The council has promised to cap rates rises at 10 per cent, but some confused residents have seen their bills leap by almost twice that.

Most first-home buyers will find the Government's new plan to ease their burden less compelling than Labour's plan to build 10,000 affordable houses.

House prices dipped last month, says the Real Estate Institute, but the number of properties changing hands was up more than 10 per cent from the month before.

House price inflation creates no new output and few jobs. It consigns young first-home buyers to a life of debt servitude, writes Peter Lyons.

Expectations that house prices will rise remain at very high levels last seen in 2003 at the outset of the mid-2000s boom.

Aucklanders' rates bills have arrived in letterboxes and the figures have come as a shock to some homeowers who have seen rises of 10 per cent.

A newborn baby and now for the first home - except things are not so straightforward in Auckland's heated property market.

Ali and Casey Williams are getting ready to sell their Westmere home before heading to France.

Christchurch and Auckland property prices still increasing as regions slow over winter, figures show.

The Auckland Council has a team of 40 people assembled and 110 potential sites to fast-track the construction of 39,000 new homes in the city over three years.

Single dad Tommy Sutton has looked at about 10 rental properties in two weeks in South Auckland but all have been out of his price range.

Housing New Zealand says its heritage Symonds St Flats in central Auckland have leaks and all 34 tenants must leave to allow repairs or refurbishment.

A High Court battle looms after property developers linked to a string of liquidated companies invoked a little-known clause to get out of an agreement to sell newly-builthomes.

It's hard to see how freeing up some land and leaving it to the market will realistically address either housing affordability or lack of supply, writes Brian Rudman.

Asking prices for houses have skyrocketed to an all-time high in New Zealand.

It won't create a single new home, which is the crux of the crisis facing the country's two biggest cities, writes Brian Rudman.

Plans by the Labour Party to exclude foreign buyers from the housing market have sparked more calls for restrictions and warnings about the risk of damaging the country's relationships with its major trading partners.

Editorial: If foreign restrictions will help first-home seekers - and we should be sure of that first - they could be one of many policy levers used.

Westpac has launched a service allowing family members to help first-home buyers into properties.

Prime Minister John Key says Labour's new housing policy smacks of desperation by leader David Shearer.

Labour's housing policy to restrict house sales to foreigners could be at odds with New Zealand's Free Trade Agreement with China.

A law change to allow the Government to override councils in order to free up land for housing developments was opposed by a slim majority of New Zealanders surveyed.

Labour leader David Shearer says he "makes no apologies" for his party's proposal to exclude all offshore buyers from the New Zealand housing market.

It's risky policy for a liberal, left-of-centre party because it leaves them open to accusations of xenophobia, writes Liam Dann.

Ponsonby chartered accountant Hongying Qiu was in and out of 11 Farrar St in Grey Lynn within 10 minutes yesterday afternoon.

A rented house has been demolished and a layer of topsoil removed from its section because the property was so badly contaminated by a secret P lab.

A home that was supposed to be a retirement dream has become a fast-tightening noose around its owner's neck, after he has become trapped in a rare situation where he must move - but can't sell.

The Reserve Bank governor has kept the official cash rate at 2.5 per cent, though he'll mull a hike if the momentum in housing spurs broader inflation.