Times Real Estate Writer Wins 3 Top Contest Prizes

Three of the five top national awards for outstanding real estate news coverage have been won by David W. Myers, Times staff writer, while the Times real estate section again was named as one of the nation’s best.

Myers’ four-part series, describing various ways that cash-strapped buyers can purchase a home, was named both as Best Consumer Report and Best Newspaper Report in the 39th annual National Assn. of Real Estate Editors’ realty journalism competition. The series was published on consecutive Sundays starting May 15, covering sweat-equity projects, equity sharing, buying foreclosures and the use of creative financing.

The series also was named Best Consumer Report in the National Assn. of Realtors’ 24th annual Real Estate Journalism Achievement Competition.

In San Francisco, at the annual NAR convention last week, where awards were announced, contest officials said it was the first time in the history of both competitions that one reporter won three of the top five individual awards in the same year. Myers also won two of them last year.

The NAREE contest attracted a record 147 entries, while the NAR competition drew 300. Judges included journalists, business professionals and academicians from across the country.

The Times real estate section, winner of an unprecedented five “best in the nation” awards in past NAREE contests, won an honorable mention along with the Miami Herald. The first-place prize went to the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Two other individual writing awards were NAREE’s Best Investigative Report--which went to Jane Glenn Haas and Gary Warner of the Orange Country Register for a series on growth control--and NAR’s Best Local News Report, won by Todd Oppenheimer for a story concerning urban sprawl published in The Independent of Durham, N.C.