In the first half of July, the average resale price of a stand-alone home in Toronto was $720,808.
A month later, in the first half of August, it was $597,093 -- a 17-per-cent drop.
A sign the real estate apocalypse is upon us? Not exactly. Not yet, anyway.
But the surprising figure in the Toronto Real Estate Board's latest mid-month report does suggest that the city's real estate market is undergoing some pretty large shifts, and observers who fear Canada's housing sector is in a bubble have more reason to worry.
Not all the statistics in the TREB's report are as alarming as the one above. Compared to the same period a year earlier, the average resale price was down only 7 per cent. And prices in Toronto's suburbs -- the 905 -- actually posted a year-on-year increase of 9 per cent for the same period.
Jason Mercer, senior manager for market analysis at TREB, cautioned that the numbers may be deceiving.
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