Thank you for being avid readers of our new newsletter. We received a lot of positive feedback and will continue to provide useful content. This edition is a little different. Instead of a single lesson, we're sharing a full-year media review.

We analyzed most articles published in 2025 about heirs' property to understand who's writing, what they're saying, and what the coverage reveals about the state of awareness of heirs' property in America.

Because the stories told about heirs' property shape the laws, funding, and public understanding that directly affect families like yours. The housing beat has historically not been a prestigious assignment.

THE BIG PICTURE

In 2025, we tracked 93 articles about heirs' property using Google Alerts. These articles appeared in newspapers, magazines, on YouTube, in press releases, and in legal journals, a sign that the issue is gaining traction far beyond specialized legal circles.

But volume alone doesn't tell the full story. Who writes about heirs' property and how they frame it matters just as much as whether they write about it at all.

LESSON OF THE WEEK

We categorized every author by race and gender to understand whose voices dominate the conversation about heirs' property. The results were surprising, and they raise important questions about expertise and representation.

White journalists slightly outnumber Black journalists in covering heirs' property — an issue that disproportionately affects Black families. While representation is more balanced than in many fields, the framing of stories differs significantly by race, as we'll show below.

The "Other POC" category includes Asian, Hispanic, and Middle Eastern authors. The "Not Identified" group is mostly press releases, institutional announcements, and one AI-generated article where individual authorship could not be determined.

Women wrote nearly two-thirds of all heirs' property coverage in 2025 — 39 of 61 articles with identified authors. This likely reflects both the composition of real estate and legal journalism and the fact that women are often the family members navigating heirs' property challenges.

DATA DEEP DIVE

We scored every article's sentiment — Positive, Neutral, Mixed, or Negative — to understand the overall tone of heirs' property coverage. Then we cross-referenced sentiment with author race, and a striking pattern emerged.

On the surface, this looks encouraging — most coverage is positive! But when we break it down by who's writing, a different picture emerges.

This is the most important finding in our analysis. White authors overwhelmingly write about programs, grants, and solutions — the positive side of heirs' property work. Black authors are far more likely to surface the painful realities: forced partition sales, lost family land, predatory speculators, and systemic inequity.

Neither perspective is wrong. But when the majority of coverage skews positive, it can mask the urgency that families on the ground continue to feel. The Black authors writing "Mixed" and "Negative" stories are telling the stories of lawsuits against wrongful tax charges, land loss from Hurricane Katrina, and economic sanctions that crush Black communities.

GEOGRAPHIC COVERAGE

Coverage concentrates in the Deep South, where heirs' property historically has the greatest impact on Black families. Georgia and South Carolina lead the nation, each appearing in 14 articles.

What's Missing?

States in the West, Midwest, and Northeast are largely absent from coverage — even though heirs' property affects families everywhere. Michigan (4 articles) and Delaware (4) are notable exceptions, thanks to targeted programs like the Detroit Heirs' Property Program.

Gullah Geechee communities along the Carolina-Georgia coast received significant attention (7 articles), reflecting both their cultural significance and vulnerability

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DID YOU KNOW?

The overwhelming majority of coverage is standard news reporting — typically written by general assignment journalists, not heirs' property experts. Only 7 op-eds or opinion pieces were published all year, meaning the heirs' property story is being told primarily by reporters parachuting into the topic rather than by people with deep subject matter knowledge.

What this means for you: Be a careful reader. News articles may oversimplify or miss nuance. When you see a headline about heirs' property, look for whether the author consulted legal experts, cited specific legislation like UPHPA, or spoke directly with affected families. Our Mentions data shows that only 4 of 93 articles referenced the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (UPHPA) by name — the single most important legal reform in this space.

THE ECOSYSTEM

We tracked every organization, person, and program mentioned across all 93 articles. The most frequently cited entities reveal where media attention — and resources — concentrate.

Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLB) dominate the funding conversation, reflecting major grants like FHLB Dallas's $4.3 million Pathway Fund and FHLB Indianapolis's partnership with LISC Detroit. USDA and LISC are also prominent players. But notice that UPHPA appears in only 4 articles. The media conversation is skewed toward funding announcements rather than the legal protections families need to know about.

In 2025, the Center for Heirs' Property celebrated its 20th anniversary — twenty years of free legal services, 5,800+ clients served, 400+ cleared titles representing over $30 million in family wealth preserved, and a new Texas expansion into communities where up to a third of all land is tied up in heirs' property.

These are the hidden figures toiling in the knotty soils of America's legal system to keep family real estate in the family. Their 20th year generated one press release in our dataset. No feature. No profile of their CEO. No story about what two decades of this work actually looks like on the ground. Get on their newsletter at heirsproperty.org — and if you're a journalist, this is your call.

WORD OF THE WEEK

The way a news story is structured, who gets quoted, and what context is included (or excluded) — all of which shape how readers understand an issue. In heirs' property coverage, framing determines whether families see themselves as empowered or victimized.

WHO’S MISSING?

The coverage is also missing a broader America. The laws governing inherited co-ownership apply to every family with a home place, and America has many kinds. The family land in the Low Country. The lodge on the reservation. The Craftsman in the Crenshaw. The condo your abuela bought in Humboldt Park before the neighborhood changed. The cabin nobody can agree on in the Montana Rockies. The house in Bronzeville that survived urban renewal. The plantation-era plot still in the family's name on St. Helena.

And here's what the trend pieces on "co-housing" and "intentional communities" miss: heirs' property owners have been doing this for generations. The difference is they didn't choose it as a lifestyle — they built it out of resourcefulness, and they've been navigating its legal complexity largely without support. Not one article in 2025 told that story.

METHODOLOGY

Transparency matters. Here's what you should know about how we built this analysis and its limitations.

Paywall barrier. Some articles are behind a paywall, meaning we could categorize the headline and metadata but couldn't always analyze the full text.

Link rot. Some articles are no longer published or have been removed since we first tracked them.

Google Alerts only. Our source is Google Alerts for the phrase "Heirs' Property." Articles that use different terminology or that Google's algorithm missed are not captured.

English only. All articles are in English and from U.S.-based publications.

Author demographics. Race and gender were determined through author bios, photos, and publicly available information. Some classifications may be imprecise.

Google Alerts misfire. Some results captured by our alert were unrelated to heirs' property — including articles by journalists whose bylines were flagged because they also covered heirs' property topics. These were noted but excluded from thematic analysis.

HEIRSHARES SPOTLIGHT

This media tracker is an ongoing project. In 2026, we plan to continue monitoring coverage, expand our tracking methodology, and publish quarterly reviews so our community stays informed about how heirs' property is being discussed in the press.

Looking for trustworthy guidance on heirs' property? Check out our Help Center — the only resource of its kind dedicated exclusively to heirs' property issues. With dozens of articles written by Mavis Gragg, you'll find clear explanations on everything from deeds and title basics to land use, stewardship, and more.

1. The heirs' property story is growing — 93 articles in one year — but most coverage comes from general news reporters, not experts.

2. Black journalists tell the harder truths about land loss, while White journalists tend to focus on programs and funding. Both perspectives matter.

3. Coverage concentrates in the Deep South. If your state isn't seeing coverage, the issue isn't absent — it's invisible.

4. Only 4 out of 93 articles mentioned UPHPA by name. The most important legal protection for heirs is barely part of the public conversation.

5. Women wrote 64% of the identified coverage. The heirs' property story is disproportionately told by women.