Mortgage Watch

Prices fell 0.3 percent from October, in line with market expectations. That knocked down the year-on-year price increase to 0.7 percent from 1.5 percent in the previous month -- the lowest since August 1999.

Every major city west of Winnipeg, Manitoba posted flat or falling prices in the month.

Compared with a year earlier, Statscan reported price declines in Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria as those markets cooled from their previous sizzling pace of price growth. Prices in central and eastern Canada rose in the same period.

While the housing market in Canada is softening alongside the overall economy, economists have ruled out a U.S-style meltdown largely because of the country's more conservative mortgage lending practices.