[Anonymous]

Greetings,

My name is Ian, and I’m currently a university senior in Los Angeles. I spent last semester abroad in Granada, and I’ll be returning to Spain after I graduate in May… and yes there’s a girl involved….;-) . This recent experience in Spain has been the main motivating reason for choosing my current independent study topic: namely, I’ll be conducting a comparison/contrast of the previous housing/construction boom (approx. 1986-1992) with the current boom (1997-present). From my initial research I’ve discovered that the previous boom was on a much smaller scale than the current one, although hopefully there are some common threads about the fundamentals (or lack thereof) which would trigger such a meteoric rise.

Anyways, my main obstacle right now is finding data. At this point, I’m especially having trouble with the historical numbers (1986-1992). Would anyone know where I would be able to access the basics (housing starts, interest rates, % of foreign participants, etc)? I’ve read a series of articles about the current situation on WSJ and other online journals, however I can’t figure out where they find their data! I don’t need anything all that detailed, just hopefully some numbers that would help me establish patterns or divergences across the two time periods. In the end, I’ll be attempting to make a case for either a “soft landing” or “bubble burst” of the current market. That said, if anyone has any insight or a potential starting point for my search, I would be very much appreciative.

Muchas gracias a todos!

-Ian

[Anonymous]

In Madrid there is an area called Nuevo Ministarios, this area as I understand is where the majority of the Civil Servents are based. They have a building where they collect all data. I feel that this will be your source.

I sugguest you also speak to the College of Architects, who may be able to guide you more precisely.

Good luck

[Anonymous]

You will find a lot of this information in the following section of this website:
http://www.spanishpropertyinsight.com/spanish_property_information.htm

Otherwise, if you can understand spanish, you can also dig out the source data at the Ministerio de Vivienda, Banco de España, and Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas. Google will help you.

Mark

[katy]

Maybe try Eurostat too. I would be interested to read your research when finished.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your suggestions, they were all quite helpful. Fortunately my Spanish is proficient enough to navigate the “ministerio” sites, and they have plenty of data about the recent boom. The Market section of your site itself is quite a resource for current analysis as well, Mark. Also, for the few who may be interested, I did find a tremendous resource for general economic data at http://stats.oecd.org. Here they’ve essentially compiled a wide array of economic indicators from as far back as the early 70’s. The site employs a very intuitive design, and it’ll even exports all your data automatically to Excel! I was pretty stoked on that.

That said, I’m still coming across a stumbling block for the older data/academic articles (from 1986-1992) specific to the Spanish housing market. I realize most people here are more concerned about the FUTURE than the past, so I’ll keep on keepin’ on and hope I find some back issues of a relevant journal at our library.

Thanks again for your advice,
-Ian

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