Home prices dipped in September from August and year-over-year price gains slowed for a 10th straight month in another sign that Canada's housing market is cooling, the Teranet-National Bank Composite House Price Index showed on Wednesday.

The report showed prices dropped in September from August in six of the 11 metropolitan markets surveyed, led by a 1.3-per-cent drop in Victoria and a 1.2-per-cent drop in Vancouver. Vancouver, which had the hottest market last year, is now rated a buyer's market, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.

Year-on-year prices dropped 2.6 per cent in Victoria and 1.4 per cent in Vancouver, but were higher in all of the other markets. Toronto prices were 7.8 per cent higher than a year earlier, while prices were up 8 per cent in Halifax, 6.9 per cent in Hamilton, 6.3 per cent in Winnipeg, 3.8 per cent in Montreal and Quebec City, 2.5 per cent in Ottawa, and 2.2 per cent in Calgary and Edmonton.

Nationally, the index, which measures price changes for repeat sales of single-family homes, showed overall prices fell 0.4 per cent in September from a month earlier, the third September drop over the past 13 years.

The index was up 3.6 per cent from a year earlier, for a 10th consecutive month of deceleration in 12-month inflation.

The index tracks repeat sale prices, so properties with at least two sales are required in the calculations.

It lags other home resale data by about six weeks.