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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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The newest Canada census data confirms the unpleasant trends almost any advanced country in the world is facing nowadays. Without "fresh blood" from abroad the local population of Canada between 1996 and 2001 should have increased by meager 300,000. With the immigration influx this number went up to more appropriate 1,160,000 to pass the total of 30 million. But even with such "healthy" increase of 4.0% over the last 5 years this period was among the lowest ever 5-year increases in the national history third only to these during the Depression of the 1930s and the period between 1981 and 1986 (when by the way the immigration was at record low levels).

Guess where the population of Canada has increased above the national average? Only in those three provinces - Alberta (10.3%), Ontario (6.1%) and British Columbia (4.9%) where there is accumulation of two factors - strong immigration and positive inter-provincial migration. In Quebec where the foreign immigration was largely compensated by low birth rate and some emigration toward the other provinces the net increase between 1996 and 2001 was only 1.4%.

From 1996 to 2001, the Canada's population concentrated further in four broad urban regions - the so-called Golden Horseshoe in southern Ontario, Montreal (Quebec), in Southern British Columbia Mainland and Southern Vancouver Island (British Columbia) and also in the Calgary-Edmonton corridor (Alberta). In 2001 51% of the whole population lived in these four regions, compared with 49% just 5 years ago.

All these are only numbers but what stands behind them that would influence the real estate market of tomorrow? The market includes the present participants (buyers, sellers and any kind of middle-persons), the newly arriving participants on the market and those that will get out of it in the future due to natural reasons. Not so far ago I lived in a country that faced a problem that will hunt many developed countries in the future - constant negative trends on the real estate market in general because the number of market agents getting out (moving abroad, dying) by far exceeds the number of those newly involved (immigrating, getting into work force etc).

Let's look more closely at this negative scenario and understand how it works and how it affects the whole economy. When the number of sellers by far exceeds the number of buyers the prices go down. In some countries it's only a cyclical crisis, in others it can turn to be perpetual trend. Instead of constant or almost constant appreciation of the real estates we have their constant depreciation. When you see that your house gets cheaper and cheaper every year it's normal to think about selling it even if you have had no such plans under different circumstances. To have constantly depreciated property is bad for your finances as well as for your credit plans because banks will be more reluctant to give you a loan etc.

Nations like Canada and the United States where the majority of population is composed by homeowners are vary sensitive facing such unpleasant trend so they have to take preventive measures to reverse it or at least to postpone it as much as possible. One such measure is to increase the number of births, other is to diminish the number of deaths, the third is to increase the share of owners and the space they plan to buy. One of these measures refers to the medical achievements, the others to the social mentality. Combined they can have some positive effects. But what if they have reached their limits? And the census still shows only a meager population increase?

Then the last hope can be the immigration. Canada and the United States traditionally look more positively at the immigration than most advanced countries in Europe. They have to use this different social mentality and turn it into positive real estate market engine. Otherwise the last Canada census will be only the first in the row. And the country in not so distant future will face the similar problems that are facing my native country.

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