There is already a database on housing in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area | Housing
AN LXhabit, a new housing database for the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (AML), was launched this Monday. A platform, conceived by dynamia’cet – Center for Studies on Socio-Economic Change and the Territory of Iscte, will allow you to compare prices, understand the dynamics of markets and public policies and identify trends.
The platform, according to Sandra Marques Pereira, one of its coordinators, has four target audiences: citizens who want to buy, rent or sell a property or who only have a “civic interest in the housing issue”; public policy agents who intend to diagnose and monitor the evolution of the housing sector; researchers in different areas, but mainly in housing, real estate and the city; and agents in the housing market, such as developers, architects and mediators.
One of the most impressive data available at LXhabita for its coordinator is related to the new lease contracts in the municipality of Lisbon. In the first half of 2021, 9,065 contracts were signed (which represents 31% of the AML), the highest number since there are records. 9% contracts were signed in the parish of Arroios, while, on the other hand, only 1% were in Marvila.
AN effort rate in the rental market, relative to the weight of incomes in the income of families, is another statistical information that the team responsible for this platform highlighted. According to the most recent data, relating to the second half of 2019, all AML councils recorded effort rates above 40%. In this indicator, Lisbon stands out: the median income of leases carried out in that semester corresponds to 80% of the median income of families in the municipality in 2019.
The different indicators on the platform, mostly organized in time series, are presented in maps, tables and graphs and distributed into eight categories: housing market, construction / restoration, public housing, access to housing, housing conditions, municipal income, local accommodation and 2021 Census, deposited data available as soon as past results are released. Sandra Marques Pereira would like no future due to strategic local housing data and empty fires to the platform.
The idea for the project came after the international conference “Lisbon, what future?”, held in April 2017 at Iscte, which was coordinated by Sandra Marques Pereira. During the conference, bang tourism and local accommodation and the explosion of the property market, a “phenomenon very concentrated in Lisbon” and for which “there was no database that facilitates access to the various information that already exists”, says the researcher.
An LXhabidata database gathers housing data for the 18 AML councils and various parishes from different sources. Sandra Marques Pereira mentions that the main one is the National Institute of Statistics (INE), but others were also used such as the National Register of Local Accommodation (RNAL), the Gebalis – Management of Lease of Municipal Housing in Lisbon and local authorities.
The researcher from Dinâmica’cet says that one of the biggest difficulties at the beginning of the project was the “lack of funding”, a “problem that cuts across the entire research”, and for some time the team’s work “was a lot of volunteer work”. It also adds that “all interest” in expanding the geographic area of the platform and translating it into English, so that it can have a greater reach. However, it reinforces the idea that “resources are needed to continue to feed and improve the database”.
LXhabidata is a project of the Dynamics’cet – Iscte, funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology – FCT and by Iscte, developed by Sandra Marques Pereira and Madalena Matos (coordinators), Teresa Costa Pinto, Maria Assunção Gato and Marco Carreira.
Text edited by Ana Fernandes