Auckland house prices remained “severely unaffordable” for the 10th year in a row in the American survey, Demographia, which compares housing costs in nine mainly English-speaking countries. Produced by Wendell Cox, an Illinois-based opponent of urban planning and proponent of private cars over public transport and Christchurch-based urban planner Hugh Pavletich, the Demographia report contends that restrictive urban planning is …

The New Zealand dollar looks likely to fall this week as investors consider how local inflation and housing figures will feed into the Reserve Bank’s interest rate outlook, ahead of next week’s policy review. The local currency may trade between 81.20 US cents and 84.20 cents this week, according to a BusinessDesk survey of six traders and strategists. Four predict …

New Zealand confidence rose in the final quarter of 2013 to its second highest reading in the last two years, but optimism about wage growth slumped to its lowest in 18 months. The Westpac McDermott Milller Employment Confidence Index rose to 103.4 in the fourth quarter from 102.8 from the prior quarter, in the scale where 100 separates optimists from …