While much of the U.S. real estate market remains on life support, some favorite spots for Canadian investors have started to show signs of life -- a few even garnering double-digit price gains in the first quarter.

Canadian builders are showing little fear of a slowdown, as housing starts last month hit their highest level nationally since September 2007, according to the federal housing agency.

Reality is finally catching up to expectation, with Calgary's recession-hit housing market showing signs of resurgence.

Property investors and Canada's low-income buyers aren't the only ones caught short by rising home prices – affluent homeowners are struggling to make ends meet. Or, at the very least, they're increasingly afraid theyll have to.

With rental prices in many downtown units reaching beyond the means of young professionals, some tenants are bunking down in ever-smaller spaces to fit their budget.

While Canadian investors have started to heat up some American markets such as Phoenix, overall U.S. home prices have continued their slide, numbers out Monday show.

Investor demand in many parts of Western Canada led to skyrocketing housing starts in March, with a surprising number of those cranes over Regina.

The appetite for real estate in Toronto has continued to grow, but supply is lagging behind, putting upward pressure on prices, according to the latest stats.

The average Canadian home price for March declined for the first time since September 2010, according to the latest figures from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA).

Canadian investors are finding foreclosure offerings in the U.S. increasingly limited.

About half (52%) of Canadians feel real estate will become more costly by 2014, according to a new survey by BMO Bank of Montreal, part of its annual Spring Housing Report released Thursday.

Despite predictions of a slowdown, Montreal and other Canadian cities racked up both price and volume gains in the first quarter.

Despite rising prices, more Canadians than last year are confident that now is a good time to buy real estate.

 As prices begin to nudge up in Calgary, a growing number of owners are becoming convinced now could be a good time to sell and putting their homes on the market.

While rent freezes are typically not welcomed by landlords, in New Brunswick, they broke with tradtion Tuesday.

Following two months of retreat, Canadian home prices advanced in January, according to the Teranet-National Bank Composite House Price Index.

U.S. home prices continued their slide during the first part of the year, the latest stats show, although a rare exception was Canadian-investor hotspots Phoenix and Miami.

National home prices continued to rise in February, but the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) said Friday that evidence pointed to a market that was “topping out.”

Canada’s housing market won't be cooling down just yet, with a new report by Re/Max pointing to a growing number of bidding wars in markets across the country.

Outside of the condo market, there's increasingly little room for price negotiations in good ole T.O., with homes selling at 100% of the asking price within three weeks, according to new data.

As sales and prices flatten in Vancouver, the rest of British Columbia has reversed roles and taken off with a strong start to 2012.

If national real estate prices are to begin to decline or stabilize this year, it’s not going to be happening in the first few months.

Investor concerns that the recent surge in inventory will affect capital gains received some encouraging news this week that builders are starting to slow down.

Vancouver had its third best year on record for commercial real estate transactions last year, according to a report out this week by Avison Young.

Property investors looking for a way into one of Alberta's most lucrative rental markets may just have found it.

Canadians and other foreign investors in U.S. real estate aren't planning on slowing down anytime soon.

The Bank of Canada is warning of an impending housing price correction, putting Canadian mortgage holders at risk.

The number of former U.S. homeowners switching to rentals remains a growing trend this year, according to a new poll by Apartments.com.

Canadian builders finished the year strong, with their permits values up 11.1% in December from November, according to Statistics Canada.

Toronto home prices enjoyed upward momentum in January, rising 2.7% from the previous month and now 4.1% higher than a year earlier.

The gains were highest in detached houses, but condos were also still higher in price than a year ago, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board’s January Market Watch report. Overall sales were also up 8.8% from a year ago.

The average price of a detached home was $586,098 in January, up 8% from a year ago. A condo apartment average price was $321,475, up 5%. Townhouses showed the largest gain, up 9% to reach $359,467.

“Low inventory levels have kept competition between buyers strong, resulting in robust annual rates of price growth over the last year,” said Jason Mercer, the TREB’s senior manager of market analysis. “Strong price growth is expected to attract more listings.”

As the listings grow, price growth will slow its increase, especially by the second half of 2012, he said.

Condos have already started to show some decline, as the average price dropped 2.6% from December. At the same time, houses and townhouses continued to see price gains over the last month.

But even as prices rise, they haven’t pushed buyers out of the market, as sales remain brisk, said the TREB report.

“A favourable affordability picture bolstered by very low posted fixed mortgage rates has kept home buyers confident in their ability to achieve the Canadian goal of home ownership,” said TREB President Richard Silver.

The TREB will be taking part in a new way of reporting price increases, led by the Canadian Real Estate Association. The new MLS Home Price Index will be announced on Feb. 6 and is being touted as a less volatile measure of home prices and home price changes than the traditional median and average price measurements.

Calgary’s real estate market began 2012 with a whimper, as overall January prices fell 3% from a year ago and 4% from the previous month, new statistics show.

The Canadian government has cut short its financial backing of homeowners retrofitting their homes to save on energy cost.

There will be no crash to the Canadian housing market, according to a new report by BMO economists out this week. Instead, the report suggests, there will be something like a smooth landing.

While experts are predicting a flat real estate market nationally in 2012, that hasn’t slowed some recent bidding wars in Toronto.

Those Canadians who have borrowed the most are falling deeper into the hole, according to new research out this week by CIBC World Markets Inc.

National prices took a rare dip downwards in November, marking a first for 2011, according to the Teranet-National Bank House Price Index.

An influx of new supply doesn’t seem to be slowing sales or rising rents in Toronto’s condo apartment market.

Toronto’s economic growth -- helped along by a booming real estate sector -- has once again topped the chart for Canadian cities, as measured by CIBC.

Calgary commercial real estate will continue to evolve into one of the strongest markets in 2012, according to a new forecast by Avison Young.

Canadian investors focused on Florida and other warm-weather markets in the States may want to put on winter coats and head north to Kansas City.

While low interest rates have kept property buyers active in Canada this winter, prices have settled back to be only slightly higher than a year ago, according to a Canadian Real Estate Association report.

U.S. home values continued a slight decline in November, down 0.1% from a month earlier and down 4.6% from a year earlier, according to Zillow.

On the heels of three straight months of mild declines, residential building permit values made up for ground lost in November with a 6.9% gain over the previous month, according to figures released by Statistics Canada.

Thanks to a new fraud notification system, an elderly couple was likely saved from losing title to a $300,000 home.

Saskatchewan and Alberta will have the best economic growth over the next two years of all the provinces, according to a forecast out today.

Canada’s coolest arctic city is also one of its hottest rental markets.

Canada’s recent housing price gains still only leave it in the middle of the pack globally, according to a ScotiaBank report out Tuesday.

When it comes to international interest in U.S. real estate, the vast majority of it is coming from Canada.

The real estate market has been down, but could get a boost from an improving economy

The price correction in the Okanagan Valley occurred years ago, leaving many to believe it's a much less riskier place to invest than Vancouver

At about half the price of Toronto, London offers a much more affordable investing option in Ontario

While other major Canadian cities continue to see rising home prices, Calgary has remained an exception.

National home resale prices rose for a seventh consecutive month in June, recording the biggest jump since August 2009, according to Teranet.

Following record deal and volume highs in British Columbia’s commercial real estate market last year, investment returned to more typical levels in the first half of 2011, according to Avison Young’s mid-year report.

Home prices and sales across the country dropped in most major markets in July compared to a month earlier, but that’s not what local real estate boards are reporting in their press releases.

As average home prices and sales have continued to increase this month in Toronto, analysts have already begun to predict those prices will soon start to drop. But that assessment doesn’t represent what's happening on the ground in Toronto's red-hot condo market, Realtor Romey Halabi says.

Another critic has taken a shot at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), claiming the arm's length body needs more regulation.

Ian Lee, a professor in the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University, wrote a column today in the Vancouver Sun that the taxpayer-funded CMHC needs to be modernized and more regulated.

Lee wrote that CMHC provides mortgage guarantees to banks and other mortgage lenders of about $500 billion, or one third of Canada’s gross domestic product, representing 70% of the mortgage insurance market.

“As CMHC is a Crown corporation owned completely by the Canadian government, its insurance guarantees are backed by the Government of Canada,” Lee said. “That means Canadian taxpayers are liable for $500 billion to banks and mortgage lending institutions, should Canada experience a housing meltdown similar to the U.S. in 2008.”

He said CMHC should be under the jurisdiction of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) as other federally incorporated financial institutions in Canada already are.

Earlier this year, other critics such as the C.D. Howe Institute, a University of Guelph professor, and Capital Economics also raised concern about CMHC, also calling for Canada to open up the market to more private insurers.

The criticism was enough at the time to draw a rare response from CMHC.  The Crown corporation e-mailed the news media copies of individual letters it sent to its critics, pointing out Canada’s existing policies had led it to withstand the economic downturn much better than U.S.

CMHC also argued that the Canadian model is cost-effective, having provided the Canadian taxpayer with $12 billion over the last decade in profits and income taxes.

But in the latest criticism, Lee said CMHC needs to provide Canadians more choices and be more transparent and efficient, as well as opening up a level playing field with private competitors.

The vacation hotspots of Florida, Arizona and California have long been the most popular states for Canadian investment south of the border, but a Tennessee investment company is making a push for an alternative, less-explored option: Memphis.

Interest rates will eventually be rising so don’t borrow more than you can handle, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Sunday.

All the recent anecdotal stories from Vancouver’s Lower Mainland region about a flood of overseas Chinese buyers being behind the recent spike in luxury home sales and average prices may be a bit exaggerated, according to a new study.

Average Canadian home prices will start to decline nationally next year and continue to drop in 2013, according to an economic forecast by TD Economics released on Tuesday.

After sustaining a devastating wave of foreclosures, southern states, such as Florida and Georgia, are now poised to recover more quickly and more robustly than states on the East Coast, according to a new report by TD Economics.

With a central regional location and affordable homes, Moncton has proved a consistent spot for real estate investment. Kit Kadlec reports.

A consistently safe place to invest, the small city of Castlegar has maintained both a strong rental and new homebuyer market along the Columbia River. Kit Kadlec reports

As Grande Prairie evolves from a small town to city, the focus of investors could turn to the more affordable options in the centre. Kit Kadlec reports

Conditions have been promising for investors in Corner Brook as affordable prices and low vacancy have made for good returns. Kit Kadlec reports.

Halifax, Moncton and Charlottetown are among some of the more popular choices in Canada for investors seeking low vacancy rates and an affordable price point. Kit Kadlec reports

It's been a much stronger year for Ontario's real estate in 2010. Kit Kadlec highlights some of the best investment options.

Contrasting the larger trends, various areas in British Columbia and the Prairie Region have stood out and are becoming the focus of investors. Kit Kadlec highlights them below.

Low vacancy rates have kept the apartment rental market throughout Canada strong during the recent years. It's a stable and safe investment that's proved profitable for many investors. Kit Kadlec explains