Avondale is going to get the highest number of homes under the first phase of a government-run social housing programme.

Investment bank Goldman Sachs says there is a 40 per cent chance New Zealand will suffer a housing market "bust" in the next two years.

Liquidators have sold a residential subdivision property at Rolleston near Christchurch for $14.5 million. Sean Rota, owner of the failed FCL Holdings, commissioned public relations spokeswoman and former National Party president Michelle Boag to issue a media release saying: "Rota had placed the company into voluntary liquidation to enforce the contracts for sale and purchase with the vendors.

Goldman Sachs warns of a "bust" in New Zealand housing prices, but a 5 per cent reduction would actually be a "reasonable adjustment", says Prime Minister Bill English. The US investment bank said there was a 40 per cent chance New Zealand will suffer a housing market bust in the next two years, meaning prices would fall 5 per cent or more. However, English said some prices in Auckland had already fallen by that much over the last nine months.

A "frenzied" housing hype appears to have died down around the Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes region.

John Hill bitterly foresees the eight-storey apartment block being built right next to his Auckland property as a "slum of the future".

They are expensive, allegedly inefficient and may not deliver the outcome you want. The stubborn popularity of real estate agents has puzzled economists for years. Why, when the internet has hurt car dealers and travel agents, has it not taken more of a bite from the real estate industry?

Auckland property speculators are netting huge capital gains through buying and selling property in quick succession. New figures from homes.co.nz show that property investors are making an average capital gain of $1600 per day through a practice known as house flipping.

Is the promise of a hassle-free, quick home sale too good to be true? Private home-buying companies are doorknocking desirable neighbourhoods and making owners quick sale offers, but consumer advocates warn homeowners against accepting what seems like a good price without doing their homework.

Waterfront properties are still marketed as desirable but rising sea-levels may render thousands of them uninsurable, sending their values into freefall and resulting in fiscal risks for banks and the government, writes Lynn Grieveson.