You, perhaps like me on Tuesday read the headlines and wondered what the heck was happening in the real estate world again.

For me personally, I woke up at the usual time, flicked on CBC news and watched as I was told that a real estate bubble was about to burst! Intrigued to find out just what real estate bubble we were talking about I tuned in a little longer to hear that Canadians are in a desperate situation. Here was me foolishly thinking that most of us were starting to get to grips with reality and have a pretty conservative outlook, which may be perceived to be realistic. Then I heard the reason...too many Canadians are living in houses of too higher value! What? I stayed tuned to see if perhaps there was an editorial typo. No, in the later report I was told that many Canadians live in homes that are 5-11 times the value of their annual salary. That must be the reason we are all struggling.

First of all let me correct the misunderstanding that the value of your house has anything at all to do with the state of the economy in general your ability to handle interest rate changes in the future. Waiting later in the day for the article to be corrected, I found the headline and the grossly misunderstood information contained in the article to be repeated all over the networks. As usual bad news sells, except this was not bad news unless you believed the news anchors and journalists reproducing this very poorly written report.

The amount of your borrowing relative to your income has a lot to do with your ability to repay that borrowed money the value of your house relative to your income can have quite the opposite impact. If you have been smart enough to purchase a home in the past and your equity has grown, you will likely benefit from having a higher net worth than a person next to you who has not made the same astute moves.

Many Canadians are fortunate to live in homes that are valued many times above their family household incomes, it does not mean that they borrowed all of the money! Which means that unlike the suggestions in the report on Tuesday, they will not be impacted by any rise in interest rates.

I had to dig deeper and was not surprised to find that Garth Turner’s name was associated with the report. Mr. Turner lost any remaining credibility he had many years ago and continues to repeat the same ridiculous assertions that Canada’s housing market will bleed 30% of it’s value... check back two years and you will find him telling you that it was going to happen two years ago.

Thankfully, a few scholarly experts in the housing market are starting to comment about the articles, just in time to save my sanity! The author of the report is the left leaning think tank, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the only reason I mention it is so that like me, you can ignore the next unrealistic study that they deliver to the media to get more attention, which, I believe is why Mr. Turner would continue to make such wild and unrealistic assertions...publicity can’t be a bad thing for a politician can it?

With regards to interest rates, take a look at the stock markets this week as the Canadian exchange continues to increase the spread from it’s US counterparts, this alone is reason enough to suggest that interest rates may not be skyrocketing up any time soon as is the fact that our economic recovery is still quite shallow and not built on a solid foundation.

With regards to real estate in Kelowna, most REALTORS are finding that they are seasonally busier both showing properties and writing offers and our market is I believe relatively well balanced and poised for an increase in absorption rates over the next year.