Sotheby's International Realty's luxury Canada's most popular ski resorts.

If you’re in love with the idea of an outdoor lifestyle, then Canada is probably the place for you. If you want snowy mountains, dense forests, wide open plains or vast, shimmering lakes, you will find them all here. Containing almost a quarter of the world’s fresh water and 44 national parks, Canada is a world-beater when it comes to outdoor pursuits. Nestled in the spectacular Coast Mountains of British Columbia, Whistler is one of North America’s major all-season resorts. Site of the alpine and Nordic venues for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, its epic skiing and snowboarding opportunities draw holidaymakers and property investors in their droves. Whistler’s small communities are spread along Highway 99, with the pedestrian-only Whistler Village catering mainly to short-term visitors and residential properties commanding upwards of $3m.

Is Canadian Real Estate Market Becoming Overvalued?

Canadian real estate agents may have recorded the first year-over-year sales drop in 11 months in March, regional data suggest, as the Vancouver market plunged.

The value of purchases reported by 11 regional real estate boards fell 1.1 percent from a year earlier to C$12.4 billion ($12.4 billion), as the number of homes sold fell 1.4 percent, according to real estate board data compiled by Bloomberg News. Those markets had a 9.1 percent annual rise in value during the prior month.

Policy makers, including Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, have said parts of Canada's housing market have become overvalued as households add to record debt levels, encouraged by historically low mortgage rates. Canadian builders began work in March on the most housing units since 2008, led by condominium construction in Toronto, the country's biggest city, Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp. reported Friday.

RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust Announces April 2012 Distribution

ORONTO, ONTARIO, Apr 13, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust ("RioCan") today announced a distribution of 11.5 cents per unit for the month of April. The distribution will be payable on May 7, 2012 to unitholders of record as at April 30, 2012.

About RioCan

RioCan is Canada's largest real estate investment trust with a total capitalization of approximately $12.5 billion as at December 31, 2011. It owns and manages Canada's largest portfolio of shopping centres with ownership interests in a portfolio of 331 retail properties containing an aggregate of 79 million square feet, including 45 grocery anchored and new format retail centres containing 12 million square feet in the United States through various joint venture arrangements. RioCan's portfolio also includes 10 properties under development in Canada.

Big debt the downside of loading up on real estate

As I burn the midnight oil filing my usual 150 income tax returns this spring, a number of changing trends are emerging.

When I started preparing returns for the public more than a decade ago, perhaps 10 per cent of my client families owned rental property. Now, nearly 40 per cent have at least one rental property, or rent out part of their own home.

One reason is that interest rates have been near all-time lows for an extremely prolonged period. That has made mortgages attractive for home buyers, and financial institutions have opened up to them, causing a booming uptake on Home Equity Lines of Credit, or HELOCs.

Despite the financial crisis all around us in 2008, many Western Canadians continued to hold jobs and prosper, freeing up cash. An aging population, having been out of debt for a few years, was willing to borrow against their future.

With stock markets having gone through a "lost decade" in which indices wound up where they were 10 years earlier, real estate has become a more attractive investment in many places.

But having a proliferation of rental properties being held by everyday people is cause for concern.

One of my clients bought more than a half-dozen rental resort properties near the Alberta-B.C. border, which was having a building renaissance a few years back. Then the United States housing crisis hit, and many Canadians who used to holiday regularly in the Canadian Rockies tried out U.S. vacations instead, looking to buy depressed property there. Suddenly, Canadian resort rental properties had vacant periods.