A weakening recovery and the Christchurch earthquake have prompted the Reserve Bank to leave official interest rates on hold this morning at 3 per cent.

Kiwibank accounted for 40 per cent of new residential mortgages written by the major banks in the June quarter.

Finance Minister Bill English has asked banks and the Inland Revenue Department to be flexible with Christchurch earthquake victims.

The average NZer is spending $45 less a week than before the recession in a bid to wipe out debt and inject equity into their homes.

A right-wing Super City candidate must pay a finance company more than $70,000 after a judge ruled that she misled it by not revealing a debt.

ASB has announced it will be the first major NZ bank to offer asset rich but cash poor customers reverse equity mortgages.

Credit crunch has changed the landscape for residential building, writes Kevin Atkinson

Equities on Wall Street and across Europe fell after a US home sales fell a record 27 per cent in July.

A report prepared by business researcher Infometrics is predicting house prices will fall 4.1 per cent by next June.

The first of the big banks has hiked its floating mortgage rate after the Reserve lifted the Official Cash Rate by 0.25 per cent last week.

A banker at the centre of an alleged multimillion-dollar mortgage fraud has been ordered to pay nearly $1.3m in damages to his ex-employer.

While increasing the OCR this morning, Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard has indicated that future hikes won't be as aggressive as earlier tipped.

It's clear the economy has become dependent on the debt growth fuelled by the housing market's ever-increasing values.

New Zealand home loan affordability worsened slightly in June from May as the median house price nudged up faster than incomes.

NZers will look back on the winter of 2010 as the moment we finally realised the last decade of growth was a sham.