[Sylvanfan]

Well lets face it in the U.S. there is pretty much zero incentive to ever own a house. You get to write off the mortgage interest so people kept pushing and pushing to borrow against their house. In Calgary most people have bought their house as a place to live and with the way Canadian tax laws and mortgage lending work most people aren't paying 65% of their wages to service debt and houses are like a forced savings vehichle. Anyone who bought their house for the purpose of having a place to live and intends to be in the city for a few more years will be fine. They may not make big money, but over a 5-7 year period they'll come out ahead than if they'd rented.

The people getting burned are investors who held the idea that houses always go up no matter what and that the trends of the past 5 years had to apply to the next 5 and bought second property's thinking they'd flip them for 100k without ever making a payment on them type of thing. Unless you are really well versed and know what you're doing....playing with borrowed money in the investment market is a dangerous thing. Always has been always will be. But with the risk does come potential reward.