Should I Buy a House Now?

A lot of people are asking this question recently in Canada, and the answer, in short, is YES! If your job is stable, and you still have disposable income (extra money left over after all of your bills) then this is an excellent time to invest in a home.
With the instability in the stock market, that's probably not a great place to have a lot of your money invested unless you are a very seasoned, confident investor. Mutual funds are not doing well either.
So, investing your money in real estate is still a very viable option.

The Canadian dollar is currently trading too closely with the US dollar. Our biggest trade partner is the US, so when our dollar is high, it cost US buyers more to buy goods from Canadian manufacturers. To combat this, it is important for our dollar to remain lower in value to the US dollar, that way, US buyers get more products from Canadian manufacturers for their money.
Bearing that in mind, one way to keep our dollar low is to discourage foreign investors from buying Canadian currency in the currency market (which drives our dollar's value up) and one way to do that is to keep interest rates low because interest rates affect what kind of return foreign investors can expect when buying our dollars.
Simply put, this means that the interest rates should remain stable at this low rate for some time. For those looking to buy, this means its a very good time to do so.
Another reason to buy now is that sales and prices on homes are starting to creep up as consumers are starting to gain confidence in the future economy, and homes are starting to sell at their asking price. In fact, in some parts of the country, above their asking price. So, it would appear that we are near the bottom of the price decline, and as anyone will tell you, buy low and sell high is the best option for any investment, and the price right now is LOW! So are interest rates.
This is a rare opportunity to buy that first home, or investment property while money is cheap, and there are bargains to be had.