You did it wrong . If you ' d bought property 5 or ten years ago in Vancouver or Toronto , it would have doubled or tripled in value by now . But you down payment would have only been 10 %, so the return on your investment of that down payment would actually be 10002000 %. Now you ' re here waiting for the bubble to burst . Well guess what if the real estate bubble bursts and prices drop 30 % on average like they did in the states , that barely erases two years worth of gains in the hot markets . And guess what happens to Canada ' s economy ? Down the drain , stock market crashes , millions of lost jobs , maybe yours . Wage stagnation , loss of tax revenue , forced austerity , cuts to education and health care , decrease in health care quality and wait times , cancelled infrastructure projects , crime rates would rise . And what are you going to do scoop up all the properties at bargain basement prices ? Unless you have a few hundred thousand or million in cash banks will be very leery about lending when people are losing their jobs and defaulting left and right . Because you might too . No , you played the game wrong . You should have ridden the wave . Now you ' re waiting for a crash that may never happen , prices might just level out and stagnate . But you don ' t appreciate how much a major real estate crash would affect your life .