cdr,
I assume you are allowing for the 5:1 ratio of income to cost of homes to approach back to historical 3.5:1 numbers.
Personally in keeping with "Wizard's first law" proving I am an idiot, I am still hopeful that the correction will not be as extreme as 25%( because I want to believe this lie). I think if there is a drop, it will occur more in the neighbourhood of over 3 years and then prices will hover for another 3-5 years before they start to rise again. At least, that was the experience in Toronto from 1989-1992 and then to 1996.
I believe history that history may follow the same time frame more or less again but will be less drastic than at that time since price escalation has not been so severe. What does worry me, and in particular with the condo market and the core downtown Toronto market, is that I can virtually predict with certainty that developers will continue to overbuild despite some articles to the contrary. That is because that is what developers do. They build to sell. They are all in competition and they either build or cease to do anything (i.e. don't grow their business). Since they are independent, each does what is in his immediate best interest. That would be to build and then undercut on price so long as they can make a profit. At some point, there will be an oversupply with a corresponding drop. I say this because in this particular market (condos) the lag time means that by the time it is clear overbuilding has now occured, there is still a 2-3 year delay to the projects finishing which means the ongoing supply continues when the demand has fallen off in the previous couple of years.