The price of a new home in Vancouver is up 9.6 per cent from last year, according to Statistics Canada's latest housing figures released Thursday.

That's higher than the national average of 7.8 per cent.

Robyn Adamache, a senior market analyst for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, said despite talk by some people of the real estate bubble bursting, the Vancouver market for new and resale homes is still steadily heading up.

"What we're seeing there is still very strong price growth. We've seen sales in Greater Vancouver at about the same level what we saw last year," said Adamache.

Vancouver's resale market is a prime example of strong growth, fuelled by the city's low unemployment rate, higher incomes and rising net migration into B.C., she said.
 
"However, a lot of listings are coming online so people have a lot more choice out there. Normally under these conditions we expect price growth to taper back a little bit, but we haven't seen that so much yet."

Despite the continued rise in prices, Vancouver is not the hottest market in the country. Canada's Prairie provinces are still leading national growth, with Saskatoon setting a record annual increase of 48.4 per cent.