The first three sentences imply that falling house prices in Vancouver were a major contributor to a nationwide average drop in house prices, July 2016 to July 2017. Indeed, those sentences imply that the drop in price for Vancouver houses was so severe that the nationwide average would have gone up if Vancouver was not part of the mix.

Um, hello? What?

Maybe the journalists could add a few more sentences that explain why other newspapers in recent days have reported the following:

"Increase in new home prices reaches 7-year high in Metro Vancouver: Recently released data from Statistics Canada shows the overall price of brand new houses and townhomes in the region has soared 6.2 per cent in the 12 months since June 2016. "Last time prices grew larger than 6.2 per cent was in June of 2010"

"Vancouver housing on fire with biggest price gains since 1990"

Quartz (qz.com): "In Vancouver... the average price of a home in the city was a record C$1,019,400 (US$802,800) in July".