@mmmnaked,
I'm not speculating on the fact that interest rates will go up overnight, but, you have to admit, in the last 100 years all recessions have been engineered, so they could. What I didn't mention in my post is that the price of houses has been increasing proportionately to the decrease in interest rates. The interest rates, can't go down another 4% like they have in the last 15 years, otherwise the banks will be paying you to take money. So let's assume they remain constant for the forseable future. The problem is that the gov't has been lowering interest rates to keep the economy moving and 'soften' any speculation of recession. Where this becomes concerning is that people have been overspending at increasing rates causing a necessity for the gov't to lower rates which in turn causes excess spending...
Vicious circle. It's not that the rates will go up that causes the problem, it's that they can't go down. Furthermore, if you lose your house, and the bank can't sell it for a price that will recoup their costs, then you're on the hook for the remainder. Example, buy house for $500k, $400k of which is mortgaged, bank can only sell it for $380k, not only did you lose your $100k downpayment, you still owe the bank another $20k. This isn't the States where you hand in the keys and walk away. I understand that you need to live somewhere, so nominal house prices don't make much difference if you're moving from one house to another, what I wouldn't recommend is buying income properties. For income properties you need the 20% downpayment, that's your money that you can stand to lose and given the fact that interest rates most likely won't go down in the near future like they have in the recent past, the likelyhood of capital gains are diminishing.
Side note, holy hell daycare is expensive in TO.