Spain 2Q Housing Prices -0.4% On Qtr, -7.7% On Yr - INE

MADRID -- Spanish housing prices continued to fall in the second quarter, Spain's National Statistics Institute said Wednesday, after the collapse of a decade-long housing boom.

In a statement, the INE, as the Statistics Institute is known, said second-quarter housing prices fell by 0.4% from the first quarter and by 7.7% from the second quarter of last year.

Data released in July by Spain's Housing Ministry showed a steeper annual decline in second-quarter housing prices of 8.2%.

Spain's home-building boom, one of Europe's largest, started to deflate in 2007 after prices reached nearly three times their 1997 levels and after years of overbuilding.

The correction was hastened last year by tougher financing conditions in the aftermath of the global banking crisis.