In early October, Signal Cleveland received an email from Alice Aveshagen, a reporter for the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. The paper was producing a podcast about a Swedish investor who had been duped by a Cleveland real estate company. Aveshagen and her colleague, Daniel Persson Mora, were planning to visit Cleveland in November and were looking for leads to contact local property management companies.
Over the next few months, Signal Cleveland and Swedish journalists shared documents, notes and reporting tips as they pieced together the story of a Swede who had invested in more than 100 rental homes in Cleveland.
Signal Cleveland analyzed hundreds of real estate transactions. We reviewed local housing court records and documents from Swedish cases translated into English. We examined business records in Ohio and Sweden. We reviewed emails to investors, contracts and photos of properties that were sold. We spoke to investors, the owners of two property management companies and the company that sold the homes to the investors, as well as Cleveland residents who live in or near the homes. The owner of the Swedish company that sold the properties to the investors declined to be interviewed.
The result is a series that sheds light on international real estate investment in Cleveland’s neighborhoods.
credit
Reporter: Nick Castell
Data Analysis: April Urban
Editor: Rachel Dissel
Copy edit: Mary Ellen Heusken
Art direction and illustration: Jeff Haines
video: Mark Neimick
Report together: Alice Aveshagen and Daniel Persson-Mora of Sweden
The Svenska Dagbladet series, which includes podcasts and articles, is titled “Husmardrömmar” – “House Nightmares”.
