The Real Deal picks up top honors at Sunshine State Awards

Alleged fraud, foreign buyers and bad behavior among elected officials: The Real Deal’s coverage of these topics won our South Florida reporters top marks at the Sunshine State Awards. 

The Society for Professional Journalists’ annual Florida competition once again honored TRD’s staff with awards for beat reporting, infographics and data visualization, and e-newsletters. 

Reporters Katherine Kallergis and Lidia Dinkova nabbed the highest award in the beat reporting category of housing and real estate for their coverage of alleged fraud among condo and homeowners associations in South Florida. 

Their package of stories included headlines that chronicled massive alleged fraud at Hammocks, South Florida’s biggest HOA, and Star Lakes in north Miami-Dade County, as well as a feature story on the failure of Florida’s lawmakers to stop bad actors from “running amok” among these poorly regulated associations. Contrary to the associations’ purposes — keeping the communities pristine — Kallergis and Dinkova laid out how the lack of oversight has created hotbeds for fraud. 

Florida’s legislature has since looked to beef up regulations. 

Meanwhile, Kallergis paired up with TRD data journalist Adam Farence to win gold for data visualization with their map of where certain foreign buyers would be banned from buying real estate under a bill signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis. The map helped readers understand where foreign nationals from Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, Iran, Korea, Syria and China, as well as corporations based in China, would not be affected. 

The ban limited the purchase of agricultural land, plus real estate within 10 miles of critical infrastructure. Lobbyists backed by major real estate groups pushed back against the law late last year, and part of it was halted by a federal appeals court early this year. 

Finally, Kallergis snagged a gold medal for the Weekly Dirt, her e-newsletter recounting the most important stories in South Florida real estate. Kallergis won for an edition that analyzed a variety of shenanigans by elected officials in the region. For more on that, and to receive the Weekly Dirt in your inbox every weekend, be sure you’re subscribed to The Real Deal and sign up here under “Subscriber Exclusive.” 

Congratulations to our winners!