I’m always blown away by the fact that the newspapers for the last 5 years keep writing about a housing crash, yet every year when it doesn’t happen, they never go back and do an analysis of where their research went wrong.  The challenge with looking at national housing stats is that housing isn’t national.  The housing market in St. Johns has nothing to do with the market in Regina which has nothing to do with the market in Toronto. 
Furthermore, the market in Toronto is not homogenous either, since the market in Leslieville has nothing to do with the market at Yonge & Eglinton.  Additionally, the condo & housing markets are completely different yet most publications lump them both together.  Newspapers recently reported that the national stats have shown a 3 ½% dip in the market.  They use this as evidence of a crash.  It’s funny in most other industries there is always a statistical margin of error of + or – 2%.  So calling a 3.5% dip a crash seems like an exaggeration.  I would think a crash would be a 30% or 40% dip, not 3.5%.