This week the Financial Times reported that “Canada’s housing market exhibits many of the symptoms that preceded disruptive housing downturns in other developed economies, namely overbuilding, overvaluation and excessive household debt.”

These comments made by economist David Madani have been repeated and echoed by a number of other groups, all of whom cite Canada’s low interest rates and large household debt (now 163% of disposable income according to Statistics Canada) as a source of significant danger to the Canadian economy.

This is not a view shared by Robert Kavic of BMO Nesbitt Burns who believes that the Canadian housing market has long legs, saying “Cue the bubble mongers!”

Since 2008 predicting the fall of housing markets has become a popular spectator sport. Canada seems to have sidestepped most of the downturn, which has only made calls for the failing of Canada’s housing markets greater. But the reality is that our housing markets are very hot, and we do have lots of debt.

So is Canada’s housing market heading for a crash? Maybe. And even if it was its hard to know what to do. Fundamentals in Canada’s housing sector remain strong (and have improved). People also want to live in Canadian cities, with 100,000 people moving annually to Toronto alone. In other words, there is lots of demand. In addition regulations in the Canadian financial sector prevent similar scenarios that were seen in the United States, Spain and Ireland from occurring.

But housing prices can’t go up forever, and the more burdensome Canadian debt becomes the more sensitive the Canadian economy will become to interest rate changes. Meanwhile I have grown far more weary of over confident economists assuring the general public that “nothing can go wrong.” 

The big lesson here is probably that your house is a bad financial investment, but a great place to live. Unless you own your home, a house tends to be the bank’s asset and not yours. In addition your home, like your car, needs constant maintenance to retain its value. So if you wanted to buy a house to live in, good for you. If you want to buy a house as an investment my question to you is, “Is this really expensive investment the best investment in a world of financial opportunities?”