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No question is more on the minds of Metro Vancouver homeowners and renters than how and when the region’s housing bubble could burst.

After stratospheric escalation, a punctured bubble would be disaster for hundreds of thousands of over-mortgaged homeowners. Yet it could bring relief to those desperate to get into housing.

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Last summer’s B.C. government 15-per-cent tax on foreign buyers and the federal government’s stress test for mortgages have slowed the volume of sales in Metro Vancouver, particularly at the top end.

But, despite suggestions from a few voices in finance and real estate, the city’s bubble is intact: Prices remain at record highs after jumping by 40 to 60 per cent in two years.

Unaffordability continues to be a crisis, especially for the young. No meaningful link exists between the city’s tepid median wages and runaway real estate values.

The conventional wisdom is you can’t be sure you’re in a housing bubble until it bursts. Yet there is little doubt Metro Vancouver is extremely vulnerable to a free fall.