Once Safer Than Gold, Canadian Real Estate Braces for Reckoning

  • A two-decade boom fueled by debt may be coming to an end
  • Mortgage deferrals soar; one in three workers seeks aid
Apartment buildings in the skyline of Vancouver.Photographer: Jennifer Gauthier/Bloomberg
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Canadian housing once seemed so infallible that the head of the world’s biggest asset manager in 2015 described Vancouver condos as a better store of wealth than gold.

The coronavirus is putting that theory to the test.