Canada’s overheated housing market is correcting. It’s time for housing policy to start correcting with it.

In the past decade and more, housing prices in Vancouver, Toronto, Victoria and other Canadian cities have spiralled upward into unaffordability, crowding out many families.

Observers whose livelihoods have not depended on Canada’s real-estate boom have long said what is needed is a “soft landing” — in which prices go down, but not so drastically as to ruin those who bought in at ultra-elevated prices.

In January, the volume of home sales in both Vancouver and Toronto were at 25-year lows, according to analyst Steve Saretsky. B.C. Assessment shows values down in most Metro Vancouver neighbourhoods, by anywhere from one to 13 per cent.

Meanwhile, Saretsky points out that, as Canada recently recorded its steepest population decline on record and growth was at a standstill in 2025, average apartment rents in Vancouver and Toronto are also more than 12 per cent lower than two years ago.

Given the earthward direction, many in the real-estate industry are in high anxiety, fearing the bubble is bursting. They’re pleading with governments, in various ways, to come to their rescue.

But just as stock-market analysts speak of over-exuberant markets needing a healthy “correction,” it’s clear what is happening now in urban Canadian housing is an opportunity — for would-be buyers as well as governments.

Here are 10 moves to consider:

“Interest rates have stabilized, and it’s definitely a buyer’s market,” says Vancouver realtor David........

© Edmonton Sun