Mortgage payments for Auckland's most affordable homes are costing first-time buyers nearly half their take-home pay each week, a new report shows.

Auckland Council is chasing unpaid rates of $300,595.02 on eight properties and court action has begun to result in forced sales.

A sprawling lakefront property where former Takapuna mayor Fred Thomas and his wife, Mary, raised their nine children is for sale by tender.

The High Court has ruled that an Auckland North Shore property at 2/57 Northboro Rd, Belmont must be sold because of $59,393 unpaid rates.

If the likes of the Salvation Army cannot afford to buy cut-price state houses, it seems improbable that any other social services agency is in a position to do so.

One in five Auckland properties have sold under the hammer for more than $1 million and only two of 55 properties were sold for less than $500,000 last week.

This week, Finance Minister Bill English was dealt a blow by the Salvation Army, which rejected his suggestion it buy Housing New Zealand stock.

A set of four run-down pensioner flats have been spruced up in a $350,000 renovation which is expected to attract first-home buyers.

A real estate agent who left a vendor liable for a second commission while pocketing a $47,500 fee from a buyer has been found guilty of misconduct.

Three houses being renovated on TV One's Our First Home won't go anywhere near the $1 million mark each when they are auctioned next month, an investment expert believes.

Waiheke's biggest landowner is challenging zoning classifications on parts of its holdings on the island's eastern tip in the Stony Batter Historic Reserve war fortifications vicinity.

One of Auckland's most spectacular penthouses - but one with a litigious history - is for sale 16 months after the luxury pad was last bought, fetching $4.7 million.

Facing huge bills to fix their leaky houses, more homeowners have joined the new $100 million-plus leaky home class action.

Councils may soon face private sector competition for issuing building consents again, as part of a Government drive to make housing more affordable.

A two-bedroom entry-level home in Mt Wellington drew an unprecedented 21 offers as desperate first-home buyers battle to break into Auckland's heated property market.

New Zealand has zero affordable housing markets, according to the '11th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey'.

Shopping around for a mortgage could save New Zealanders up to $28,500 over the lifetime of a loan, according to a new survey of home lending.

Housing starts plummeted in February as plunging temperatures and snow became the latest hurdles for an industry struggling to recover.

Gay Johnson spent $600,000 fixing her leaking Castor Bay house so she joined a new $100 million legal action to fight for compensation.

Former high-flying multibillion-dollar developer Nigel McKenna is working on Auckland's big state house overhaul.

Politicians have looked at Reserve Bank Governor Graeme Wheeler as if he was a potential arsonist in the Auckland housing market, writes Bernard Hickey.

Selling up to rent could leave you high and dry if prices firm and you want to get back into the market, writes Mary Holm.

Jim Cleland has performed makeshift surgery on his Great Barrier Island dining room table, but now it's time to sell the $2m holiday home.

If you judged by house price growth alone you would think Auckland is the best performing region in NZ economically. But not by a long chalk.

It's valued at more than $1.5 million and situated in the sought-after Grammar zone - and it could be all yours for just $1. But there's a catch.

The country's most expensive state house is being sold to local iwi, almost three years after a tenant was turfed out for benefit fraud.

More properties were sold last month than during any February since the last property boom of 2007, latest figures from the REINZ show.