The rising cost of lumber and steel pushed new-home prices higher in Manitoba in April, Statistics Canada said Thursday.

The agency said the new housing price index for Winnipeg, which measures changes in the selling prices of new homes, rose by 0.4 per cent from March to April. That followed an identical increase in March and was the sixth consecutive monthly increase.

A StatsCan spokesperson said local builders attributed the monthly increase entirely to the higher cost of steel and lumber, which drove up the cost of the house alone. The cost of land was unchanged from the previous month.

Some builders also said they were raising their prices now in anticipation of higher building costs for homes that won't be built until early next year, the spokesperson said.

Winnipeg was one of 11 Canadian cities surveyed to see an increase in prices. It tied with Vancouver for the sixth-largest monthly gain. Six other cities saw no change and four saw modest declines.

Nationally, Canada's index rose by 0.3 per cent, which was also identical to the previous month's national increase.

On a year-over-year basis, Winnipeg had the third-biggest price gain from April of last year to April of this year, at 4.9 per cent. The national average increase was 2.5 per cent, Statistics Canada said.

The agency spokesperson said builders attributed the 12-month increase to higher prices for both the house (up 3.8 per cent) and the land (up 7.3 per cent).

She said land prices are usually adjusted every 15 to 24 months, and the most recent adjustment was made in February of this year. So that's contributed to any year-over-year price-index increases that have occurred since then.