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.

Most people in New Zealand have negligible net assets and less than $10,000 cash in the bank, according to an independent analysis of government data.

Auckland's rate of house sales has fallen to the lowest level since the Global Financial Crisis, real estate agency Barfoot & Thompson says. Sales numbers in April were down by a third compared to the average of the previous three months. There were 664 sales in April, compared to 1110 in March and 944 in April 2016. Often, a drop in sales numbers is a precursor to a fall in prices. But Barfoot & Thompson managing director Peter Thompson said the slowdown had not yet had an impact on prices. "The median sales price at $850,000 for the month was down only $5500 on the average median price for the previous three months," he said. "The same trend was there around the average price, which at $917,079 was down only $25,000 on the average for the previous three months. "While prices have declined from March's all-time record highs, the fall relative to the average for the first quarter of this year is modest, and on a year-on-year basis the median price is up 3.7 per cent and the average price is up 5 per cent." But Thompson said the market had changed. "You have to go back nine years to find an April in which fewer homes were sold. Buyers are being far more selective, are taking their time over committing and are only prepared to pay the market price. "Vendors are not lowering their price expectations significantly but are accepting that to achieve an above-market sales price in the current climate their house has to be special." There were 192 new listings in April. The drop in sales numbers was felt across all price rungs, Thompson said. More than a third of sales were for more than $1 million and 6 per cent under $500,000.