Housing

The Reserve Bank is warning that escalating house prices are placing risks on the New Zealand financial system.

The Government is to place a six-month time limit on councils processing consents for medium-size projects, including housing developments, as part of its push to make homes affordable.

The last thing New Zealand needs is a resurgent housing market, writes Peter Lyons.

The housing market maintained its strong upward trend in February, helped by improving household incomes, low mortgage rates and constrained supply, Westpac said in an analysis of today's real estate data for February.

The net loss of 53 state houses in Otago and Southland over the past three years is a "disgrace", Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei says.

Dunedin property owners are cashing in on a Rugby World Cup accommodation shortage in the city, with homes fetching up to $600 a night.

It is unlikely, even in hilly and chilly Dunedin, a claim could be substantiated for a historic philosophy of house construction based on the position of the sun.

Cold, damp houses have been linked to everything from asthma to depression. Yet many of us will spend this winter in them, perhaps wondering how - with rising petrol and food costs - we will ever afford improvements.