Canadian real estate reporters have it easy these days.  All they need to do is Google the "we won’t bust here" stories from the U.S., then insert their favorite northern city.

A few weeks ago we noted that the Vancouver Sun was recycling spin from south of the border.  Today it is coming out of Toronto:

The Canadian Real Estate Association announced this week the first drop in housing prices nationally in almost a decade, but characterized it as a one month blip that is not likely a sign of things to come.

That news was followed by the Toronto Real Estate Board’s (TREB) latest figures, which showed that the average price of a home in the GTA during the first half of July was $379,072, which is a 1% increase from the $374,254 recorded in the first two weeks of July 2007 and a 9% increase from $346,267 recorded during the same period in July 2006. The board has emphasized comparisons to 2006 in order to “present a more accurate perspective” of this year’s resale housing market, since 2007 was an overheated year.  [Doesn't  David Lereah  hold the copyright for that phrase?]

I would take this as a sign of things to come.