Another consideration might be your down payment. As others have mentioned, you can save the cmhc fees by putting 20% down. More importantly, getting cmhc insurance makes you subject to personal liability. If you lose your house through foreclosure and there is a deficiency, you could be sued personally for any balance owing. For non high ratio mortgages the only recourse is the property. 15% down is close. But if this bothers you, you may want to wait until you have 20% or buy a cheaper house.
The other thing is how much money are you willing to lose? Thinking this isn't an investment because you want to live there is fine. But the reality is that you have to be able to sleep at night knowing you may have large expenses coming your way and knowing the market could cause you to lose your original down payment and in the cmhc case, much more. This market may go down such that you won't see a recovery in your timeline. Lots of people who bought in 2006 are hovering around break even or less. That really freaks some people out and can make life miserable.
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