![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.livabl.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/JPbombales-2022-compressed-2.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPhoto: James Bombales<\/em><\/p>\n Industry watchers have long worried about Canadians\u2019 high household debt levels, which are some of the highest in the world. As interest rates continue to rise, should we be bracing for a potential housing market crash? <\/p>\n Not according to the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada (CPA), which just released a new report on the housing market\u2019s stability, titled The Real Story Behind Housing and Household Debt in Canada: Is There Really a Risk?<\/p>\n “Beyond prices and debt levels, Canada shares far fewer similarities with the US than you might think. This becomes very apparent when you look at just one measure; credit quality,” writes Francis Fong, CPA Canada’s Chief Economist.<\/p>\n\n In other words, the country is less vulnerable to the type of crash seen in the US in 2008. Credit quality is a measure of an individual’s ability to repay debt. While Canadians\u2019 may have more debt to deal with than they should, they\u2019re still reasonably good at paying it down at regular intervals.<\/p>\n \u201cIn contrast to the situation a decade ago in the US…the number of borrowers with high credit quality has risen from 66 percent in 2002 to 88 percent in 2017,\u201d reads the report. \u201cIn turn, the number of low-credit-quality buyers shrank from 17 percent to three percent over that period.\u201d<\/p>\n