New home prices rise 0.1% in March

New home prices in Canada rose by 0.1 percent in March, pushed up by the busy real estate market in Calgary for the second month in a row, according to Statistics Canada data released on Thursday.

Prices in Calgary, at the heart of the country's booming oil industry, contributed most to the climb in the new housing price index with a 0.3-percent advance, the agency said.

The Toronto-Oshawa region, which has the biggest weighting in the index, saw a 0.1 percent climb following a flat reading in February. Other cities reporting unusually big price hikes for new homes included Regina, Saskatoon and Windsor. Prices fell 0.2 percent in Vancouver.