A panel of real estate experts is predicting that home sales in Toronto will slow over the next 18 months, but the market will not suffer the kind of slide seen in the U.S.

Home sales in the GTA in the first half of October are off 18 per cent from a year ago and the average price is down 11 per cent.

Zsuszanna Porter, an agent with Royal Lepage, says she's already felt the sharp end of the drop in sales.

"I've had three people who are postponing their purchases until next year because they think they're going to get a half-price house. And I told them, 'It's not gonna happen.' They'll have to wait and see if my crystal ball is more accurate than the doom and gloom that was predicted."

Howard Drukarsh, vice-president of Right at Home Realty, told the annual meeting of the Toronto Real Estate Board he believes the downturn will last until 2010.

"I think in terms of seeing the market turn up again ... it's not going be in three months or six months or 12 months. My guess'll be 18 months because 18 months is realistic," he said.

The president of Century 21 Canada, Don Lawby, say it is unlikely the housing market in the GTA will crash.

"You have to have rising interest rates and unemployment, lots of people that can't make their mortgage payments, to be forced to sell, that's what brings prices down dramatically, but I don't see that happening, especially not in Ontario," said Lawby.

The average price of homes sold in the GTA peaked in May at just under $400,000.

Prices have dropped nearly eight per cent since then.