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Are Alberta buyers on the way? Are they extracting windfall equity and looking for a hot place to buy? I was over checking out the Alberta Bubble blog, and it is pretty interesting to read the discussion there of how quickly the Calgary market has changed. Is this support for the continued myth of Victoria as a destination of choice for significant numbers of Alberta buyers?

Valuations are not sustainable in an absence of buyers willing to pay particular prices. As surely as your friends tell you real estate always goes up, it is stalling, as surely as that, things change. Even with oil rich Albertans in the neighbourhood.

What does this have to do with Victoria? Well, it was just last year that the story of Alberta buyers was rolled out to the local press, swallowed and regurgitated as a factual influence on the local market.

Since the previous topic got some conversation flowing, let's go back to the watercooler.

Today, I want to discuss what the benefit is to calling the top*, if you want to buy. Specifically, is there any point in waiting for housing to peak before buying? What if this is an escalator, and it just keeps going up?

Housing bulls sometimes like to point out that if one intends to live in a house for a number of years, the affordability of your payments and your satisfaction with your purchase are more important than the price - after all, whether up or down, while you are using and enjoying your home, the price paid was just your ticket into the game. Trying to time a market could leave you out of the housing game for years - and in the long run, housing always goes up.