Alejandra Rodriguez-Villamizar is a communications specialist, editor, and researcher based in Medellín, Colombia, with experience working at the intersection of investigative journalism, strategic communications, and multimedia storytelling.
She is currently Editorial Consultant at KeyCrew, where she leads and refines editorial processes, and manages and mentors the editorial team. Before this role, Alejandra coordinated multimedia content production and designed impact metrics. She conducted in-depth research on organized crime across Latin American countries, contributing to investigative reports that inform public debate and policy discussions. Her career also includes work in digital strategy and audience engagement at University College London, where she supported the Anthropology Department’s outreach and career initiatives.
Alejandra holds a BA in Communications and Journalism from Universidad EAFIT and an MSc in Politics, Violence and Crime from UCL, graduating with distinction. Her work is grounded in a people-centered approach that combines rigorous research, clear storytelling, and strategic thinking to generate social impact.
Seattle has spent the past several years trying to make it easier to build an accessory dwelling unit. The city’s ADUniverse library of pre-approved backyard-cottage plans can cut permit review time to as little as two to six weeks, down from several months for a fully custom design, and the city has continued loosening zoning ...
For years, the mortgage industry’s affordability conversation has centered on one variable: interest rates. When rates fall, more buyers qualify. When they rise, the pool shrinks. That framework is increasingly incomplete. Rising insurance costs and elevated consumer debt loads, built up over several years of a difficult borrowing and cost-of-living environment, are creating qualification barriers ...
For two weeks earlier this year, 30-year mortgage rates dipped below 6% in the South Bay of Los Angeles. Multiple offers materialized on properties that otherwise would have sat, and homes sold for $50,000 to $100,000 over list price. Then geopolitical conflict pushed oil prices and rates back up, and the market cooled just as ...
For years, lakefront real estate around Anderson, South Carolina ran on a straightforward formula: limited shoreline, steady inbound migration, and prices that moved in one direction. That formula has fractured. Persistent drought, a federal infrastructure decision that will keep Lake Hartwell’s water levels suppressed for up to a decade, and a glut of new construction ...
Homeowners renovating in London still default to a simple metric: square footage added, value gained. But that shorthand is increasingly unreliable. Analysis of London property values shows the amount a given square meter is worth varies sharply across the city, meaning a flat per-square-foot formula fails as soon as it’s applied to a specific street ...
Six months ago, homes in and around Jamestown, New York were moving fast regardless of price. That’s no longer the case. A clear divide has emerged: properties listed under $150,000 are still attracting quick offers, while homes above that threshold, including rural listings with acreage that would have sold rapidly earlier this year, are sitting ...
The Dallas-Fort Worth housing market is sorting transactions along a single axis: pricing accuracy. Properties listed at market value are moving in under two weeks across a wide range of price points, according to Katherine Hubbard, broker at DFW 1% Listings LLC. Properties listed above market value, often by sellers still anchored to the conditions ...
The Austin housing market spent years as one of the hottest in the country. Now sellers accustomed to fielding dozens of offers are adjusting to a market where buyers have leverage and new construction is setting the terms. According to Laura Ivy Blessing, who leads the Blessed Life Group in Austin and has more than ...
The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex has roughly four months of housing inventory, enough to tip conditions firmly in buyers’ favor after the seller-dominated stretch of 2022 and 2023. For first-time buyers, that shift has opened a window that did not exist two years ago: sellers willing to contribute to closing costs, combined with grant-based down payment ...
In a county where land for new construction is increasingly scarce, and supply sits below three months, it might seem like any well-maintained home would sell quickly. But in Orange County, California, a subtler sorting mechanism is separating homes that move in 30 days from those that sit for three months. The difference often comes ...
The Austin metro grew faster than any other major U.S. market from 2010 to 2022, according to Ahmad Homidi, a real estate agent with eXp Realty who focuses on new construction in the North Austin corridor. That pace has slowed, but the development pipeline in the northern and western suburbs has not shut off, and ...
Most people shopping for a home start with a mortgage calculator. They plug in a price, a down payment, and an interest rate, and out comes a monthly payment. In Texas, that number is often wrong, sometimes by hundreds of dollars a month, and buyers don’t find out until they’re already deep into a transaction. ...
It is tempting, when a listing has sat for a few weeks with no offers, to assume the price is wrong. In many markets, that instinct is correct. But in military-dependent markets like Hampton Roads, Virginia, a stale late-summer listing may not be a pricing problem – it may be a calendar problem, according to ...
In the western suburbs of Chicago, homeowners who list above market value, banking on the idea that a motivated buyer will negotiate down, are not just sitting on stale listings. According to Michael Berg, a broker covering DuPage County and parts of Cook County, those overpriced homes function as unpaid marketing for every competitively priced ...
Most first-time buyers in the outskirts of Los Angeles County assume they should wait for mortgage rates to drop before purchasing. But if home prices keep climbing while they wait, the savings on interest get erased by a higher purchase price, and the higher principal balance stays for the life of the loan. Gabriella Godde, ...
