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Critics have worried about the housing market for the past several years but the warnings have become more frequent, especially in the past year.

Ms. Dickson noted that in recent months the OECD and the International Monetary Fund have both sounded the alarm, with the IMF stating that real estate activity as a share of GDP has reached a two-decade high.

On Monday, Fitch Ratings said the sharp rise in prices has “led to an unsustainable level of consumer indebtedness, as well as a degree of overvaluation in the housing market.” Meanwhile, Equifax Canada reported that while consumer debt balances grew by 3.7% in the third quarter of 2013 compared to last year, delinquencies remain low as consumers continue to make their payments.

Ms. Dickson reminded her audience that interest in housing is at a high level. “Everyone wants to know whether markets are balanced or in a bubble, whether rules will be changed, what will happen when interest rates rise, and what could cause the market to fall.”

However, as the regulator, it’s not OSFI’s job to deliver opinions on what’s happening in the market.

“OSFI does study the market — but we do not volunteer opinions on whether a bubble exists,” she said. “This is primarily because history has shown it is difficult to determine whether a bubble in any market exists, what the size of that bubble might be, or the consequences of it bursting. The ‘dot.com’ bubble, for example, was easy to identify in hindsight, but few saw it coming. Usually only a few people accurately predict bubbles; most do not — and if someone was able to predict a bubble accurately in the past, this, unfortunately, is no guarantee of future performance.”