"To a lot of people, it is a get-rich-quick scheme," Toronto realtor David Fleming said about the real estate market. Realtors' ranks in Canada's largest city and hottest housing market have surged 77 per cent since 2008 to more than 48,000 — nearly 10 times the pace of Canadian job growth. While most housing bears have been focusing on how much home prices could drop, economists are also trying to work out how badly a resulting decline in consumer spending and housing jobs could hurt the broad economy. Nearly half of Toronto's licensed realtors did fewer than two deals last year, according to Brian Torry, general manager at Bosley Real Estate in Toronto. In Canada's last major housing downturn, real estate employment plunged 18 percent between 1989 and 1992 and took until 1997 to recover, according to Statistics Canada.

Source: CBC News August 02, 2017 14:26 UTC