McGinn, Daniel

PERSONAL:

Married; three children. Education: Boston College, graduate (magna cum laude); Auburn University, M.B.A.

ADDRESSES:

E-mail—dan@houselustthebook.com.

CAREER:

Journalist. Newsweek, summer intern in New York, NY, 1992, correspondent in New York, NY, 1992-96, business correspondent and bureau chief in Detroit, MI, 1996-99, national business correspondent in Boston, MA, 1999—. Newsweek's Kaplan University/Newsweek M.B.A. program, moderator of online video discussions, 2006—.

MEMBER:

Automotive Press Association, National Association of Real Estate Editors.

WRITINGS:

House Lust: America's Obsession with Our Homes, Doubleday Business (New York, NY), 2008.

Contributor to periodicals, including Wired, Fast Company, and Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.

SIDELIGHTS:

Daniel McGinn is a national correspondent for Newsweek specializing in business reporting. He graduated magna cum laude from Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, and earned an M.B.A. from Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama. He began working for Newsweek as a summer intern in 1992 and remained with the magazine as a correspondent. He was stationed in New York City from 1992 to 1996, was assigned the job of bureau chief in Detroit from 1996 to 1999, and then moved to Boston where he took on the role of national business correspondent. Considered by the industry to be among the best business reporters, McGinn has been honored for his work with awards from the Automotive Press Association and the National Association of Real Estate Editors. In 2006 he became a participant in an online M.B.A. program that is a collaboration between Newsweek and Kaplan University. McGinn is responsible for moderating online video discussions as part of the Distinguished Speaker Series.

McGinn's first book, House Lust: America's Obsession with Our Homes, was published at a time many considered inopportune. Its subject is the real estate boom in America, but its publication date in early 2008 corresponded with the growing crisis in the American housing and mortgage market. Nonetheless, McGinn's account of how humans behave—and the priorities they exhibit regarding the size and decor of their houses and the conveniences and installations they believe they need—is only temporally affected by the market.

As part of his research for House Lust, McGinn tried to absorb himself in a real estate mindset. He went to real estate seminars and builders' shows, slept overnight in a model home, watched real estate television shows, explored real estate Web sites, became an absentee landlord, and spent a weekend training for his real estate license. While much of the book is about the potential of using real estate as an investment or starting a business as a sales agent, it is also about how people satisfy psychological needs with real estate. The book follows not only McGinn's personal adventures, but also the stories of owners, investors, and agents. He examines individuals' needs to expand and add elements to their homes; the human inclination to judge others by the size, condition, and amount of their property; and the psychology of using property to define the self, as well as how those selling real estate tap into that psychology.

Reviews of the book were mixed, with some reviewers unhappy with the tone, saying that it focused too much on rich investors. They especially found fault with McGinn's own real estate investment in a place he did not know, with no intention of becoming involved with the community, and with his lack of thought toward people who cannot afford to buy property. Other critics took the book less seriously and found it to be an amusing portrait of individual property owners and their collective psyche.

A reviewer for Publishers Weekly called House Lust "enjoyable" and praised McGill for his "ability to get inside the actual lives of the housing-obsessed." A reviewer for Kirkus Reviews said McGill "captures the pride and the anguish of those whose stories he tells" and declared the book "a highly readable pastiche of anecdotes that constitutes a snapshot album of 21st-century American life." Carol J. Elsen, in her review in Library Journal, suggested that House Lust contained information relevant to agents and investors, commenting: "This book will make good use of prime real estate in public library business collections." Michelle Archer, however, in her review in USA Today, thought the book remained timely, despite the housing market, because of its exposure of typical human behavior: "House Lust remains relevant in spite of the bust because, by and large, people will never stop jonesing to keep up with the Joneses."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2007, review of House Lust: America's Obsession with Our Homes.

Library Journal, November 15, 2007, Carol J. Elsen, review of House Lust, p. 66.

Publishers Weekly, June 4, 2007, "Sarah Rainone at Doubleday/Currency Has Acquired North American Rights to Newsweek Correspondent Daniel McGinn's House Lust: America's Obsession with Our Homes via Agent Andrew Blauner," p. 8; October 8, 2007, review of House Lust, p. 48.

Reference & Research Book News, May, 2008, review of House Lust.

St. Petersburg Times, March 22, 2008, "House Lust Too Prim and Proper," p. F1.

USA Today, January 21, 2008, Michelle Archer, "Slump Hasn't Curbed House Lust," p. B6.

ONLINE

House Lust Web sitehttp://houselustthebook.com (July 27, 2008).

Kaplan,http://www.kaplan.com/ (July 27, 2008), author profile.

Los Angeles Times,http://www.latimes.com/ (January 5, 2008), Bernadette Murphy, "A Cool Look at America's Heated Obsession with Home."

Newsweek,http://www.newsweek.com/ (July 2, 2008), author profile.

New York Times,http://www.nytimes.com/ (February 3, 2008), Alexandra Jacobs, review of House Lust.

San Francisco Chronicle,http://www.sfgate.com/ (December 23, 2007), Sheerly Avni, "Home, Sweet, Overpriced Home: Country's Housing Craze Comes under Scrutiny in House Lust."