Q. I am considering buying a commercial property as an investment. The vendor is registered for GST and the property has an existing commercial tenant. Will I have to pay GST on the purchase? Will I have to register for GST? Would this GST treatment be different if I purchased a residential rental property? Is there a capital gains tax if I sell the property?

While mortgages covering 100% of a house’s purchase price are in fashion, particularly given the government’s desire to increase home ownership, one lender is now offering loans covering 102.5% of the purchase price.

What a sick joke the Government's attempts to resolve the leaky building scandal has become. If the recent decision of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service on the Ponsonby Gardens townhouse complex is any precedent, serial leaky building developers like Tim Manning will walk away without paying a cent compensation, but innocent ratepayers like you and me will be in the gun for many millions of dollars.

First-home buyers are being warned to stay out of the housing market as property prices are set to fall.

The Wanaka real estate market appeared to have bounced back from a three-month lull with a "substantial increase in activity" since January, Central Otago Real Estate Institute president Ross Rainsford said yesterday.

Whitianga resident Anne Jones says council planners are missing one important point in their planning for the future. "Where will the working families live?"

When the shower fell through the ceiling, it produced a domino effect for John Gray and fellow owners in the Ponsonby Gardens townhouses. It was February 2000. The 10 buyers had endured a stream of problems virtually since they moved into the Vermont St homes, built by Tim Manning's Taradale Properties in 1995 and 1996.

Credit rating agencies have warned mum and dad investors they are pumping billions of dollars into relatively risky finance companies without enough quality information.

In part one of our two-part series on buying apartments, Catherine Smith consults the experts for tips on buying as a rental investment.

This is the second in a fortnightly series of articles in which we will try to explain family trusts and trading trusts.

I'm not in the market of selling accountants' services - or books, for that matter. But there are a surprising number of tips and tricks that they can offer.

When New Plymouth couple Lynne and Leon Roborgh were looking for a home in Auckland to retire to, Unit 9, Ponsonby Gardens, appealed as an ideal unit to rent until they could move.

The country's biggest city council has cried "enough" on leaky building claims and is searching for an alternative to defending them.

It is easy to picture John Gray walking through the departure gate for his day job, tall and upright in his uniform with that pilot's air of calm control.

Homeowners of the upmarket Bacchus Apartment block at Browns Bay on Auckland's North Shore, have learned the complex is leaking.

One-in-five of us runs out of money before payday and at least two-thirds of us are probably worrying about money right now, new research has found.