Toronto's housing market continue to slide wildly, year-over-year, as we move through the first half of 2018 – and only in part because of how record-breaking hot things were last March.

The Toronto Real Estate Board said in its monthly figures report on Wednesday that home sales were down a whopping 39.5 per cent last month in the GTA with only 7,228 residential transactions reported.

A record 11,954 sales were reported in March of 2017, however, which explains much of the dip – though it is of note that sales were down 17.6 per cent last month relative to the same time period for the previous 10 years.

The overall average selling price was also down by 14.3 per cent, year over year, from $915,126 in March of 2017 to $784,558 last month.

Once again, analysts are pinning the decline on government cooling measures like Ontario's new 15 per cent tax on foreign home buyers and the federal government's mortgage stress-test.

"While the change in market conditions certainly played a role, the dip in the average selling price was also compositional in nature," reads the TREB report. "Detached home sales, which generally represent the highest price points in a given area, declined much more than other home types."

"In addition," it continues, "The share of high-end detached homes selling for over $2 million in March 2018 was half of what was reported in March 2017, further impacting the average selling price."

With both provincial and municipal elections set to take place this year, the real estate board emphasized that "housing and housing affordability need to be at the forefront" of any government policy debates.