Real LI

When a diner at Besito in Roslyn asked about the hullabaloo inside the restaurant last night, he had this to say when told that it was a panel on real estate.

"They better take out their hankerchiefs."

Yet many of the North Shore agents from Prudential Douglas Elliman who attended the event reported that sales are up in their tony territories. "We are selling," said Nahid Akins, executive director of Prudential's North Shore Group/Great Neck. "Houses are moving if the price is right."

The party was actually a meet-the-press event with reporters from The New York Times, Long Island Business News, Anton Community Newspapers and Newsday. (That's yours truly in the royal blue.)

Ron Roel, former Newsday and now head of Roel Resources, real estate editor; Valerie Cotsalas of The New York Times; Valerie Kellogg, Newsday shelter editor; Denise Nash and Angela Anton of Anton Community Newspapers; photo by Richard Lewin

Ellen Yan has worked at Newsday since 1990, covering distant, local and even odd issues, from abortion bombings to the Nassau search for a lost dog by Wonderbread and soda delivery drivers.

Half her Newsday stint has been spent writing Long Island issues, including environment, towns and law enforcement. Her editors sent her to Israel to cover the 1996 prime minister election, just in case there was a lot of terrorism, and she was practically a Florida resident in 2000 but avoided paying taxes there while covering Cuban boy refugee Elian and the controversial presidential election. Her story on the Suffolk medical examiner’s job after the TWA Flight 800 crash was part of Newsday’s 1996 Pulitzer Prize package for spot news reporting.

Recently, she’s moved from one tumultuous beat to the next – anthrax, impeachment, fatal shootings on Capitol Hill; historic revamp of New York City schools; Medicare’s new drug program for seniors; and mortgages and real estate since summer 2007.

Past jobs include Los Angeles Times, NASA, ABC in Washington, D.C., and child labor under parental law. She graduated with a B.S. from the University of Maryland.

If she didn’t have to work, she’d be traveling around the world, reading manga, watching anime, volunteering for animal causes and dreaming about jetting across the universe in her spaceship.

She can be reached at ellen.yan@newsday.com.

I'm Tami Luhby and I cover personal finance for Newsday. After writing about topics such as taxes, 401(k)s and student loans for six years, I've now added mortgages to the mix.

In this blog, I hope to give you useful information on obtaining a mortgage, handling the monthly bill or finding help if the payments have just become too much to bear. Also, I'll post any interesting Long Island housing-related tidbits I come across.

When not at Newsday, I teach at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and do marathons/triathlons with my husband.

If you have any ideas, questions or tips for the blog, let me know at luhby@newsday.com.

After a decade in the music industry, Laura decided to change course and pursue a career in news research. She has been with Newsday for almost twelve years as a librarian and news researcher, where she helped with background for daily stories and special projects, including the year-long "Our Natural World" project and book that explored Long Island’s natural resources and environment. She is past president of the Special Libraries Association's Long Island chapter and member of the organization's News Division.

For the past year, Laura has written the Rich Cribs column, as well as Real Estate section's buying and selling tips.

Write to her at laura.mann@newsday.com.

Valerie Kellogg fell in love with real estate when she bought her first home in 2004. Monitoring the real estate ads and checking out open houses soon became an addiction. The housing gods smiled down when she got offered the job of Newsday's shelter editor in early 2006, overseeing the real estate, home, garden and At Home quarterly magazine. She had been at Newsday since 2000, editing the opinion pages, as well as the advice, faith, parenting and technology sections.

A 1994 graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Valerie has worked at CBS (where she helped launch cbsnewyork.com), the Long Island Voice and the Bridgewater (N.J.) Courier-News. She teaches journalism part time at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, which she attended on a full scholarship package. She grew up in East Northport.

Valerie lives in Huntington (in a house she bought in 2006) with her husband, Richard T. McKenna, and son, Harrison.

Write to Valerie at kellogg@newsday.com with story tips, feedback (good and bad) or interesting properties.