The Toronto Sun reports from Canada. "The cost of carrying a home hit highs not seen since 1990 -- when a real estate bubble burst -- the price pressure will ease as our hot real estate market cools off, house price gains shrink and mortgage rates drop. Still, no one's talking crash, 1989-style. Real estate has been on a roll for the past decade, enjoying record growth, which is why affordability is getting further and further out of reach."

"The latest housing affordability numbers by RBC Economics show that affordability in the final quarter of 2007 deteriorated everywhere in this country, except Alberta, where a cooling off of a feverish market is already under way."

"In Toronto, where the market is now showing signs of a slowdown, it took 53% of pre-tax income to carry the cost of a standard two-storey home, priced at $476,000. That's $3,089 a month to pay the mortgage, utilities and property taxes."

"Vancouver, meanwhile, it still the most expensive place to own a home, with a detached bungalow eating up a whopping 74% of pre-tax income in the final quarter of 2007 -- much higher than the 63.1% Toronto's market cost in 1989, when the bubble burst."

"Calgary took 42% of pre-tax income, Montreal 37% and Ottawa 32%."

The Gazette. "Housing affordability fell across the country in 2007, to end the year at its lowest level since 1990, said the report's author, Derek Holt, assistant chief economist at Royal Bank of Canada."

"'Back then, soaring interest rates and a recession sparked much of the trouble,' he said. 'Today, a long upward trend in house prices, driven by sounder macroeconomic fundamentals, like job growth, is primarily responsible for the deterioration in affordability.'"

"A series of winter storms brought record or near-record snowfall levels to Toronto and other major markets in Central and Eastern Canada, prompting many potential buyers to stay indoors. The number of listings on CREA's multiple listings service dipped by 2.8 percent, to 50,405 units, but was still the third-highest on record."

"Average home prices climbed 5.3 percent year-over-year to C$327,477, the smallest such jump since November 2004."

From The Star. "While prices have not slipped in Ontario, economists are worried that the housing market in this province could follow the lead of the beleaguered U.S. market. By the end of 2007, the annual pace of income growth was the slowest among provinces, which was one of the factors that led to the deterioration in affordability, the bank report said."

"'The province may well be teetering on the brink of recession and by a number of measures is nowhere near as resilient as first thought,' Holt wrote."

"The Canadian Real Estate Association said sales activity will fall short of last year's record with new listings to increase, a more balanced market and smaller price gains throughout Canada."

"'With the further slide in February, Canadian home sales are now firmly below year-ago levels,' BMO Nesbitt Burns deputy chief economist Doug Porter said yesterday. 'This is another sign the Great White North's housing boom is grinding to a finish.'"

The Calgary Herald. "RBC said affordability in Alberta appears to have peaked about midway through last year. Healthy income gains (five per cent year-over-year in the final quarter of 2007) and declining house prices led to overall affordability improvements for new homeowners trying to 'tap into the overvalued Alberta market.'"

"'This marks the first time in over three years that the market has witnessed a broad-based affordability improvement across all home segments,' said the RBC report. 'This also marks the start of what we fear could become a trend. All of the key housing measures are in contraction mode right now including house prices, housing starts and resale activity.'"

"The sales-to-new listings ratio has swung dramatically from deep seller's territory into a more balanced state and has remained in steady balance for the last six months. The report said the price of the benchmark two-storey home is still 63 per cent higher than two years ago, 'and one quarter does not make a trend,' but the year-over-year pace of price gains has gone from about 50 per cent a year ago to 11 per cent today."

"A report released Friday by the Canadian Real Estate Association said February MLS residential sales in Calgary dropped by 35.4 per cent compared with a year ago to 2,162 units while the average sale price increased by 5.5 per cent to $415,017. New listings for the month were 5,182, an increase of 38.9 per cent from February 2007."

"The RBC report is a continuation of a trend Calgary has been seeing since last summer with price moderations, said Todd Hirsch, senior economist at ATB Financial."

"'A lot of it is because of much more inventory coming onto the market. There's more supply,' he said. 'The more supply is largely driven by when those housing prices get driven up people might want to throw their house on the market just to see what they might be able to get.'"

"Hirsch said demand has also softened for housing because fewer people are moving here. 'Also, I think there's a lot of people who aren't in the market just because they're so priced out of the market so they're not even looking or they're not even out there checking out prices.'"

"During the fourth quarter of 2007, condo prices grew nationally by 11.5 per cent during the same period, fuelled by a whopping 58 per cent hike in Saskatchewan."

"'I think Saskatchewan, in a lot of ways, is becoming the new Alberta,' Holt said."

"'We knew that 50 per cent, year-over-year price increases weren't sustainable,' Holt said of the Alberta housing market. During 2007, the hot Alberta housing market went through a correction. The question remains: how far will the pendulum swing the other way on housing prices."

"'We're putting Alberta on watch,' RBC economist Jimmy Jean said. 'The question is whether it will correct itself more severely in the following quarters. It's really an area of concern.'"

The Vancouver Sun. "Covering the cost of a standard, 1,500-square-foot two-storey Metro Vancouver house worth $648,592 would take 79.2 per cent of the region's median pre-tax household income, according to RBC."

"The catch is that no family making a median income -- about $59,000 for Vancouver -- would qualify for a mortgage on that house. At that income, even most condos in Metro are out of reach."

"'Affordability did continue to deteriorate in the final quarter of 2007,' RBC economist Amy Goldbloom said."

"Goldbloom added that RBC's forecast is for incomes to grow 'at a fairly healthy pace, but still lagging the pace of house-price gains, which is always concerning. You do need these fundamentals to keep up.'"

From CBC.ca. "Matt Ramsey and his partner Euphemia Redden said they paid more than $300,000 for a 1,000-square-foot condominium in suburban North Vancouver. 'The only way we could have done it is with help from my dad to pay off my students loans, which we are so grateful for,' said Redden."

"'But if that hadn't happened we would still be renting,' she said."

"Once upon a time, Garth Turner told a Toronto real estate industry luncheon that the local property-buying frenzy and soaring prices were doomed. Arguing that average families could no longer afford average house prices, he declared a correction inevitable, if not at hand."

"It was 1987, and for his bluntness, the then-business editor of the Toronto Sun was pelted with buns. Twenty-one years later, Turner is predicting another crash."

"But try to find a respected Canadian economist who buys into Turner's pessimism. People at the University of Toronto's economics department, the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario and University of British Columbia's Centre for Urban Economics and Real Estate couldn't find one for us."

"'I think you will have a very tough time finding any economists who agree with Turner on this,' says Tsur Somerville of UBC."

"Turner cites recent reports that personal debt levels in Canada are at record highs and savings rates at record lows, leaving many short on options should hard times hit."

"His scenario gets scarier, if you fear that manufacturing jobs are in danger due to the strong Canadian dollar and the likelihood the U.S. will slip into recession."

"He claims that suburban trophy houses in some areas of the GTA are lingering on the market and falling in value. He says the collapse will be widespread and long-lasting, in part because boomers will flood the market with houses to finance their retirements – especially since so few employees outside the public sector have much in the way of pension prospects."

"'An anti-real estate mood has swept America. Within months it will be here,' he declares."

The Globe an Mail. "'You'd have to be an idiot to buy right now in Vancouver,' is the conclusion Mitchell Purdy, 25, has come to after nine fruitless months of condo searching with his girlfriend."

"Mr. Purdy had been looking for a two-bedroom condo in a fairly central location. Of the 70 resale units he considered, all were priced well above $400,000. The two units they bid on ended up with multiple offers which vaulted their sale prices up by around $40,000 apiece."

"'I've pulled out of the market in the past six to nine months for obvious reasons...,' Mr. Purdy said. 'It was stressful, aggravating and very frustrating.'"

"Unwilling to move to the suburbs or to squeeze into a shoebox studio apartment, the couple has decided to keep renting and store away a nest egg until the time is right to buy. 'I'll wait to see if prices really cool down,' Mr. Purdy said."

"'In Vancouver ... you know it is not the typical man or woman on the street that is buying a house,' said Holt, co-author of the report."

"Frustrated and anxious, Claire Munroe and Josh Alter, both 27, have been left waiting for answers after the builder they bought their Vancouver condo from two years ago walked away from the project last week."

"Citing soaring labour and construction costs, The Eden Group of Companies has placed the condo project into receivership."

"Ms. Munroe and Mr. Alter, who only learned of their predicament through a reporter, are now part of a group of pre-sale buyers anxious to hear the fate of the 81-unit Sophia building on Vancouver's East Side."

"'First we were in shock, then frustrated we had been left in the dark, and now we're just in limbo,' said Ms. Munroe, who bought a 676-square-foot, one-bedroom condo for $336,900 with her boyfriend in March 2006."

"The couple have been left wondering whether they'll have to pay more for their unit or be handed back their deposit and have to start all over again. 'This is our first place together, we were shopping for things and excited — and that's abruptly come to a finish,' she said."

"Ms. Munroe and Mr. Alter are also second-guessing the research they did ahead of the purchase, and wondering whether there's a lesson to be learned in their misfortune for others clamouring to buy in the city's overheated condo market."

"Buyers at the Sophia will probably face a top-up payment to see the building, which is 85 per cent finished, through to completion, says Peter Simpson, chief executive of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders' Association. A rough estimate that it will cost an additional $2-million would mean almost $25,000 more per buyer, not taking into account the different size of their units."

"If this happens, Ms. Munroe and Mr. Alter will have to pony up the extra cost, an unbudgeted-for expense they say they're willing to pay to get their condo."

"'Apparently [developer] Bill Eden has said he felt we were lucky people — that we can still make a profit because the market has gone up. We don't feel very lucky,' Ms. Munroe says."