As we get ready to ring in another new year, on behalf of all of us at HousingWire, I wanted to take a minute to thank our readers for continuing to support what we do here.
As the leading independent national media outlet covering the entirety of U.S. housing finance — lending, servicing, investments, policy, politics, economics, financial markets and more — it's because of you that we continue to succeed and grow.
Site traffic at HousingWire.com this year has continued to increase substantially during 2013, which tells me we're on the right track with many of the changes we've been making: a new website, new departments, a new industry stock index — and, starting in January, completely revamped content in our monthly magazine.
Our mission since I first began writing HousingWire (as a blog more, than six years ago!) remains as simple now as it was then: move the markets we serve forward. Visitors to HW's offices, along with all HW staffers, know our mission well: after all, it's the very first thing you'll see emblazoned on a glass wall when you first walk into our reception area.
Being a decidedly pro-business media outlet is a unique and sometimes controversial position to stake out across the broader financial markets. It means we don't cater to existing industry interests or specific companies: we look holistically at the entire market, and try our best to ensure that the news and information we provide is able to drive better, more informed decision-making for the millions of professionals that are connected to U.S. residential housing and finance.
I like to say that moving markets forward means getting past the party line and understanding the bottom line, and I think HW does that better than any media outlet in the industry today.
Our approach means we've been able to break more than our fair share of major news stories over the years — and this year was no different.
Of the top 25 major stories that moved markets this year, HousingWire led all industry media outlets by breaking those stories first — on each and every one of the 25 stories! In many cases, we weren't ahead of competing trade media by hours. We were ahead by days and sometimes, as hard as it seems to believe, even weeks ahead.
This level of commitment always offers a strong value proposition to HW readers, but even moreso during times of uncertainty and upheaval. And in 2014, we're going to be stepping up our game in this area even more, precisely because the market is entering what we see as a nearly unprecedented period of change. We'll be ready to help you make sense of it all.
We're grateful to those of you who look to HW to set the agenda for what's newsworthy within the various sides of the U.S. residential mortgage industry, from lending to investments, to mortgage servicing and real estate. And for those of you who have been reading HW since I first began writing it years ago, I can't thank you enough.
Happy New Year, and here's to moving forward in your business in 2014!
