* Index slips for second straight month

* Prices down 0.4 pct m/m; up 6 pct y/y (Adds details)

TORONTO, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Canadian home resale prices slipped for a second consecutive month in October, falling 0.4 percent from September, the Teranet-National Bank composite house price index showed on Wednesday.

The Teranet index, which measures price changes for repeat sales of single-family homes in six metropolitan areas, showed steep drops in Calgary, down 1 percent, and Toronto, down 0.9 percent.

Ottawa prices fell 0.3 percent.

Prices were flat in Montreal, but rose in Halifax, up 0.7 percent, and slightly in Vancouver, up 0.1 percent.

Overall prices were up 6 percent from a year earlier.

The data, which is seen as similar to the U.S. S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, lags other resale home data by about six weeks, and so has not yet shown the same renewed strength in the residential housing sector.

According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, sales of existing homes in Canada rose for a fourth straight month in November, reinforcing market sentiment that stability is returning to the sector after it cooled earlier this year from the red-hot levels of 2009. [ID:nN15135081]

But analysts expect the strength won’t last long as mortgage rates have inched higher recently.

“Once the lagged effects of higher effective mortgage rates work through the pipeline of approvals into the new year, both house price measures may face further downside risks,” Scotia Capital economists Derek Holt and Gorica Djeric said in an emailed commentary.

The Teranet index tracks home prices over time for repeat sales, so properties with at least two sales are required in the calculations. The report did not provide actual prices. (Reporting by Ka Yan Ng; editing by Rob Wilson)