Insurance firm Tower has posted an annual loss as it prepares for more expensive claims from the Canterbury spate of earthquakes, but raised its dividend payout.

The $30 billion New Zealand Superannuation Fund is the best performing sovereign wealth fund over the past five years, generating returns of more than 17 per cent a year.

Real estate agents may get a hard time, but a recent survey of consumer satisfaction has found Kiwis hold a high degree of satisfaction with their agents.

A bill to stop foreign buyers investing in New Zealand housing has been picked from the members' ballot to be introduced to parliament.

Goodman Property Trust, New Zealand's largest listed property investor, posted a 20 per cent drop in first-half profit, after the year-earlier period was boosted by a revaluation gain on its portfolio.

It's no angel but Auckland's 'halo effect' has blessed the property market with roaring sales, well ahead of national figures and housing stocks back to sustainable levels.

A note on the door of the closed GJ Gardner South Canterbury offices in Timaru. The company went into voluntary liquidation on Monday. The company which holds the GJ Gardner Homes Mid and South Canterbury franchise is in voluntary liquidation.

Restricting the size of a mortgage to a multiple of a homeowner's income proposed by Treasury would hinder, not help, the Auckland housing market the Property Institute says. Ashley Church, chief executive of the institute, said debt-to-income mortgage restrictions could lead to an artificial boom in apartments and could cut first-home buyers even more greatly out of the market if they were introduced.

Fletcher Building's construction unit has won the $NZ477 million ($A446.59 million) contract to build SkyCity's national convention centre, five-star hotel and associated infrastructure in Auckland.

A crash in the Auckland housing market is one of the biggest risks to New Zealand's economy over the next few years, Finance Minister Bill English says. Speaking to a community housing sector conference in Wellington on Friday, Mr English said a fall in house prices would cause problems and he's worried Auckland will follow the same track as "pretty much every other housing market" where prices have gone up year on year.