Thee cost of a new house was 7.6% higher in March compared with a year earlier, Statistics Canada said today. That’s the biggest jump since January 1990.

New house prices in March were 1% higher than in February.

In Calgary, new home prices rose 5.9 % on a monthly basis, because of high demand, higher costs for materials and labour and a shortage of serviced lots.

Saskatoon, Edmonton, Charlottetown and Winnipeg also showed significant increases for similar reasons.

The only monthly drop was in St. John’s, where prices slipped 0.1% from February.

On a year-over-year basis, new house prices in Calgary climbed 29.6%, while they were up 14.3% in Edmonton, 10.4% in Winnipeg, 6.9% in Vancouver and 6.6% in Quebec and Regina.