Q. There are many times I have been tempted to write to you. However, the exchange between Mr Woodley (president of the Real Estate Institute) and yourself in last weekend's Herald has finally pushed me over the edge.

The issue I wish to address relates to the misconception that real estate agents will negotiate their fee structure.

Earlier this year, I decided to

If there is one thing that haunts stockbrokers' dreams above all else, even more perhaps than an insider trading investigation, it is a prolonged bear market where share prices fall month after month after month.

Customers who find credit cards' costs outweigh their benefits are driving change, writes Rob Stock.

Trans Tasman Properties Limited is set to sell the Finance Centre Complex in central Auckland to St Laurence Property & Finance Limited.

BT gets qualified tick, NZIT manager merges, Perpetual adds new asset class, Auckland house price update.

Trans Tasman Properties executive chairman Don Fletcher doesn't like the word "embattled". It's trotted out regularly in articles about the Auckland-based property investor and Fletcher is tired of it. He maintains the firm is far from "embattled" and is just about where it wants to be.

Activity on the Auckland CBD property market appears to be defying logic with high-rise residential dwellings continuing to proliferate - out of sync with the rest of the country.

It seems at least one of the major banks is taking more than a little notice of the newest player to enter the crowded mortgage market Superbank.

Press Release: Barfoot and Thompson

Almost 3000 more people are in paid employment in the top of the South Island compared with a year ago.

Fund managers were involved in two significant property announcements yesterday. St Laurence Group is set to buy the Finance Centre in Auckland for a little over $100 million and ING completed its Urbus purchase.

The booming construction sector drove the unemployment rate to a 17-year low of 4.0 per cent in the June quarter giving New Zealand the second lowest rate of joblessness in the developed world.

Trans Tasman Properties hopes to quit the former Auckland Star site and the former Finance Centre in Auckland's heart for about $115 million.

With New Zealanders paying $500 million to their credit cards each year in interest payments alone, the convenience of using a credit card is costing cardholders many tens of millions of dollars a year more than it need do.

Q. We recently listed our property for sale with a real estate agent and the agent recommended a sale by auction as we said that we needed a fast sale. The marketing campaign was very negative and the agent disclosed that we wanted a fast sale. We believe that this prejudiced us.

We set a reserve before the auction based on independent valuation advice we had received. At the

Small live-in commercial units are all the rage in East Tamaki where land prices have soared following rapid development in the Botany Downs and Ti Rakau Drive areas.