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Anyone with less than a 20 per cent down payment must get mortgage insurance which protects banks in the event of default but consumers are able to buy those homes with as little as five per cent down payment on the first $500,000 and 10 per cent on everything above $500,000 and up to $1 million.

Prices had been rising rapidly in Toronto over the last year and appear to have peaked in April, just after the Ontario provincial government introduced measures to cool the market, including a 15 per cent tax on foreign buyers in the the Greater Golden Horseshoe which is home to about nine million people in southern Ontario.

Detached prices had been rising rapidly before the measures – some say they have had more of a psychological impact on buyers – with the average detached home sale price for the GTA soaring past $1 million in October, 2016. Detached home prices are now off almost 20 per cent since the peak.

“You look at the average price numbers and they are plunging,” said Porter, who says even on a seasonally adjusted basis house prices are down 13 per cent from the peak. “The issue is whether average is down because a lot of the high-end houses are not selling.”

One senior real estate source, who asked not to be named, said the impact of dropping prices is only at the margins. “There’s no swath of affordable new homes entering the marketplace,” he said.