Construction helped to boost the Auckland economy by 2.6 per cent during the March year but unemployment is still high and wage growth remains stagnant.

Changes are afoot at Mt Wellington's new 107-unit Thompson Park housing estate after the former main lender was replaced some weeks ago.

Up to 600 new apartments, townhouses and duplexes in 17 blocks, six to nine levels high, are planned in the now open areas around Wynyard Quarter.

Prime Minister John Key has announced a $212 million roading and construction package in a bid to shoreup National's vote in regional New Zealand for the election.

Propelled by the construction sector, the economy kept expanding at a brisk clip in the March quarter.

An aerial image of Unitec's ambitious plans for its 53ha Mt Albert campus show dozens of apartments and townhouses squeezed onto its site.

The giant tunnel boring machine Alice has reached halfway on the first leg of her long journey underground at Auckland's Waterview Connection project.

Claims about anti-competitive practices in New Zealand's plasterboard market have been added to by a former Christchurch building sector worker who says he has first-hand experience of it.

The French elite may scorn McDonald's for what they see as an economic and gastronomic horror in the same bun, but citizens in a town in northern France have taken to the streets to demand a branch of the US fast food chain.

The Commerce Commission is so concerned about construction industry cartels, price-fixing and bid-rigging that it has launched a website calling for whistleblowers.

Almost three-quarters of owners of new homes had to call their builder back to fix something, a new survey says.

Building supply merchants are reluctant to stock products of Winstone Wallboards' rivals and are squeezing alternative goods.

A property developer Tony Gapes will be back in control of one of NZ's most intensive affordable housing projects if he settles a debt within 20 days.

If your roof is leaking, your furnace is broken or you need a new gas fire installed, you may have to wait for a tradesperson.

Carter Holt Harvey, which sold its pulp, paper and packaging businesses last month, more than tripled gross margins at its Australian building supplies in 2013.

Sometimes, good fortune arrives disguised as disaster. That's what happened on Karangahape Rd in central Auckland.

Australian housing construction approvals have dipped in the past couple of months, but are still at 19-year highs.

Building consents for residential housing rose to a six-and-a-half year high in March, snapping two months of decline.

Shipping containers are being put to new uses in Auckland, as builders make inroads on two prominent city sites.

A big new Takapuna beachfront development started a few weeks ago has left an Auckland councillor unimpressed

Editorial: Inevitably, there will be opposition to the demolition of Auckland's Civic Building. Some see the Aotea Square structure as one of the country's finest modernist buildings.

Alice the tunnel-boring machine sometimes seems to work at its own pace.

A real estate agency boss has backed a call this week by finance minister Bill English to relax rules designed to stamp out so-called "shoebox apartments".

It's costing $1.4b and by 2017 should help give drivers from Manukau to Albany with an alternative to SH1 and the harbour bridge. So how's it going?

Finance Minister Bill English has hinted at changes in the Budget to make it easier for housing developers to build smaller and cheaper.