In 2007, Appelbaum was part of a team of reporters at The Charlotte Observer who helped shed light on the area's high rate of housing foreclosures and questionable sales practices by Beazer Homes USA, one of the United States' largest homebuilders.

A profile of his reporting on the subprime mortgage crisis described how in the early phases of the Great Recession Appelbaum "noticed a strange pattern while compiling a list of foreclosed homes in North Carolina’s Mecklenburg County—clusters were concentrated in new developments.

[6] The Observer′s series led to investigations of Beazer Homes by the FBI, IRS, SEC, and HUD.

[7][8][9] Floyd Norris of The New York Times wrote in 2008 how the Observer series likely brought an end to some of Beazer's practices.

[14][15] According to the publisher's summary, Applebaum's book "traces the rise of the economists, first in the United States and then around the globe, as their ideas reshaped the modern world, curbing government, unleashing corporations and hastening globalization.