Changes made to WSJ real estate team

Constance Mitchell Ford, who heads the global real estate and property bureau for The Wall Street Journal in New York, sent out the following message on Friday:

There have been several changes in the Global Real Estate group that we’d like to share.

We’re happy to announce that Rob Hunter has joined the group as  deputy bureau chief. Rob’s main job is to lead the group’s coverage of the business, financial and investing aspects of commercial real estate, which includes hotels, offices, apartments, malls and many other sectors. As commercial real estate becomes an increasingly important asset class for big investors, we’re fortunate to have someone with Rob’s background leading coverage. A  key part of this job is to produce the weekly Property Report, which runs in Money & Investing. Rob comes to us from M&I, where he  oversaw the banking group. Prior to that, Rob was the personal finance editor, overseeing the Weekend Investor section and its online manifestations. Before WSJ, Rob worked at Bloomberg BusinessWeek, where he was assistant managing editor for features, and at SmartMoney. He lives in Westchester.

Rob replaces Peter Grant, whose new job will include writing and being a player-coach. He’ll help reporters in foreign bureaus conceptualize stories for International Property Report and also oversee the Monday commercial real estate page in Greater New York, which includes Dynasties, a column that chronicles the successes and stumbles of New York’s wealthiest real estate families. As a reporter, Peter will follow the big money in commercial real estate, essentially the investing trends and habits of  private-equity firms, pension funds, insurance companies and other equity investors with massiveCRE portfolios. Peter also will edit Developments, the CRE blog. Peter is a long-time Brooklyn resident—and landlord.

On the housing front, we recently recruited the hard-working Joe Light to cover housing policy and the mortgage market, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Joe comes to us from Weekend Investor, where he wrote an investing column and features on individual investors and mutual funds. He graduated from Yale and lives in Brooklyn.

Please join us in wishing Rob, Peter and Joe success in their new roles.