My wife worked for a company that handled HUD's foreclosures during the housing collapse for 12 years, so she is an expert on mortgages.

As Luc said, the rates won't rise too aggressively as it would cause a housing collapse like the US.

Even people with good credit and their own capital had a hugely hard time borrowing during the housing collapse.  

If the economy collapses you will have something worth trading.

I am also afraid to wait to long as one huge snow storm could collapse the roof.

And even in the face of this once in a generation great recession/collapse.....real estate still ultimately remained local. 

I personally don't invest in the South Shore, but as @Russell Brazil mentioned, 07 and 08 were catastrophic collapses.

If it has the iron/metal drain pipes under sink then they tend to corrode with rust and then collapse when you get water turned on, which means you now have to replace all of that with PVC. 

It was 2010 and the C$ was at parity to the US$ and RE prices had collapsed in the sunbelt by 50-70%, which made US RE extremely affordable for Canadian investors My singular goal back then was to replace my annual salary with the equivalent in rental positive cash flowNot only have rents and appreciation exploded since then, but the US$ is over 30% more valuable compared to the C$ then it was back then.

I've dealt with shootings, overdoses, tools getting stolen, vans getting stolen, accidents, porches collapsing, picking up rent in cash and almost getting mugged, bed bugs, evictions...