid garage
across Limestone Street
from Gatton College,
accessible by elevated walkway.

Register for this
free workshop.

Photo by Flickr user Jo Naylor

Whether it’s finding stories in the municipal budget, the local economic-development agency or area small businesses, business and the economy are big news on Main Street, as well as Wall Street.

Geared to the needs of generalists on small staffs, this daylong training will arm community journalists with resources, tips and ideas to bring more meaningful coverage of this important topic to their towns. As Laurie Ezzell Brown, editor of The Canadian Record in Canadian, Texas, said, “What isn’t business that we cover?”

The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism is presenting this free workshop, which is hosted by UK’s Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. The Reynolds Center is offering a similar workshop on April 26, hosted by the Texas Center for Community Journalism at Texas Christian University’s Schieffer School of Journalism in Fort Worth.

Sign up for this free workshop on April 13.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• How to find good stories in the business of government, including budgets and contracts,
• How to cover economic-development agencies at the state and local levels,
• How to find public information on private companies,
• How to find stories in publicly available databases, such as incorporation records and real estate transactions,
• How to find stories in small businesses, including 15 questions to ask for small-business profiles, and
• How to localize national and international stories for your audience.

YOUR INSTRUCTORS

Linda Austin

Linda Austin is the executive director of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. A former editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader and reporter and editor at the Dallas Times Herald, she is also a former business editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Carlie Kollath

Carlie Kollath has been a business reporter at the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal in Tupelo, Miss., since 2007. She fell in love with journalism in high school and discovered business journalism while working for two trade publications in New York after graduating from the University of Mississippi.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush is the Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Scholar in business journalism and the founding director of the Carolina Business News Initiative at the University of North Carolina. He was named Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Teacher of the Year in 2009 and the North Carolina Professor of the Year in 2010. He is the author of Show Me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication and co-author of The Financial Writer’s Stylebook: 1,100 Business Terms Defined and Rated.

John Cheves

John Cheves is an investigative reporter at the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, with a focus on government watchdog stories that track how taxpayer money is spent. He previously worked in the Herald-Leader’s Washington bureau and its statehouse bureau. His projects include a nationally published 2006 series, “The McConnell Machine,” examining $220 million in political donations collected by U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and the favors that McConnell did for his biggest donors. Cheves is a 1993 graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

AGENDA: Uncovering the Best Local Business Stories

• 8:30-9 a.m. Registration and continental breakfast
• 9-9:20 a.m.  Welcome, introductions and why cover local business  –  Linda Austin
• 9:20-10:50 a.m. The Business of Government: Uncovering good stories in local government budgets, taxes and contracts  — John Cheves
  
• 10:50-11 a.m. Break
• 11 a.m.-noon Covering government incentives for economic development — Cheves
• Noon-1 p.m. What’s worked for you in covering local business?  A conversation over a boxed lunch (provided) on what’s worked for you. — Carlie Kollath
  
• 1-2 p.m.  Uncovering public information on private companies — Chris Roush
  
• 2-3 p.m. Uncovering stories in data — Example: accessing and presenting incorporations data on your website — Roush 
• 3-3:15 p.m. Break
• 3:15-4 p.m. Uncovering stories in small businesses — 15 smart questions to ask for small-business profiles — Roush
• 4-5 p.m.  Localizing national/international business stories for your audience — Austin

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Please do not register unless you are sincere about participating. Signing up and not participating deprives someone else of the opportunity.

Those who successfully complete three regional workshops or online seminars presented by the Reynolds Center are eligible to receive a “Circle of Achievement” certificate.

This free seminar is sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. If you have any questions about the workshop or the center, please email Executive Director Linda Austin or call 602-496-9187.

By Flickr user robinsonsmay

Sears Holdings Inc., parent company of the Sears and Kmart retail stores, didn’t waste any time reacting to the lumps of coal it earned from consumers this Christmas season; as you’ve probably heard, the New Year hadn’t yet tolled when the commpany announced it would close up to 120 stores after same-store sales down an average of 5.2 percent for the quarter that includes holiday shopping. 

The partial list of potential store closings is out — Florida reportedly is hardest hit — but even if your locale doesn’t have Kmart or Sears stores on the chopping block, or if you’ve already covered the immediate impact, this post-December retail story involving iconic merchants has lots of legs and can trigger several follow-up angles. 

It’s a good peg for an update on existing vacant retail space in your region, be that due to the failure of big box stores like Circuit City and Borders, to auto dealerships losing their franchise during the past several years’ reinvigorating of the car industry or to poor planning/overbuilding on the part of area developers.   As this BusinessWeek article written earlier this year – as it became apparent that Borders’ bookstores wouldn’t survive – indicates, the nation’s shopping districts already are struggling with near-record levels of retail space vacancies.  As unemployment persists along with other dampers to consumer discretionary spending, what are the prospects for mall operators, strip center developers, the builders and vendors who service and remodel them, the workers who would staff them?   How has the retail landscape in your region changed since 2008?  And what creative approaches – like those in this Washington Post story – are being taken by landlords to fill idle square footage?

Other angles are suggested by Sears Holdings’ press relaease about the Kmart and Sears store closures.  For example, the company projects some $140 million to $170 million in net revenue due to the selloff of the closed stores inventory.   (That sort of begs the question, by the way: If 120 stores are closing, does that mean an average Kmart or Sears store has $1 million in inventory?  How does that break down?  If you’re into do behind-the-scenes explainers about how firms on your beat work, this could be the starting point of an interesting flow-of-goods or flow-of-cash story about retailers in general.)  The going-out-of-business industry is interesting in itself; many states have regulations or registration requirements for GOB (going-out-of-business) events, to prevent consumers from being snookered by false liquidation sales.  You might want to check with your state’s attorney general — in addition to consumer caveats, a routine review of GOB registrations could help you get ahead of the inevitable other retail failures that follow the holiday shopping period.

Second, the liquidation industry itself is quite interesting; here’s an older Portfolio story that may suggest some nuggets.  Another angle – follow a single good, like a blouse or a Sears’ Craftsman tool kit or a Kmart toaster oven – from inception to eventual fate.  

As I always advise, ask “Who benefits?”  Even vacant properties require utilities, landscape maintenance, cleaning and other routine caretaking to stay viable and in conformance with codes.  What sort of small businesses have found a niche or a new business line in babysitting defunct retail properties until a new owner takes over?

A screenshot of a recent Bloomberg Businessweek story on Las Vegas real estate challenges by Felix Gillette.

Felix Gillette of Bloomberg Businessweek encapsulates Las Vegas’ real estate drama in a recently story on how hastily built homes opened a new market in construction-defect lawsuits. The story says the environment allowed a “shadowy outfit” to cook up a “brazen scheme.”

The story starts:

“Before the market crashed and home prices tumbled, before federal investigators showed up and hauled away the community records, before her property managers pled guilty for conspiring to rig neighborhood elections, and before her real estate lawyer allegedly tried to commit suicide by overdosing on drugs and setting fire to her home, Wanda Murray thought that buying a condominium in Las Vegas was a pretty good idea.”

Felix Gillette

Felix’s story introduces a multitude of characters slowly as the story progresses. There’s the “convertible driving TV lawyer,” the political operative who’d worked on mayoral and presidential campaigns, construction firm owners buying their way onto homeowner association boards and more.

Today’s Tip: Go beyond online legal searches to find the full scope of documents. 

Felix says much of his information came from recently unsealed plea agreements. He visited the courthouse in Las Vegas and found many documents he hadn’t seen online. The plea agreements and grand jury testimony gave him lots of details, filling in bits of information when involved parties chose not to comment.

“They laid out the framework of what the scam was and how they pulled it off,” he says. “It was not a problem of having too little information, but too much and trying to whittle it all down.”

Felix says it took three full days to pull the information together into a story. In addition to focusing on telling the story chronologically through the victims’ eyes, he says he used a bit of advice from a former editor: Use narrative instead of lengthy quotes to tell the story.